According to this OECD report the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that teachers cannot be substituted by on-line learning and sets out some insights on what works best.
The report finds that classroom teaching, and teacher feedback and assessments go a long way to helping all students, regardless of who they are or what their background is. So do classrooms that mix socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students because the presence of the former elevates the achievement, sense of capability and aspirations of the latter.
Teachers and schools make an important difference to how a student performs and feels. More specifically, it is the time teachers spend actually teaching in class, not disciplining or taking care of administrative work, and the hours they spend marking and correcting work, and going over this feedback with their students that links to how well students do academically, and how motivated and optimistic they are about their learning and prospects.
But the question is not merely what teachers and schools can do to help students flourish, but what they can do to help the greatest number of students flourish. To varying degrees, our education systems struggle with inequalities that influence the academic outcome and, ultimately, the life trajectory, of each student. Some of those inequalities are rooted in gender difference. This report reveals that 15-year-old boys perform markedly worse on PISA than girls when there are disciplinary problems in the classroom. But it also shows that boys respond well to regular testing and parental involvement in school life. They also do better than girls academically when their teachers undergo regular performance reviews.
Socio-economic inequality drives another wedge between students, one that the COVID-19 pandemic widens. Stop-and-start schooling has upended most students’ lives in 2020 and perhaps beyond. Temporary school closures have made learning especially challenging for vulnerable students who have poor access to the Internet, computers, or a quiet place in which to do their schoolwork. Some students may quit school altogether.