CANeLearn Report – Stories from the Field: Voices of K-12 Stakeholders During Pandemic

The Canadian eLearning Network (CANeLearn) released their latest research report –  Stories from the Field: Voices of K-12 Stakeholders During Pandemic. The report, which is co-authored by two of the State of the Nation: K-12 e-Learning in Canada researchers, has the following executive summary:

This report is third of three reports designed to chronicle how each province and territory in
Canada managed their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first report, Documenting
Triage: Detailing the Response of Provinces and Territories to Emergency Remote Teaching
report (Nagle, Barbour, & LaBonte, 2020), described how each jurisdiction managed their
emergency remote teaching during Spring 2020. The second report, A Fall Like No Other:
Between Basics and Preparing or an Extended Transition During Turmoil (Nagle, LaBonte, &
Barbour, 2020), outlined how each jurisdiction attempted to manage what should have been a
transition to remote teaching during Fall 2020. The goal of this third report, Stories from the
Field: Voices of K-12 Stakeholders During Pandemic, was to provide vignettes authored by
education stakeholders sharing their stories about what actually transpired in their homes,
schools, communities, and districts.

Sponsored by the Canadian eLearning Network (CANeLearn), a leading voice in Canada for
learner success in K-12 online and blended learning, this report highlights the announcements,
supports, and policy changes each Canadian jurisdiction made to continue to promote learning
throughout the pandemic. Information was gathered for each province and territory through
government websites, educational organizations, and current news releases. This information
highlighted each jurisdiction’s strategies to provide supports, resources, and technologies
appropriate for the continuation of teaching and learning. A website¹ was created to host this
report series along with an archive of online workshop presentations based on each report.

In this report you will find the voices of key stakeholders within the K-12 online and blended
learning community across Canada as they provide descriptions of what actually happened on
the ground. Students, parents, teachers, school leaders, school trustees, and teacher-education
leaders from the post-secondary offer a glimpse of the impact of what the Ministries and
Departments of Education planned and announced in the Spring and Fall of 2020 for the safe
return of students to schools. For students, the lack of social interaction was a noted loss, for
parents their children’s physical, emotional, and mental health and their own, were worrisome at
best. Many describe the education offerings lacking and some sought their own solution.

Teachers, district and school leaders, even trustees, found the changing dynamic of the education
landscape overwhelming. Health protocols, physical distancing, masking, the number and flow
of people in the school building(s), and the social and emotional impact on staff and students was
almost impossible to manage. The range of stories from school leaders offers glimpses of success
in the development of new programs and the expansion of others. The stories of teachers reflect a
focus on physical, social, and emotional wellbeing first, curriculum second. As new models and
approaches emerge, post-secondary teacher education researchers are shining a light on what
effective practices provide options today and for the future beyond pandemic.

¹ The website is available at https://sites.google.com/view/canelearn-ert/