Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic led to school closures around the world, affecting almost 1.6 billion students. The effects of even short disruptions in a child’s schooling on their learning and well-being have been shown to be acute and long lasting. The capacities of education systems to respond to the crisis by delivering remote learning and support to children and families have been diverse yet uneven.

This report reviews the emerging evidence on remote learning throughout the global school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic to help guide decision-makers to build more effective, sustainable, and resilient education systems for current and future crises.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, online education had grown steadily over the past decade as more K-12 schools and districts expanded their educational options. This included the use of virtual school days, hybrid learning, and fully online courses. Enrollments in K-12 Online Physical Education (OLPE) had also increased steadily over the past decade, representing almost ten percent of total online course completions (Distance Learning Collaborative (DLC), (2019). The purpose of this article is to present a coherent agenda for future research related to K-12 OLPE using current research as a foundation. The Society of Health and Physical Education (SHAPE) America’s Essential Components of Physical Education served as the framework for this article. Overall, limited research has been conducted regarding the policies and decisions that drive the development and implementation of OLPE. Current research does, however, provide some clarity related to OLPE curriculum, instructional practices, and student assessment. K-12 OLPE is not an abstract idea that might come about in the future. It is part of the here and now, especially considering the shift toward distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Scholars must cultivate a coherent research agenda and move beyond the current exploratory studies to answer some of the most poignant questions surrounding OLPE.

With the rapid advancement of China's "Internet plus Education" plan, "Internet plus Education" has become a research hotspot. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has brought great opportunities, tests and inspections for online education. All schools earnestly implemented the relevant requirements of the Ministry of Education and leverage the strengths of the Internet to ensure that “suspension of classes and non-stop teaching”. Taking a middle school in the west part of China as an example, the online survey was conducted to investigate its live broadcast teaching. The independent sample test and one-way analysis of variance were used to statistically analyze the differences among the students’ genders, grades, home location, type of device used and parental companionship. Finally, the implications were put forward to provide a reference for live teaching practice.

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, already limited services and resources for families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in China became even more scarce. This qualitative case study highlights one online parent education and training (PET) program developed during the pandemic to offer home-intervention strategies to parents of children with ASD in mainland China. This exploratory study sought to examine the emic perspectives of the trainers and parents who participated in the 12-week intensive training program while considering the cultural context in China and the transnational, remote nature of the program.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed and deepened existing language and media gaps for deaf children. There was already an ongoing crisis for deaf children in the US: language deprivation. Language deprivation is caused by a lack of access to natural language during the critical period for language development, generally age 0–5 years. The COVID-19 pandemic is now intersecting with and amplifying language gaps for deaf children in the US. For kids whose school has moved online, the majority living with non-signing families are spending more time isolated at home. In virtual schooling, deaf children are using tools not built for them.

As COVID-19 dramatically alters the museum sector, museums and archives are implementing collection initiatives that will have tremendous influence over how the pandemic is understood and remembered. As collections experts, museums are leading the charge to document, collect, and interpret our current circumstances as they unfold in real time, relying more than ever on public participation and crowdsourcing. A key development in such rapid-response collecting has been the interest in and solicitation of contributions that document the current crisis. Yet, initiatives that target young people remain few and far between, and often reproduce romanticized and reified understandings of children and childhood that reflect a longer history of excluding children’s voices from museum collections and society at large. This paper will explore museums’ collection of children’s culture in various forms with attention to the epistemological and ethical challenges that such initiatives entail.

Computer use by children especially school-aged children is growing rapidly. In these decades, due to the rising use of IT, they are using computers or laptops not only for education purpose but also, for playing online games for a prolonged period. Therefore, extensive viewing of the computer screen can lead to eye discomfort, fatigue, blurred vision and headaches, dry eyes and other symptoms of eyestrain. A significant reduction was seen in eye fatigue with self- relaxing yogic eye exercises followed by the ergonomic advice in school-aged children attending online classes in COVID-19.

This article emphasizes on how online learning is beneficial during times of crises like work absences or pandemics. Therefore, some tools and techniques for online learning which can ensure the continuity of learning are highlighted.

Across the world, COVID-19 and resulting isolation measures have taken more than 1.5 billion children out of the classroom. Most of those children are now learning online – and while digital solutions are essential to maintaining children’s education, they may also be increasing their exposure to online risks. Today, partners from the Safe to Learn coalition issued guidance for facilitating safe, effective online learning experiences for children during COVID-19. This guidance is directed at education ministries as they develop policies and resources to support schools in providing a safe online learning experience.