Reports from the Field - What School Leaders Need to Consider About Virtual Engagement at Home During the Pandemic: Learning Loss or Learning Gain? - A Commentary

Oct 15, 2026

A commentary examines whether COVID-19 distance learning primarily causes learning loss or can produce learning gain, drawing on a webinar with school leaders who hold deficit-based and/or asset-based views. It addresses how equity should guide remedies during home-based engagement, especially for dual language learners and students with special needs. The text highlights persistent achievement gaps, low attendance, and rising failure rates, while arguing for virtual spaces that recognize students’ culturally and socially situated knowledge and skills as assets.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Learning Loss or Learning Gain?

Learning Loss as a Deficit View

Equity as a Solution for Distance Learning

Reports from the Field What School Leaders Need to Consider About Virtual Engagement at Home During the Pandemic: Learning Loss or Learning Gain? A Commentary Jose W. Lalas University of Redlands Heidi Luv Strikwerda Principal, Excelsior Charter Schools University of Redlands There is a common assumption in education that lack of face-to-face instruction during COVID- 19 will result in a learning loss when students return to physical classrooms. While some studies reported interesting results on learning loss, more research must be done to inform schooling practices. At a recorded webinar, learning loss was examined by analyzing the ideas of school leaders who manifested deficit-based and/or asset-based views in doing virtual instruction at home. The authors wrote this commentary as a critical reflection of the ideas presented by leaders who reimagined learning gain instead of loss as they recognize, value, and honor the many culturally-and socially-situated knowledge and skills students have acquired and learned during these unprecedented times. Keywords: learning loss, learning gain, deficit-based mindset, asset-based learning, equity In general, many school leaders and educators are not well-equipped to meet the pedagogical challenges of distance learning and collective emotional trauma caused by social and physical isolation during these unprecedented times brought upon us by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Educational leaders and teachers are constantly pivoting and learning how to deal with the new reality of managing their personal lives and daily routines of working from home, while pursuing their careers and meeting the individual needs of their students. Caring and exceptional teachers attempt to make adaptations and engage students all the time (Lalas & Strikwerda, 2020) in their virtual classrooms to provide them with meaningful instruction, access to academic content, and daily live interactions. School leaders support their teachers by encouraging them to provide creative learning experiences and assume generous responsibility for their students regardless of the many out-of-school factors and daily stressors that are out of their inherent control (Berliner, 2013) . For these educational leaders and teachers who are operating in virtual spaces, there are no excuses for not discovering explicit ways of facilitating access to learning and engagement for all students including the dual language learners and students with special needs. However, during the first quarter of the 2020-2021 school year, data show that attendance in many California schools are below 80% and around 50% of students are receiving D’s and F’s who are participating in the hybrid model (Blume & Barajas, 2020) . Among dual language learners and students with special needs, the numbers are even more dismal reaching up to 100% failure rate on the Facilitated Online Learning programs that are mostly self-instructed in some schools (Blume & Barajas, 2020). There is a growing consensus that the achievement gap between students from high-income families and traditionally marginalized students from low-income families continues to exacerbate during the pandemic (Hollingsworth, 2020) . During this time of COVID-19, homes are transformed into centers of learning and teaching. With or without parental involvement, training across socioeconomic backgrounds and implicit or explicit guidance from educators, parents are taking on the role of guiding, helping, and monitoring their own children’s education in implementing distance learning (Erdogan et al., 2019) . Consequently, a tension exists between the potential within the concept of learning gain among those students with parents who are able to guide their students’ work, and the notion of learning loss because of school closure. The key issue, then, becomes this: how can the concept of equity be truly tapped into as a solution during distance learning? Equity is important because

FAQs

What central question does the commentary raise about virtual engagement during the pandemic?

It asks whether virtual engagement leads to learning loss or learning gain, and how learning gain can be supported through equity-focused practices during distance learning at home.

How does the commentary define learning loss?

It describes learning loss as students not learning content and mastery skills at the typical rate, measured as the difference between what they would learn in a normal year and what they learn during the pandemic.

Why is equity emphasized for distance learning solutions?

Equity is presented as a mindset that guides appropriate and relevant remedies to meet students’ needs, helping educators and school leaders address inequities in virtual or in-person instruction.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by MrHarris58