Despite it having been over a year of online learning, most students are still learning in a virtual environment, but their attitudes and approaches to online learning have changed.
In the past year, time management has become important. Online learning was challenging because it gave students more wiggle room, allowing them to push assignments to the last minute, sophomore Kush Mahajan said in an email interview. Learning to do his homework earlier by not slacking off and managing his time more effectively have been important skills he has learned, Mahajan added.
“Going into distance learning, I expected it to be a bit easier than in-person because doing stuff from home is a lot easier, but I was still concerned about course difficulty since some teachers were making their classes easier and some harder,” Mahajan said.
Assignment due dates were surprising since assignments were usually due on the next day, but for distance learning, they were due after two days, Mahajan said. That was super helpful because it helped students prioritize what to do first, he said. When going back to in-person learning, he would like it if students could keep that flexibility in assignments, but he doesn’t want to continue having class periods that are 105 minutes since they are exhausting, Mahajan added.
“My favorite class this year has to be AP Physics 1 because the class was pretty fun, and it was a really bumpy roller coaster,” Mahajan said. “ I appreciated when teachers let us take notes on our own time and answer questions in class because taking notes during live instruction pressures students to get everything down instead of actually learning.”
Compared to last year, online learning this year had a lot more structure which made her expect online learning to be harsher than it actually was, junior Gina Huss said in a Zoom interview. The class periods are very long, but a lot of teachers let her out, which is nice because the day is more structured but still loose, Huss added.
“I was really excited to go into online learning at first, but then we got past the first three weeks, and I realized how difficult not seeing people every day was going to be,” Huss said. “I’ve FaceTimed with friends and met them in parks, but adjusting to the lack of peer interaction was difficult. It seemed to make in-person interactions more important.”
Motivation is one of the biggest challenges because when you aren’t with other people, it’s difficult to see the importance and necessity of doing work, Huss said. Beyond motivating yourself, it’s difficult for teachers to explain things to students because students have to awkwardly interrupt or put it in the chat where teachers might not see it, she added. It’s made it harder to have conversations and class discussions non-existent, Huss added.
“This past year, I really liked my psychology class because it was really interesting. There wasn’t a lot of homework, and it was fun,” Huss said. “The teacher would do interesting roll calls by asking us questions like our favorite flower which sometimes turned into very long, tangent conversations. I think avoiding a lot of worksheets in class and balancing the in-class and asynchronous work has been really nice.”
Huss is also in Band, where the class is centered around playing music together rather than the individual playing it’s been the past year, Huss said. Using online resources where students could record and listen to their mistakes was certainly helpful with being in tune since students couldn’t compare their playing to other people, Huss added.
“The band teacher incorporated a lot more activities since just practicing can get boring sometimes. Going back in person, I think we should continue the written stuff because it’s improved my technical skills,” Huss said. “ We also had visitors from other states come in and teach us.”
When school goes back to in-person, it would be helpful if teachers still used Zoom for when students are sick so they can know what’s happening in class, Huss said. It’s hard to know what happened when you come back from being sick so doing the class from home where you are comfortable would be a good option, Huss added.
“During first semester, I thought online learning was just fine but [during]… second semester, I started to miss talking to people like I would between class periods and having those discussions especially for labs in science,” senior Katherine Dasalla said in a Zoom interview. “ Especially for STEM, when you’re in an environment with other people and the teacher is actually there to help you, you have more support which is important because I feel like STEM subjects are the ones that people struggle with the most.”
Some of the teachers are also losing motivation, and it’s harder to communicate with them because some aren’t as responsive, so she has had to teach herself some of the material using online resources, Dasalla added.
“For clubs, some of my clubs, like Medical Society, just give out a presentation in virtual meetings, so those have been flowing smoothly. For other clubs like Red Cross that do activities, it’s been challenging,” Dasalla said. “It’s hard to get your members involved and engaged. Some people are just too lazy to attend meetings because some meetings are kind of boring.”
Katherine’s favorite class this year was AP Psychology because the class had a lot of content that is applicable to real life, Dasalla said. She appreciated having accountability in a class, such as progress checks and nearpods, Dasalla added.
“Online learning has been more convenient because of how you can just turn off your mic or camera and lay down and eat while you’re in class,” Dasalla said. “I liked having longer breaks in between classes and they were more useful than I thought. Going back in person, it’d be nice if some of the breaks were lengthened to give us more time,” she said.
