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Many challenges accompany a global pandemic, but providing a fair and accessible education to kids in quarantine is a challenge in and of itself. While most students at NS are being told to mask up and sanitize often, some students are learning from a drastically different perspective.
The majority of NS students have been able to attend school in person while following CDC guidelines, however, some students are unable to come in contact with others due to health conditions or family members with compromised immune systems. Instead of coming in person, they learn remotely.
“It wasn’t really up to me,” said junior Cambree Pehrson, who is taking two classes in person and the rest remotely. “My mom has Cystic Fibrosis, which is a lung disease, and we’re not sure how COVID could affect that, so we just want to keep her as safe as possible.”
The number of students using the remote option is significantly lower than the administration initially expected: about 18% of parents in the district expressed interest in remote learning before school started, but less than 3% of students chose to take advantage of the option. In addition to this, teachers have watched the number of remote students on their rosters drop over the course of just a few weeks.
“At one time, there were thirteen of them that I had as remote learners, but the numbers keep on getting smaller and smaller,” said math teacher Matt Syme. “I’m down to eight.”
Before the school year started, students had the choice of three educational plans: attending school in person, taking courses on a separate online program, and taking classes remotely from teachers at the high school. However, some students have been switching back and forth between these options, and teachers worry that they are falling behind.
“I know some people have tried the online [option] for a week and didn’t like it, so they switched to remote learning,” Syme said. “They tried that and they’re switching back and forth. That’s problematic because the longer you’re indecisive, the further and further behind you get.”
The students learning remotely are presented with a variety of new challenges as they attempt to learn from home. Among these challenges is that they were dropped from necessary classes that are not offered remotely.
“When I started this year, I had a full schedule,” senior Harrison Cook said. “Right now, I think I have five classes, including journalism. I got dropped out of like half of my classes just because they couldn’t offer them online.”
Communicating with teachers has also proven to be difficult for remote learners at times.
“I don’t have consistent ways to get a hold of my teachers,” Cook said. “Sometimes the teacher clocks out, and I can’t email them afterward.”
Teachers have dealt with similar challenges. When trying to teach remotely, it can be difficult to find the time to respond to messages and emails, especially considering the extra effort that some have been putting towards Canvas courses and providing instructional materials. Additionally, some teachers have little to no experience in these processes, which can take extra time to figure out.
“I’m using Canvas probably the way it’s supposed to be used,” Syme said. “I’m posting all of my assignments on Canvas with the due dates, and I’m creating videos of myself teaching, which is uncomfortable for me to watch. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, the videos have been good, but that’s something that I didn’t think I was going to be doing, is creating educational videos.”
However, not all teachers are new to the experience of creating instructional videos.
“As far as the online teaching aspect of it, I’m really comfortable with online teaching,” said Sterling Whipple, family and consumer science (FACS) instructor. “I’ve been doing YouTube videos for seven years, teaching financial principles online, so the idea of presenting curriculum content through an internet medium is nothing new to me.”
When it comes to teaching, communication goes both ways. Some teachers have been struggling to get in contact with a few of their students that are learning remotely.
“I have some kids that respond within 24 hours every single time, and I have kids that I still haven’t heard from about the first email that I sent out during the first week of school,” Whipple said.
A student’s remote learning experience varies largely across each class, depending on who the teacher is and how they feel about the process of teaching remotely.
“With a few of [my teachers], you can tell that they’re putting in a lot of effort to make sure that we keep up with the class,” said freshman Kenna Cook. “One of my teachers even emailed me and said, ‘I want to make sure that you’re doing the same amount of work,’ but other teachers will say, ‘We’re going to have a zoom meeting on this day, but you don’t have to come.’”
One of the biggest differences Harrison Cook has observed between remote and in-person learning is that he typically figures out how to do assignments on his own, without as much instruction from teachers.
“There’s a lot less instruction happening, as far as I can tell, for people online,” Cook said. “We’re mostly teaching ourselves. We get assignments, and then we go and do the research that we need to, and then we do it ourselves.”
However, both students and teachers agree that the lack of interaction and discussion with students at home is extremely difficult.
“A lot of the things that are helpful to teach a kid are discussions with the class,” said Paul Allred, art teacher. “A kid can say, ‘I don’t understand this,’ and sometimes another kid has the same problem, but they’re not willing to say it. And sometimes they’ll bring up a good point that you never thought of as a teacher, and we all learn from it. I think the kids that are doing remote learning don’t get that feedback off of peers, which I think is vital too.”
Different subjects deal with unique obstacles when it comes to teaching remotely.
“The teaching in mathematics doesn’t happen when I’m up there presenting my information,” Syme said. “The teaching happens when the kids start working in the math and I can see what they’re doing and I can fix their problems and I can guide them as they’re working on the math. That’s where the real teaching happens. I just can’t do that with remote learners.”
Whipple, on the other hand, has found himself at a slight advantage compared to some of the other teachers at NS, due to the content of his course.
“A lot of what I teach is conceptual, and a lot of those principles can be discerned through a screen,” Whipple said. “Unlike art, where it has to be something done by hand, or unlike sewing, or foods, where you have to actually construct something, a kid can understand what a zero-based budget is without needing to be here.”
Some remote learners have also noticed that their course workloads have been lighter than expected.
“So far there has been a lot less homework,” said Kenna Cook. “In one of my classes, I’ve only had like one assignment since school started.”
Considering how drastically the workload differs between remote and in-person students, teachers are concerned that some students are taking advantage of remote learning as a way to make money when they would otherwise be learning in class.
“I understand that three of my remote learners are working during the day,” Syme said. “So they’re using this remote learning as an opportunity for them to make money when otherwise they would have to be in school. That’s almost a slap in the face to what the remote learning is supposed to be. It’s supposed to keep students and their families protected from this COVID-19, but I’ve got these three students that are working in the workforce instead of being in school.”
Teachers like Syme have struggled to keep assignments uniform between in-person and remote students. They have found that in-class activities can be difficult to translate through an online medium. However, Whipple has found success in keeping student work consistent.
“I do keep the practice work uniform,” Whipple said. “It’s part of just trying to be fair to everybody. I don’t differentiate the instruction hardly at all between the at-home and the in-class kids.”
Initially, the district didn’t plan to offer remote learning as an option to students. However, parents expressed concern about the available options and over 90% of teachers in the district voted to make remote learning available to students. Even now, teachers’ opinions vary on whether offering a remote learning option is worth the struggles and extra effort. Some teachers sympathize with students in their discomfort or inability to attend school.
“I’d say it’s worth it,” Whipple said. “Giving kids and/or parents the opportunity to say, ‘This is a global pandemic, I don’t want my child to be in the middle of this,’ I think that is a good thing. I’m for it, and one of my classes only has one at-home student. I am totally fine with that. I am totally fine to accommodate him or her because I also feel not totally comfortable about being here in the middle of a pandemic. So if you have the option to continue your education at home in a safe space – especially if you or you have family members who are high-risk – absolutely, I am totally in support of that.”
Allred feels similarly, highlighting that making sure kids can learn is important, despite the physical limitations that accompany remote learning.
“If you’re helping a kid understand or learn, I think that’s the most important thing to view, regardless of whether they’re in class or whether it’s remote-learning,” Allred said. “I think if we understand that, then we’re helping kids be educated.”
Other teachers feel the effects of the challenges, and based on the flaws of the remote learning system itself, do not feel that the administration should have offered it.
“I do wish that we would have not done it,” Syme said. “I was hoping it would turn out to be something different, I was hoping that the kids that chose remote learning were going to take it seriously, were going to stick with it, but a lot of them just haven’t. They’re using it the completely wrong way. A lot of them are using it as an excuse to not do work. It hasn’t worked out the way I hoped it would have.”
Remote learning presents both students and teachers with unique struggles, however, Cook feels it is important to acknowledge that teachers are trying their best to accommodate students with the limitation of learning from home.
“You have to realize that there was a lot of pressure on the administration to open schools,” Cook said. “From parents that don’t believe COVID is a threat, and from the government. So there are all these other factors that make it really hard for the administration and the teachers because it’s not just up to them. They’re doing their best, so you do have to be fair. It’s not ideal, and maybe they could figure out a way to do it better, but they are trying.”
And despite the struggles, the remote learning experience has brought about new resources and skills that teachers will use in the future of their careers.
“I sympathize with students more now; I guess I’m a little bit kinder, a little bit more understanding,” Syme said. “And I picked up some tricks that I think will help all of my students. Once I put together my canvas courses, they’re going to be really good courses that I can use from here on out.”
