By Natalie Tabb
As everyone should be aware of by now, many people have shifted towards remote careers and schooling. With the pandemic shutting us inside, many of us are forced to take all of our classes online. Virtual learning is inherently different from learning at school. For one, everything takes place online. That means everyone had to figure out how everything works in the beginning.
Most of our first few weeks of this school year were spent trying to get a general idea of how to work everything, instead of learning the class content. Even now that we have been in virtual school for months, clocking in up to 10 hours online each day, there are still issues that students and teachers alike have to deal with, such as Internet failures and frozen screens. These things are rather common and tend to interrupt classes, and there is not much that anyone can do about it. These forced breaks are interruptions to learning that people wouldn’t have to deal with in a normal school year.
Another thing is that many students, especially in the high school, are still taking classes at home. Being in class at home has subjected many students to distractions during class that they wouldn’t have otherwise, like moms coming in and asking for laundry, or cats jumping on keyboards and blocking the camera, or accidentally unplugged headsets and microphones that make the entire class privy to home discussions. Home is generally a place for relaxing, but now that many students are taking their classes there, instead of in classrooms, things are bound to be affected–things like work ethic.
“Virtual school has made it very hard for me to motivate myself to do work and pay attention during class,” sophomore Madeline Haymann said, and she is not alone. All the students questioned about this shared her opinion. Haymann also stated, “It seems like now I procrastinate doing homework assignments because I do not fully understand how to complete the assignment whereas before the pandemic, I would complete all of my work as soon as I could.”
This lack of understanding a class’ content or assignments only drains motivation, which, in turn, makes it harder to ask for help, which then makes it even harder to understand. This is an endless, bitter loop. The fact that many students feel like their homework load has increased also contributes to lack of understanding and motivation.
Haymann and several of her peers agree that since school has gone online, it has gotten harder to ask questions and seek help if something doesn’t make sense. Although theoretically, it shouldn’t make a difference asking questions if a class is on Zoom or in person, the reality is that it does. There is a lag to unmute, perhaps there is some background noise at home, sometimes the class has moved on by the time a student is ready to share, and the teacher can’t really see facial expressions as well as in person.
Picking up a computer and taking classes online has been a big change for teachers and students alike. It has changed how classes are run and how students study and prepare for class. Many students are now suffering from a lack of motivation because of this switch, but hopefully, with vaccines out for everybody over 16 now, we won’t have to take our lessons and worry about glitching come next year.
