E-Learning

After reading a NYT article on online classes by a Junior High student, I asked my own children to write 150 words about their e-learning experience. My children's school moved to e-learning in late March, after an extended spring break. I was upset that, in addition to the forced changes that schools have had to necessarily make, they tweaked the learning in more ways than we all anticipated. E-learning days were just M-W-F, with T-Th reserved for teacher prep. So three-day work weeks instead of five-day weeks. Each day supposedly began at 9:00 am and lasted only until 2:30 pm, a full two-hour reduction to each working day. Moreover, rarely were classes live, prompting my children to wake up late, go to bed late, etc. It was frustrating that not only do they stay home without any club or other extracurricular activities (understandable yes) but the actual hours spent in structured learning e-classrooms were fewer than expected. I worried that study skills and habits will deteriorate, especially for the one child who is the least studious among my three children and who was also recently diagnosed with ADHD -- the one who doesn't let her schooling interfere with her life, the one who already drives me up the wall.

In reality, it worked out OK -- not too great, but not too shabby either. My two children who are good students followed through with all their assignments and spent as many hours as usual on their schoolwork and picked up on self-teaching and lifelong learning skills. My child with ADHD actually focused on her lessons better than while in class (or so she says), likely due to being by herself, away from other students in class, and thus avoiding the distraction that afflicts her when she is surrounded by peers. On her own, she is free to make mistakes, take risks, and learn in the process, devoid of the perception of being judged for not knowing or being slow. This experience with e-learning has sparked the hope in me that this child will be a good candidate for a hybrid college life -- part online, part in-class.

Below are my children's experiences in their own words:

E-learning is certainly not the ideal method of learning. In my chemistry class, my teacher recorded a video of himself doing one of our labs in his house since we couldn't do the lab ourselves. In the video, he told us out loud the numerical data we had to write down to use for further calculations. Even though we would often be very confused on the procedure, would have to ask each other for help, and wouldn't always be certain if we had collected good data, doing labs in school taught us to think critically and be independent and helped us reinforce chemistry concepts in a different way rather than studying them in our textbook. 

In some of my classes, class discussion and teacher explanations are fundamental. In my personal finance class, my teacher normally explains financial concepts in simple terms and always gives specific examples of how finance concepts play out in all of our lives. We would watch explanatory videos but my teacher would do the important job of connecting the videos' contents back to our own lives. There would also be many opportunities to participate in class. With e-learning, we only watch the videos and submit short responses to questions. In economics, my teacher would always encourage as to read our textbook as we answered written questions, but in class he would still spend sometimes an entire period explaining a chapter's material and using references to sports, media, and celebrities to teach us economics. Although with e-learning he tries to write up explanations using popular references, it still does not have the same effect as hearing explanations out loud and being able to ask questions in-person rather than through email. Lastly, my government class is similar in this way. Earlier, my teacher would also spend most of the class talking and explaining our material, so clearly that those of us who paid attention would hardly have to read the textbook to prepare for tests. I would rarely get homework in government and it was a class I did not have to focus a lot of my out-of-class time on. Currently my teacher feels obligated to give us an assignment every day of e-learning and this is a lot more work than I am used to doing for this subject. 

E-learning is generally much easier for me and takes a much shorter time than in-person learning does. Before, I would go through an entire school day before coming home at 3:30 with a list of assignments from most classes to finish by the end of the day. Now, I wake up and start my assignments for each class right away, rather than going through what normally happens in my classes. Add the fact that e-learning is only three days a week and that makes it even easier. I have a lot more free time now and I honestly enjoy that part. I sometimes finish all of my work by mid-afternoon with the evening to enjoy. My classmates and I are experiencing senioritis and e-learning is only making it a lot easier for ourselves. But of course, there is still a price to pay when school becomes really easy and there are no tests. When I begin college in-person it will be an especially huge change for all of us.  

E-learning might not be an ideal system of education, although it is more convenient for many students like me. Yet we should be glad that we are even able to have e-learning; that we have computers and Internet, unlike people from many parts of the world. We can afford to get used to this system for a few months, stay home and practice social distancing, and make going back to school again in the near future happen.

-- Lekha Durai, May 5, 2020

I have mixed feelings about the whole e-learning thing. For one, I get to wake up a whole two hours later than I usually do for school, which is nice and all, but it’s annoying how long I usually work on e-learning each day. We’re supposed to be able to be done with e-learning every day at 2:30, but I normally finish all of my assignments around 5 every day. Some of my teachers really like to stack up on assignments for us. Live meetings are just not like regular school. Teachers try to make small talk with everyone, but it’s just awkward doing it through the screen. If the teacher decides to say something to you specifically during the live meeting, you have to quickly unmute yourself, respond, and mute yourself again. Also, if one of your family members decides to walk into your room during the live meeting and say something, it’s kind of embarrassing. Every day, whether it’s an e-learning day or not, my phone is constantly blowing up with Canvas notifications, Google Classroom notifications, and emails saying, “Larry Murphy created a new assignment” or “Jenn Hubbard” invites you to a live meeting Friday at 10:30.” In all, e-learning is not the best, but it’s not bad under the circumstances. I’d still take it over regular school any day.

-- Divya Durai, May 7, 2020

E-learning is extremely bittersweet. I love how laid-back it is; no longer do we have an overload of homework, and we are able to spend more time on activities other than school. However, we students aren’t getting the benefits of socially-interacting with classmates. In fact, the only social interaction we are getting outside of our families is by texting (and sometimes calling) those within our own friend groups, whereas in real school we have the experience of talking in person to everyone, even those who are outside of our friend groups. E-learning also creates a new kind of stress: Students have to work solely with a computer. In real school, we have a mix of sitting, standing, using a computer, using a notebook, talking, and listening. In e-learning, we are sitting in front of a computer for hours every day. Finally, with spring sports cancelled, we aren’t participating in any organized sports. This gives us no athletic accountability, so we aren’t pressured to exercise every day and only do it when we want to. So, while e-learning isn’t painful to experience for a short period of time, it definitely will be unhealthy and not fun if it is needed long-term.

-- Rahul Durai, May 6, 2020