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

  

Stay-at-home order

It is now nearly two months since schools closed in our state in response to COVID-19 spread. My children have e-learning and I worked from home until April 30. E-learning requires my children to be "in class" only on M-W-Fs for only about 5 hours each day. T-Th are teacher prep days and so my kids sleep in, do some homework (or not) and generally take life easier than when they were expected to be at school physically. So, I came up with different ideas of how they could be spending their time more productively. Not one was tried out or followed. Did I say my kids are teens now? 

So, after some frustrating days when they rolled their eyes at everything from board games to signing up for a Coursera course, I put my foot down and somehow wrangled a deal with them. They will each write a short essay of 150 words on a topic of my choice so I can put it up on my blog without requiring them to edit their piece. I am not sure what I promised in return -- maybe that I will stop screaming? -- but here is their first assignment for me. 

On the Thursday before spring break, my friend told me that the next day, Friday, may be our last day of high school for the year.  I wasn’t really worried or concerned unlike other people and I underestimated how much change could happen in our school district, even if change was happening in other parts of the country and in China and Italy. I never thought she would be right about it being the last day.

The number of big changes that are happening is insane. Prom is cancelled. Graduation will be virtual or pushed late into the summer. My Bharatanatyam performance cancelled. Video chats with an entire class and teacher. Piano lessons through Facetime. Videos of chemistry labs instead of doing the labs ourselves. Online college Q&A broadcasts instead of campus visits. I find it crazy that it takes a pandemic for literally the whole world to be experiencing the same thing. Even though I’m going through a lot of changes, they are nothing compared to what infected patients, life-risking medical workers, and laid-off workers are experiencing.

Throughout these weeks, I spend time with family, connect with my future college peers online, and text friends. I pay attention to the news a lot because there is no other time like now to be doing so. I learn about utterly distressing stories related to Covid-19 and just recently heard that a classmate’s relative was affected by it.

Even two months ago I would never have pictured being in this situation. Our lives might be limited right now but we must remember that we are all living through history and we are all in this together. I’m just thankful that my family and I are safe and that my community cares about protecting everyone, even if it means staying at home. 

 -- Lekha, a high school senior who, as one of Class of 2020, will be missing out on graduation parties and ceremony.

I did a lot of things during quarantine that I would’ve never done if I hadn’t been stuck at home for a long period of time. One of them is that I have baked and cooked every day. I’ve noticed that a lot of people I know are baking and cooking during quarantine. It’s a really easy and fun way to pass time in the day and it’s also a really good life skill. In addition, it makes me feel good when my family and friends enjoy the food I make. Last week, I made cake pops for eight friends and delivered them to their mailboxes. I had this idea because I saw a lot of people online writing their friends letters and sending them gifts to show their friends how much they cared about them and missed them. I decided to make cake pops because I love the ones at Starbucks and I knew they’d be a challenge for me to make on my own They took a very long time to make, since I had never made them ever before and because there were multiple flaws in the recipe I used, but I was really proud of the end product. All of my friends texted me later raving about how good they were and that made me feel really good and that the long process was worth it.

 -- Divya,who took 2 days to create the most colorful cake pops.

What I Enjoy Doing During Quarantine

          Walks:

The wind gives me small goosebumps. Millions of strands of green grass are approaching out of the ground. The road is almost empty of cars. The trees unapologetically stretch their branches as far as they can. The greyish-blue sky is quite dull. In the air, I can smell the soil and the thousands of animals in and around it. 

It is a plain old evening during Spring, and I am walking with my mom and my dog in West Lafayette. As simple and boring as it may seem, this is one of my favorite treasures during boring times like quarantine. This is the time of day where I can experience the calm, mysterious nature. Nature is a world that seems uninteresting, but when you walk through it, you can see how complicated and beautiful it is. From a distance, a tree looks nothing out of the ordinary, but when you walk under it, you can see the beauty of every branch and the thousands of lives it houses. When you walk through nature, you see a story that makes you forget all of your stresses. And humans are supposed to experience nature, for that is where they originally come from.

When on a walk with my mother, who at home seems permanently stressed with work and family conflict, I can see the inside of her. In the midst of nature, all of her stresses wash away, and I can see her invaluable knowledge, wisdom, kindness, and heart. I know that when she talks to me on a walk, she cares about me and is happy. Thus, going on a walk is one of my favorite things to do with my mother.

Walks bring my dog, Legacy, to her origins of nature, and she is at her peak of happiness. At home, she is constantly surrounded with our stresses and fights. But when on a walk in nature, when all of our stresses are gone, Legacy can come back to where she originally came from, the natural world, and experience it with us.

A walk isn’t just one hour for exercise. A walk brings you closer to those you love and closer to where all life belongs, nature.

-- Rahul, the youngest and therefore the sincerest when he puts his mind to it.

Keeping sane -- Part I

So much has happened this year already and it is only the 1st of April. Nine long months more to go to start anew. As an epidemiologist only partly contributing to epidemiology (and mostly working in Outcomes Assessment), I am pulled into the ongoing news cycle of the COVID-19 pandemic even though I have work that keeps me away from it. But how can anyone, leave alone an epidemiologist, turn away from this living laboratory whose results we can only partly imagine and partly deduce from ever-changing, dynamic models? These models are dynamic because they are dependent on variable inputs like population demographics, policy, public health messaging, degree and nature of social distancing, compliance, severity of cases, healthcare facilities, to name just a few.  

Everyone who is under lock down now to prevent or minimize the spread of COVID-19 understands the importance of physical distancing while staying emotionally and socially connected. The internet has helped us much in this. But how did people do this historically during other times of crises such as wars, pogroms/genocides, previous pandemics, incarceration, or kidnappings? How did they stay sane given additional fear and stress factors such as being discovered hiding, breaking the law or being hunted? What experiences did they endure? What degrees of mental strength did they possess or cultivate? What routines of habit did they cultivate? In a series of blog posts I hope to put a collection together as a testament to human trials and tragedies, including triumphs over life's unexpected and sometimes grueling circumstances.  

I start with what history teaches us about life under pandemics -- about implementing quarantine and conveying need for social distancing. This National Geographic article has charts demonstrating lowered curves and second waves in cities where social distancing wasn't enforced long enough. 

In 2007, two studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sought to understand how responses influenced the disease’s spread in different cities. By comparing fatality rates, timing, and public health interventions, they found death rates were around 50 percent lower in cities that implemented preventative measures early on, versus those that did so late or not at all. The most effective efforts had simultaneously closed schools, churches, and theaters, and banned public gatherings. This allowed time for vaccine development and lessened the strain on health care systems.

The studies reached another important conclusion: That relaxing intervention measures too early could cause an otherwise stabilized city to relapse. St. Louis, for example, was so emboldened by its low death rate that the city lifted restrictions on public gatherings less than two months after the outbreak began. A rash of new cases soon followed. Of the cities that kept interventions in place, none experienced a second wave of high death rates.

This NYT article is an introduction to social distancing during the plague.

Charles II issued a formal order in 1666 that ordered a halt to all public gatherings, including funerals. Already, theaters had been shut down in London, and licensing curtailed for new pubs. Oxford and Cambridge closed.

But here is what catches my eye in this article:

Isaac Newton was one of the students sent home, and his family was among the wealthy who fled the cities so they could shelter in place at their country homes. He spent the plague year at his family estate, teasing out the foundational ideas for calculus.

If only all of us can hunker down, discipline our minds and focus on one accomplishment. But the distractions in this modern world are too many, at least for me. 

In my next post, I will write about some people who weren't as fortunate as Newton was and describe how they passed their time, so our own lock downs seem like a vacation in comparison.