MS Journalism: Learning in the Time of COVID-19: SMIC Moves Classes Online
Posted: 08/05/2020
BY: JUNE WANG, MONICA YANG, AND PATRICK YANG
Normally, SMIC Middle School operates on an ABCD day schedule; online learning, however, has a different schedule for each day of the week, similar to SMIC’s elementary school schedule. Also, each class has been cut from 85 minutes in 30 minutes, and most classes meet daily rather than every other day. The two major apps used for online classes are Zoom and Ding Ding. Teacher Julie Wang, the Middle School administrator, said that one advantage of online learning is that, “time is very flexible.” She also said it is easier because students and teachers can simply connect on Zoom rather than traveling. “In this case (COVID-19), online teaching is very helpful,” she said.
The style and efficiency of classes have also changed with online learning. “Online learning is very interesting,” said E7 Coco Lei. She said it really depends on students’ self-control because “nobody is there to arrange your time for you.” At school, teachers explain homework during or at the end of each class; at home, however, things are a little different. Teachers explain new content during online meetings. Teachers sometimes upload the assignments for students on PowerSchool, and sometimes they tell students what they should do for homework during online meetings. Students then download their homework or documents from PowerSchool and turn them in once they finish rather than turning them in at the beginning of the next class. Eighth-grade student Caleb Patterson likes online learning because he has more control over his schedule now, even though it can be a bit stressful sometimes. In comparing online learning to learning at school, he said, “I think it’s better to learn at school just because there is more supervision, but I think that doing it online gives the student a little more freedom, and I think that doing it online really builds self-control.”
Even though online learning has given students more flexibility and control over their schedules, online learning also has its downsides. Middle School Math and Art teacher Jaime Jones said, “It is better for students to be learning at school so that they have interaction and personal attention with the teacher and their peers and not be all alone doing their work.” E7 Jason Liu says that setting up everything and doing his homework takes a long time, and it is harder to get your questions answered since the only way to communicate with teachers is online. Coco Lei thinks that online learning requires more self-direction. She said, “Though there is live teaching already, it’s still us that is learning these things” since students have to learn almost everything by themselves.
Starting classes online also means starting with new content. Caleb thinks the reason that the school is teaching new content online rather than waiting for school to resume is “because our education will lay the foundation of our future.” Jason added a practical reason for learning new content online. “If we start too late, we will not cover all the content that we need to learn,” he said.
With the worldwide pandemic temporarily prohibiting many schools from going back to the way they were, teachers are trying their best in this uncertain time. Teacher Linh Phan, the Middle School Science and Philosophy teacher, said online learning is not nearly as fun as meeting in person. One option he suggested could be for learning to happen in both formats. For example, he said students could “learn the concepts, review, and practice at home, then meet in person to collaborate and create together. This idea was also brought up by some parents who think that starting half-day classes would be a possibility if resuming normal school were to be an option. Although online learning definitely has some advantages, Teacher Julie said, “There are things that can be improved.” As Teacher Linh said, “We are trying to make the best of a challenging situation.”
