Enlight21

Author: Leo Lin | Category: School | Date: 07-19-2020

So far, my experience with distance learning is good. There are a lot of pros and cons with the way my school handled the distance learning structure, But because the application of distance learning was so sudden, I feel like not many teachers were able to provide the best education they could give during the quarantine.
I feel that only two teachers that I had handled distance learning very well. One of them was my math teacher. The system he used was recording his lecture and posting on Canvas. His videos were very helpful and did a good job of explaining the last couple of chapters which was an introduction to Calculus. He also set up a chat so that his students can communicate with each other about ideas or homework problems they have trouble with. Due to his clear videos and the help of my classmates, I managed to understand the concepts he was teaching very well. The other teacher that did well was my English teacher. While I did not learn a lot form online learning, however, her organization skills were excellent. Before online learning, my English class was almost finished with a podcast. Unlike most of my teachers, my English teacher created google slides with day to day instructions about what we should do. I was amazed because none of my other teachers did this and it helped me manage my time at home. Some pros to distance learning I discovered was that I can learn things at my own pace. For example, in math, I had trouble understanding a concept my teacher was talking about. Since I was at home, I did not have to wait a long time to get clarification about the subject because I can easily text with one of my classmates to see if they understood it and could explain the idea to me. Another benefit of distance learning was that I had to set my schedule for the day. Before this, most of my days were already set in stone as I only had to follow the procedures set up by the school. 
The worst class to do distance learning was my PE and music class. While we were required to record our daily activity, I realized that most people will lie and since the teachers had no other way to check if the student did it, I assumed that the teacher passed almost everyone. A con I experienced from distance learning was that since everything is online, it was very easy for me to get distracted, such as going on my phone or browsing other websites. Also, the strong impulse to relax and not do anything affected my education. To deal with this, I put anything that could distract me away from where I was studying and relayed on my self-control to not get off task. In the end, everything worked very well. Another problem I experienced was that for most classes, I didn’t learn as much as if I had gone to school. This was a big problem since some class I will take next year is built on from the course. For subjects like math, I had to go to Khan Academy to gain more knowledge and experience. Some things that can improve is maybe setting up zoom classes with a set time as it can help people learn as much as possible given the unique situation. But other than that, I believe that online learning is going very well.
 

About: Leo Lin