School is hard. School during a pandemic is even harder.
I think it’s important for my readers to know about the struggles of students during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why I decided to find out what subjects and courses have been the most difficult for students to learn with a hybrid schedule.
Regardless of the pandemic, school has consistently proven to challenge students, but then, when you have to completely change the learning environment, it adds on the additional challenge of adapting to this unconventional form of education.
For example, Kate Ferland explained how her personal experience with AP classes has proven to be far more perplexing during a pandemic.
“My AP Calculus and AP Statistics math classes have been the hardest to do remotely. Learning it through videos is much more different than with your teacher right in front of you to answer questions or more thoroughly explain the subject.”
Another point made by Ms. Ferland is how math builds off from one unit to another, so if you struggled during an online week where you’re practically teaching yourself aside from videos made by the teacher, you can easily fall behind.
Even from my own experience taking geometry, I realize how much more I’m struggling purely because I cannot learn without a teacher there to break down the lesson and answer questions.
The State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has ordered all schools in the state to add additional instructional time during the remote weeks. I most definitely feel that this will help students like myself and Ms. Ferland to get a better grasp on the material, even if we’re learning from our own homes.
Kendell Chase explained how math, her least favorite subject has been even tougher to get through nowadays, learning half of the time out of school.
“We have to work a lot more independently and teach ourselves a good amount of the material,” she said.
Building off of this, I’d also like to mention Senior Shanti Furtado’s take on how learning so much independently has shown to have some sort of positive impact.
“As a senior, this added time to work on our own has in a way, better equipped us for a taste of the ambiance of college — allowing the opportunity to improve our time management skills,” she said.
Furtado also mentioned her own struggles learning Statistics as well as AP Literature, and how without her teachers, she wouldn’t be able to successfully complete these courses.
“Being only in the building for half the year has limited the in-person instruction so needed for visual learners like myself,” said Ms. Furtado. “AP Literature has also been a struggle for me at times this school year. Though anything reading and writing related has been my favorite throughout the years, being submerged into so much individual work has been cumbersome at times.”
She also discussed how her teachers Dr. Boucher and Mrs. Pittsley have been, “extremely accommodating and attentive; trying to make the curriculum as fun as possible, and are always an email away for questions, whilst taking the time to record videos of themselves teaching the lessons during our remote weeks.”
As these students have mentioned, what many teachers are doing is making pre-recorded videos to teach students through the screen. Recently, a teacher from the District of Columbia Public Schools, Jonte Lee, had some of his videos teaching chemistry go viral.
Especially now, people appreciate those that are taking the extra step to support others, and that is exactly what Mr. Lee is doing with his non-traditional ways of teaching, filming experiments right from his kitchen, in order to be able to successfully teach his students.
To find out more about this award-winning science teacher, you can visit https://www.nsta.org/science-teacher/science-teacher-march-2020/teacher-spotlight-jonte-lee Make sure to watch some of his videos as well through his YouTube series: Try This At Home
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