COVID-19 Shaping Education

 COVID-19 Shaping Education

It is no surprise that the pandemic has shaped online education. Remote learning is the new norm for now, but it is a change that has not been welcomed by many. From experience, teachers and students alike have struggled to adapt to a new form of learning: e-learning. 

An email regarding cancellation of class due to technical difficulties. 

Above is a e-mail I received from my astronomy professor last Friday leading to the cancellation of class for the day. This is the second time this has happened so far, and is making me contemplate the effectiveness of online learning. This is not the only teacher I have had that has experienced some sort of electronic mishap leading to a cancellation of class. Many of my teachers, especially in high school e-learning right when the pandemic started, have faced the issue of adapting to fully online coursework. Missing one class is not really a problem for me, but it really does make me wonder if e-learning is even worth doing.

 Now I know this may seem extreme, but there are so many more benefits to in person instruction. Many students I have spoken to have talked about how they are having a hard time in their math classes especially with prerecorded lectures and not being able to ask questions real-time. Along with this, in my own experience, online learning has taken away almost all interaction to be had with professors. You may experience the occasional question at the end of the stream or maybe even answering a question during a zoom call, but other than that, I have not had any real connection to the professors. I work pretty well with teachers knowing their personality and vice versa. Remote learning takes away this opportunity and in turn does not provide an equal opportunity for everyone to learn. Many people need this hands on learning that I am speaking about to truly learn and understand concepts. Without it, people are failing to get the hands on instruction that they find necessary to thrive especially in their first year of college. 

In high school e-learning, there was a policy that doing poorly on assignments could not negatively impact your overall grade. While I enjoyed that policy because I was a senior in high school with "senioritis", I found it to be counterintuitive and almost detrimental to learning. Yet, I do feel like such a policy, on a lower scale, should be implemented to assist students taking online classes. Online school is hard, both academically and mentally. It is sometimes a struggle having to wake up and lack having that social interaction with peers and to wake up just to go to a zoom call. A hardship clause for students impacted by the coronavirus could help students with this abrupt change in learning. Our whole lives we have been taught in person. This change is a tough one on all of us, especially in terms of our motivation. 

Along with this, seeing as though students in Asia and Europe are already having face-to-face classes, and I worry for my nations competitiveness with foreign nations. Other nations seem to be recovering easier from the pandemic while the Unites States seems to be lagging behind. For the field I would like to go into, meteorology, I do not really have this fear of competing with those from foreign nations, but for those majoring in business, it can be a scary thought when looking at international policy and how the United States may fall behind.