The Challenges of Online and In-Person Learning in a Pandemic Environment

Daveon Spikes

135 Dando Street, Garner, NC,27529

LET 3

Cleveland High School

1892 Polenta rd

LTC Redfield, 919-934-2455 ext 1985, ​carolredfield@johnston.k12.nc.us

 Before the pandemic happened I always wondered what it would be like to do online

school and now that I'm actually doing it I can confidently say that it wasn't exactly what I was

expecting. Right now doing virtual learning is really tough for me, the reason why I say this is

because during the day in my various classes you get assigned work with little direction on

exactly how to do some of the work and I understand why they do it, they do it because they

have a lot more material to get through in a short amount of time and they have ram times too

walk students through it and explain it to them if they are struggling but the reason why it is

tough for me is because of the sheer amount of work that some teachers are assigning thinking

that students now have this massive amount of free time at their disposal that most of us don't

have. Before the pandemic I was able to get almost all work done with more than enough time to

enjoy some of the little things in life but now I find myself buried in almost double the work with

half as much time to do it and I can't help but struggle, it is very challenging to adapt but I've

been doing pretty well on making it work by completely changing the way I handle all of the

work given to me.

The way I handle all of the work given to me is I break them up into too small sections to do

by the hours for example I know that I have 5 videos each 15-20 minutes long that I have to

write summaries on while also having a writing prompt that is going to take an hour too fully

answer the way I would handle this situation is watch 2 of the videos and do their summaries and

then start on the writing prompt until I got halfway then finish the last 3 videos and then finish

the prompt and move on too the next batch of assignments. Another thing that was not what I

expected switching to virtual learning was the amount of time you have before class too put the

finishing touches on some assignments, what I mean by this is I'm used to waking up at 4:50 am
every day to catch the bus to school and then begin my day at 6:00 am but now I have almost

three hours too work on any assignment before I'm even presented with a new assignment and

this I feel gives me time to get everything in order for the day and get in a mindset of working

throughout the day. During the 2nd quarter of the first semester when we as students were

presented with the option of going back into school face to face or staying virtual I didn't get the

option to go back because it wasn't even on my form and even later at the start of the 2nd

semester I still couldn't come back face to face because of the concern of my mother with the

increase of confirmed Covid-19 cases that were appearing in the school. But overall I feel like

what worked for me during this attempt at virtual learning was how I handled my work, how I

used the time before class, my mindset going into this, giving it everything I have, and taking

advantage of everything the teachers have given me in order to make this transition smooth.

Near the end of the first semester when I had finally gotten the hang of virtual learning, I

decided to help my fellow students with their work by starting peer tutoring. During this time I

was able too for the first time ever was able to relate to teachers with how hard it is to teach

something without physically being there to help them, some students would have trouble

visualizing how to do certain assignments, some were quick to figure that out but was having a

hard time just with the process they needed to take to solve the problems and then there were

some students that would ask for tutoring and just waste both of our time by not coming and

making up some random excuse. But by far the most difficult thing to do while doing virtual

learning was balancing a part-time job while tutoring and keeping up with my own work from

school, the struggles I ran into while doing this was never having enough time during the day so

I would do all the school work at night and that would leave me drained for the day too come and
this would be a cycle that would go on for five days a week with only the weekends as a break

where I would sometimes still work on things that I know needs to be done but this went on for

the entire first semester until the end of November with something new always popping up

making it harder as you go along but I eventually found a system that worked and was able to

keep good grades, work for 5 hours a day and help tutor my peers.

Lastly, somethings I'm going to change and improve on going forward in the virtual

environment are how I'm going to manage my time be it at work or at home, I'm going to change

how I tutor and which days I'm tutoring on, and I'm going to improve how I section work. How

I'm going to change the way I manage my time is by asking for shorter work hours at my job

because a teacher said to me that it isn't worth losing an education to work when you could have

the opportunity to learn and work for more. The way I'm going to change how and when I tutor

is by doing tutoring every other say instead of every day the reason I'm doing this is so that I

don't get burned out by just working continuously with no break and the way I'm changing how I

tutor is by doing one on one session instead of group session this way when a student that gets

done feels like they understand the subject they can also start help tutoring and this can cause a

change reaction of work people helping given me more time to do things I need to do. And the

way I'm going to improve how I section my work is by adding more work too certain section

compared to others example is let's say I have vocabulary and questions that will take about 45

minutes too complete, I also have a paper that’ll take 2 hours too complete,3 videos each 10

minutes long where I have to write summaries after them and slideshow project that will take

place over the course of 4 days the new way I would section the work is to do the vocabulary by

themself and finish them, then start on the paper get about halfway done with that then go to the
questions about the vocabulary and finish those, then watch all 3 videos and complete their

summaries and finish the paper do all of that in 1 day that way I'll have 3 days to work on the

slideshow project.

In conclusion, if I had to go back and tell past me that wanted to do online schooling

anything in the world I would tell him to brace himself because it won't be easy you will have

very little time, a lot of work, a lot of question about the work, problems adjusting immediately

to the new environment and an interesting experience.