When schools shut down in California, no one knew what was going to happen with the rest of the semester. I remember my sixth period teacher reading the email the district had sent her about classes being suspended for two weeks. At the time, it didn’t really seem like anything serious, and I just saw it as a nice, impromptu break. However, the break kept on getting extended until it was eventually confirmed that we wouldn’t be going back to school and we would be starting distance learning.

This experience has proven challenging for different reasons. Everything from faulty internet to canvas issues to forgetting to upload an assignment can completely mess with someone’s schedule. There were also issues when teachers and students were trying to figure out how to pace classes, making sure that we were taught all that we needed in order to move on next year while being understanding about the challenges of working at home. 

With the end of the semester already here and the beginning of next school year right around the corner, it has become clear that the 2020-2021 school year will likely not let us return to our pre COVID-19 school system. That being said, it does look like there will be opportunity for more face to face interactions between students and staff. Most options point to students having hybrid classes with some days purely online and others with in person class meetings. Since online classes are likely going to continue having a role in highschool curriculum, here is what I think worked well and what didn’t.

One method this year that I really liked was separating assignments into week by week categories. To do this, one teacher I had used a single, fairly long google doc and another used an image with different links attached. Two teachers used canvas pages to separate their assignments. Two teachers I had didn’t have a system like this, and I found it harder to keep track of what was going on in their classes. It can be easy to forget to check a class for an assignment if the way assignments are posted is irregular and feels random.

Another thing I liked was having pre-recorded loom videos. In a time where everything feels so foreign, having a plain, straightforward lesson being taught through slideshows offered some sort of sense of normalcy that I greatly appreciated. I also liked these because they were easy to fit into my schedule, unlike google meets meetings which required my immediate attention at a set time. The other thing that was so great about these was that they allowed me to go back and take another look at challenging concepts. I found this especially helpful in my chem class.

Though I liked the pre-recorded videos, I wasn’t a fan of live video meets. At least twice my computer randomly shut down while I was in a class meeting, and I wasn’t able to get it working again before the class period was over. I’ve also had my internet go down a couple times in the middle of these. Luckily these incidents happened in classes that I had friends in, and they were able to facetime me so I could see their screen. Regardless of these issues, I do understand that it was helpful for people to have times to ask the teacher questions and these were necessary.

Something else I didn’t like all too much was testing schedules. I understand having a time limit on tests, and that’s not what I’m talking about here. Some teachers would have it where you could only open the test at a very specific time, and while I understand where they’re coming from, occasional internet issues made this difficult. As I said, since quarantine, my internet has randomly disconnected at random times, and my greatest schooling fear was this happening while I was in the middle of a test. My internet did happen to go down while I was in the middle of a math test once, and it was stressful having to go find my phone and try to switch my hotspot on so I could connect my laptop to it. Even then, the internet was slow and I lost a lot of time because of that.

Overall, though, distance learning wasn’t all that bad. It had its ups and downs, but it was doable. If we have to do it again for the fall semester then it won’t be the worst thing in the world. As for what will happen next year, I’m in favor of having hybrid classes where students go to school only one day of the week and do distance learning for the other four weekdays. I feel this system best allows for social distancing while also letting students and staff have much needed time to discuss topics face to face. Whatever system we use, though, I’m sure we’ll be able to get through it.