Thoughts on the effects of online learning by those affected by it most: Students and Teachers
By: Juan Castro
Tags: Covid 19, Students, Teachers, Technology, Education

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced everyone to adapt to societal changes in order to prevent the spreading of the virus. Much of these changes included a deeper implementation of technology into everyone’s daily lives.

In the educational system, students and teachers have moved from the classroom into their homes for online learning. Online learning consists of students learning and instructors teaching through the internet by means of synchronous or asynchronous meetings.

While online learning provides a safer environment for students and the school faculty, it does not come without its advantages and disadvantages.

Jesus Gutierrez participating in online learning from his kitchen. Image by Marisol Hernandez.

Online learning has taken the world of education by a storm. Changing the way students learn all across the world. Rather than simple notebooks and pencils like before students now need tablets and chromebooks to get their education.

“I think the biggest challenge for me was taking notes. Because right now since it’s online, it’s more convenient to take notes on the computer rather than taking notes in a notebook…I learn better writing it down,” said Jesus Gutierrez a senior at Streamwood high school.

We look into how e-learning has affected kids of all ages. From students in elementary school to college students, we are able to talk about and observe how the shift to online learning has affected their education.

“It also has forced me to get used to using technology more, which is something that I’m not super into, like, I really don’t think that technology necessarily makes things better,” said Caroline Dukich, a teacher at Streamwood High School. “And now I don’t have a choice, like it has to be technology-based,”

Dukich said this when talking about the new environment she’s in with online learning and how it affects her teaching experience.

It can be easily seen that technology is constantly evolving. In terms of education, schools across the world have shifted from in-person classes to online learning. Chicago has implemented this change to online education in K-12 and university/college classes.

Timeline of school closures in the United States according to Education Week. Graphic by Marisol Hernandez.

Not only has online learning affected how the students learn but it has also been a challenge for teachers to re-evaluate their ways of teaching to fit this new style of learning.

It’s interesting to see how all of this is affecting young students who are barely starting their educational careers. A student from the elementary school grade, the middle school grade, high school grade, and a high school teacher have given accounts of their experiences of online learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Student’s Perspective

Online learning was implemented in all education levels. With this crazy switch to online learning, along with the stress of the current pandemic facing the world, students were in for a shock.

Research conducted by Dimah. Al-Fraihat on Evaluating E-learning systems says that

“E-learning has expanded rapidly with a variety of technologies and devices to access learning resources, such as laptops, computers, smartphones, and tablets.”

There might be a heavy presence of technology in today’s society, but it was never this heavily interconnected with our education system.

“I’m pretty bad at technology? I don’t know. We had to get used to the technology like moving from Google Classroom, which is a different website. So we had a change to that, which is pretty hard,” states Jacqueline Gutierrez, a 7th grade student who attends middle school completely remotely. This was her response when asked what her least favorite part about online learning is which is the heavy use of technology.

Though it’s true that the use of technologies are becoming more common, this does not correlate to these students’ varying levels of knowledge on how to work with them.

A similarity amongst the various age groups interviewed all agreed that they prefer in-person learning to online learning. For reasons such as better interactions with teachers for getting assistance and more socializing overall.

Students oftentimes have difficulties concentrating when they are in the classroom. Now they are at home with double the distractions. The change in environment caused a huge impact on these students’ abilities to focus and concentrate on school work.

Jacqueline Gutierrez commented on the environment she’s in when she receives her online education “I was in my room for the first semester, which probably wasn’t the best for me, because it made me more sleepy And like, I wouldn’t focus as much in my class. But I changed to the living room with a little desk. So I can sit up and take notes and focus in my classes and do my homework better there.”

All the students who participated in this research mentioned how they changed their learning environment to minimize distractions such as a comfy bed or a room full of toys.

Jesus Gutierrez participating in online learning from his kitchen. Image by Marisol Hernandez.

Dukich, a history teacher at Streamwood High school, stated the following when asked “What was one thing online learning has taught you?”

“It’s also taught me like the kids that do well, when we’re in school, are still doing well, outside of school, like in distance learning. The kids who maybe don’t put forth the effort that they need to do, are still kind of doing that with online learning.”

Further proving that there has to be motivation or a drive to want to achieve more educationally whether it be online or in person school. Dukich brings about a different aspect to our research.

High School Teacher’s Perspective

This new structure that online learning brings was a learning experience for most teachers.

Having to learn new software with little training, having to convert their lessons to digital forms, finding a way to adjust their teaching material to accommodate new schedules, trying to build teacher-student relationships through a black screen, etc. These are just some of the challenges teachers have been facing with online learning.

This prevalent idea that going into the educational field isn’t a good idea has grown to have such a strong and negative connotation around it.

Yet according to sources like Business Insider shows that those in the education field are seen as having some of the most meaningful jobs in America. Shaping the future of our students is a job for a hero.

However, despite a teacher’s work in molding the people of tomorrow the pandemic is bringing to light the negative thoughts people have about teachers. These negative feelings towards teachers have been around for a while, despite teachers efforts.

Many teachers find themselves working outside of the classroom, on their own time, to create and complete things for their class. As salary workers, they do not receive compensation for any of this work. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the protections for workers do not apply the same way that they do for teachers.

With an ongoing pandemic forcing changes into the educational institutions, teachers are receiving the short end of the stick. Not only in some of the disadvantages of online learning, but as well in the compensation for figuring out the transition to online on their own.

“Teachers who work outside of the classroom do so because of their own drive/passion to be good educators that want to impact students.” Dukich said. “Many believe that teaching is a 7am-3pm job; and for some that is true, like in any profession they do the bare minimum. However, most teachers are working constantly to get lessons done, grade papers, etc., well beyond the time people see them in the classroom. If teachers were NOT working outside of the classroom, education would be an even bigger mess than it is now.”

The Future

Jacqueline Gutierrez: “I think it would still be implemented because even if we have the vaccines, we’ve just started to be safe and if the vaccines don’t work that well then we will still do online classes.”

The coronavirus pandemic has shown, however, that students and teachers, and people in general, are missing that social interaction with others. Aristotle said it himself, “Man is by nature, a social animal.”

Though online learning does have its benefits, It’s not seen as beneficial as in-person learning. Both sides of the relationship have stated that in-person learning is beneficial to learning and teaching.

“The thing I like the least is that students become more discouraged online, because so much more accountability is placed on them.” Dukich said. “They don’t have that nagging teacher next to them telling them to turn in work, because they can just hit the mute button. And I think that’s probably the worst part. Because, you know, kids are coping with a pandemic, and then they’re also coping with a very different experience with education. And I think all those things coupled together, just makes it kind of a crappy experience.”