Teachers adjust to distance learning
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, classes at CVHS have been suspended but CVHS teachers have continued teaching using online and distance learning methods.
According to a survey taken by 29 CVHS teachers, 82.8 percent assign work though Google Classroom, 34.4 percent use online textbooks, 27.6 percent assign work on YouTube, and 17.2 percent use Zoom or Skype.
According to math teacher Glenn Mitchell, teachers can also assign homework through Khan Academy and Shmoop.
“The school has encouraged us to try Shmoop, a service that they have invested money in,” Mitchell claimed. Shmoop premium is free for CVHS students. Shmoop can be a way to study for AP exams at home.
A new schedule allows video classes on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesdays are scheduled as work days when Torpey asks teachers not to hold classes.
Some students are enjoying this method of self teaching and learning.
“Self-studying can help a lot because there are no distractions, and the job can be done quicker,” said senior Alex Choy.
Distance learning for me is a weird experience. The workload is sometimes too much and can cause more stress than the typical school experience, currently it’s friday and the amount of work i have to do is more than i think i should have to handle. Teachers need to understand that outside of school, especially in an epidemic, work should not be given to students by the truckload, cvhs students have a lot more to do in life than school work and at this point it is almost intruding on my daily life. All i can think about is schoolwork; making the deadlines , the classes on zoom, the projects, the weird assignments (sometimes) that involve me doing work outside of google classroom, and this all compacts into stress for me, right now in life i am undergoing a lot of stress and things that i have to do other than school. We need a smaller workload, please give us all the work we have to do for the week on monday, make it all on google classroom and make it a smaller workload so it’s easier on the teachers and the students.
Distance learning has been interesting mainly because I am having to learn in a completely new way which I don’t necessarily like. Google is providing a great service through Classroom which is making this all so much easier than without it, but I would say its much harder to actually learn something new when a teacher isn’t there to teach it to you themselves. But I don’t think that the schools have got this all figured out quite yet and there could be some improvements to distance learning as a whole.
I think teachers are abusing the whole distance learning thing. Yes, with this whole quarantine thing going on, students have more time to get work done, but students will procrastinate and forget work just as much, if not more than normal with this quarantine too. I’ve heard complaints from many students saying their teachers are giving more work than usual and it’s unfair that teachers think they can give us way more work than normal just because we aren’t in class anymore.
Personally, distance learning for me is much easier than classroom work. I have so much more free time whereas before I had none during traditional school. The hardest part for me as a senior and many of my classmates is the social aspect of physically being there in school in the last quarter of our last year and having to deal with so many big events that are missing now. Choir tour, the Spanish program trip to Costa Rica, graduation, and prom were all very important things I was looking forward to that were cancelled, but the hope that they’ll be rescheduled, even if they aren’t exactly the same, brings a little more light into this time.