How is "distance learning" going for you and your children?

[Deuxdiesel]

I am curious as to how things are going for parents and their children who have been forced into learning from home due to the pandemic. As a middle school teacher who has been forced into "educating" students remotely, I am looking for some additional perspective on this. If you could please answer three questions I would appreciate it.

1. What is going better than you expected?
2. What has been the most difficult part of this experience?
3. What one thing would you change that would offer the most benefit?

Thanks in advance for any constructive input-
D.

 

[Dan.3]

I have 2 kids doing e learning. Taking this as an opportunity to vent. Oldest in 2nd grade and middle child in kindergarten. The 2nd grade e learning has been marginal at best. Servers are known to have issues for certain required activities. Kindergarten is basic to begin with so not to worried there.

1) Its definitely NOT going better than expected. Sometimes a little worse.
2) Difficult part is not having any of the materials and having to rely on videos. You then have to go back and look for the text in the video to be able to answer a question or listen.
3) I would change the order to have schools opened, for 1st grade through 6th grade at the min. Also, all this screen time is not good for these kids.
It will lead to dry eye syndrome at far earlier ages and is not reversible. Granted now a full day of school has been condensed into a total of 45-60 minutes of videos and is deamed just as if not more effective. Schools are closed because kids spread germs. Daycares can stay open because germ miraculously dont spread there. At least according to our Illinois "govna". And all isolation for these kids is going to have issues. Wondering home many are going to be scarred from engaging in activities but because they might get sick. Bad enough kids are starting at earlier ages staying inside all day talking to "hot" chicks on the internet.

On top of all that, heard from a couple family friends who are teachers in the Chicago area and are now being told by unions that all this e learning isnt part of their contracts and not to put in any effort such as detail videos and/or worried about conducting virtual classes on skype, google, or zoom.

Unless your kids are already conditioned for home schooling, at an elementary level, there is no substitute for kids being in the classroom. My oldest is way ahead of the curve in math. Already taught himself basic multiplication and division since the second half of the year. Where he does struggle is reading where he is behind the curve but is not starting to catch up. We are considering his ADHD as being a factor

 

[Deuxdiesel]

Thanks for the perspectives- I don't consider that venting, just honest opinions from a concerned parent.

 

[Dillusion]

Its going as expected. Not learning much. They have zoom for like a hour a day compared to being in school for 6+ on any normal week.

Only so much you can learn and teach.

To bad my kids are stuck at home with my wife who is a teacher so they get put to a little more work than the rest.

Its only (1) quarter of work so I'm not sweating it.

 

[maximus95]

It hasn't been so bad, although it can be frustrating since one of my professors doesn't interact with us outside of daily quizzes and PDF's accompanied by textbook reading. I could just self-teach using those materials and yet I'm paying tuition..

 

[BrianSD_42]

It's amazing to me that so many Americans are willing to sacrifice children's education to hopefully prevent what is likely a very small percentage of fatalities among adults mostly 50 years and older. Sacrafice the future generation to save the old?

If this distance learning is continued in the fall Millions of American children may be so behind in math and reading that they will never catch up to what would have been.

I am not blaming anyone, especially not teachers or parents but I think we all need to be honest about what these stay at home orders are doing to the children.

And we should ask ourselves is it really right to sacrafice the young to save a tiny percentage of the old?

Keep in mind that just today University of MN published a report estimating that over 50 million (up to 15% of US pop) have ALREADY been infected. What does that say about the death rate? Well at a minimum it is much much lower than the crude fatality numbers.

So there is a very good chance all this damage is behing done to children and 1) the virus will still spread and 2) the virus is very dangerous but nothing like the crude death numbers imply.
.

 

[spartacus]

I am curious as to how things are going for parents and their children who have been forced into learning from home due to the pandemic. As a middle school teacher who has been forced into "educating" students remotely, I am looking for some

preschooler and 1st grader

What has been going better then expected.
We are getting to know really well, their strengths and weakneses relating to their academics. Starting April the teacher has daily class work in all subjects and she grades and comments on his work from previous day which has made him more competitive. He loves to read her good comments. She also wants him to make videos of his works which he loves making and explaining. she also does zoom meetings few times a week with all his classmates which he loves the chaos of those meetings.

2. What has been the most difficult part of this experience.
Trying to get them to sit and pay attention for longer then 10 minutes and concentrate. It's hard for them both to focus. My 6 yr old falls asleep watching videos
Wife and I decided to take off time from our works daily and spend about 1,1/2 hour each with them one on one going through each of their assignments. We print out all of his worksheets and projects and do it on paper scan it or take a photo for the teacher to grade.

3. What one thing you would change that would offer the most benefit?
It would be nice to know everything that the district, school and the teacher requires them to do for the rest of the school year in great detail and what the real expectations as to where they want him to be at by that point. Not sure if I correctly reiterated what I meant to say.
We are trying to make the best out of it just like the teachers. Hope it all ends soon.

 

[Ray Dunakin]

I don't have school-age children but I wonder how it's supposed to work if there are multiple children in a family and only one computer?

 

[spartacus]

I don't have school-age children but I wonder how it's supposed to work if there are multiple children in a family and only one computer?

The school district provides students with chrome books if they don't have access to computers.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Really though, every child will have access to a computer?

All 50 million of them?

There are school districts that cannot afford Chromebooks to hand out.
.

 

[Deuxdiesel]

I think it is reasonable to assume that in the future, all school age children will have some sort of device (Chromebook, iPad) for school use provided to them. A much greater concern is the number of homes, including my own, that do not have high-speed internet available. HughsNet, ATT, Xfinity and all the others will say that the hot-spot wifi's they offer are able to handle the requirements for on-line learning, but the reality is that they are significantly slower than a dedicated cable router.

 

[LandCruiser]

My daughter from my first marriage is 19 and a Sophomore in college and she thinks she's going to have to redo at least this semester since the quality of online learning sucks compared to going to class and actually interacting with teachers.

 

[RichinRidgewood]

You don't need to go to school. You dont need to learn anything. The government will provide you with everything you need. (<<< sarcastic as 'effn possible)

 

[Dillusion]

Really though, every child will have access to a computer?

All 50 million of them?

There are school districts that cannot afford Chromebooks to hand out.
.

They have local packet pick ups weekly here if no laptop. With phone calls. Not ideal but schools not calling the shots to open or not.

 

[cb1111]

I have two viewpoints on this and they are from both sides of the spectrum.

I have two grandkids, 4th and 6th grade, that normally live in MD but stayed with me in VA for a few weeks.

MD had their act together. About a week after they closed the schools they were setting up the distance learning and both kids spent about two hours in class with another four hours of projects - some of which required them to spend time outdoors.

We had tons of computers and plenty of space, so each kid was in their own "home school", but the schools did hand out chromebooks to those students that didn't have them.

The kids are actually enjoying it. They've now moved to their new house in PA, but are still "going to school" in MD - allowing them to finish up the school year in their old school.

On the other side is my brother-in-law who is a 4th grade teacher in MD near the PA border in a pretty depressed neighborhood. He had some very valuable (I thought) observations:

His work day has gotten far harder and longer. His "office hours" are anytime he is not teaching class.

He has had to be creative. One of the assignments was to take pictures of "living things" in your back yard. Some of the students didn't have back yards or the ability to take pictures. He ended up telling the students to draw something that they imagined they'd see in their back yard.

One positive is that he had a student that was so disruptive that social services assigned him a handler. The kid would freak out when he was asked a question or asked to do an assignment. Now, the kid has turned completely around, does work on time and has become a good students. Some of the good students are blowing off class and don't care.

Grading is becoming a problem.

Being a teacher isn't easy in the best of times - one interesting point is no more bullying in school.

 

[Tucson4runner]

1. Nothing is going better then expected. My wife and I expected a much smoother experience then this.

2. It's all been difficult but I think the most difficult would have to be submitting assignments online. My wife (God bless her) has been dealing with 99% of the home schooling of our 3 kids as she has been working from home and I have still been leaving for work. Everyone was thrown into this so quickly that both teachers and students have been having difficulty learning these online platforms that are needed to communicate. With our youngest (5) she has been given worksheets and just has to scan and upload them as well as some videos which has been mostly easy. Its our 2 older ones (11 & 13) who are having the most problems. Submitting documents multiple times across multiple platforms and still not getting a grade, sending documents and then no longer having rights to them and unable to resend or edit them. Individual teachers who prefer one platform over another and vice versa and trying to remember which one wants what. Let's just say we're happy to be in the final stretch and my wife deserves a vacation from all of us.

3. I think if our school chose 1 platform to use for all students and teachers. That way everyone is just learning 1 way to do things instead of everyone choosing which one is easiest for them.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

[Deuxdiesel]

Keep the feedback coming- this really helps in our planning for the future. Not to derail my own thread, but I do think this will happen again in the Fall as flu season exacerbates the problem. It is worth while preparing for both scenarios. I too spend a huge amount of time at home helping students (and parents) with things that would otherwise take mere minutes to explain in the classroom. I have used multiple platforms (Zoom, Kami, Google Hangouts) and it is no replacement for in-person instruction. I do agree that each district should pick one platform and stick with it, and my guess is that there are some pretty smart IT people working on new platforms that will be better for educational use. At least I hope so....

 

[cb1111]

I'm amazed at how bad the video conferencing systems are. We've been talking about this for 20 years but few inroads have been made in reducing bandwidth demands and stability.

We also need on the stick and increase access to broadband to everyone in the US. 5G has possibilities here, but broadband is like water - you need it.

 

[Jdog]

No experience with kids e learning but for myself trig and spanish 101 is a struggle at first. Trig is pretty much a struggle still, 89%. For me the no face to face class is what is difficult.That and the mymathlab. Having simple questions that do not come across in email has made it more stressful.
With a little more studying in trigonometry and some extra credit i should pull 2 A's out of this quarter but they wont come easy though.

 

[Deuxdiesel]

No experience with kids e learning but for myself trig and spanish 101 is a struggle at first. Trig is pretty much a struggle still, 89%. For me the no face to face class is what is difficult.That and the mymathlab. Having simple questions that do not come across in email has made it more stressful.
With a little more studying in trigonometry and some extra credit i should pull 2 A's out of this quarter but they wont come easy though.

Good on you for doing well in such a tough class to learn remotely! Trying to teach my MS Physical Science classes was exceptionally tough because we were unable to conduct all of the experiments and investigations that really connect everything. Here in Michigan it looks like most schools will start up as usual around Labor Day, but what happens after that nobody is too certain of.