How COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts Students Learning

Marye Stuart Greer
JOUR3190
Published in
2 min readApr 21, 2020

By Marye Stuart Greer

Whether you are a medical school student or in kindergarten, the replacement of face-to-face instruction with online learning will affect students in the coming fall semester. Members of the Stratford High School community wonder just how big of a toll the online learning will take on their education

On April 17, Governor Greg Abbott announced that Texas schools will remain closed for the remainder of the semester. Before this executive order, students and teachers were told they would return to school on May 4. The indefinite school closure came as no surprise, but with ample disappointment.

Darlene Parazoit, a geometry teacher at Stratford High School, said that online learning will “definitely” affect student’s academic capabilities in the fall because she is “not able to provide the same rigorous content that I would have in person.”

“The reason most teachers go into teaching is that we really like the students,” Parazoit said.

Emails and Zoom lectures are barely enough to keep her students motivated to learn the material. Although she is barely “staying sane” in isolation due to her extroverted personality, she is even more nervous for August, when she will be expected to teach at double time to make up for the months of online learning. Students that are currently on the AP track, might have to drop down to grade level classes due to the limited resources during the pandemic.

Stratford High School freshman Lindsey Thomas thinks “online learning is kind of confusing and hard to find assignments,” and described the assignments as just a list of things to complete.

Recently, Stratford announced they would be doing pass/fail grading for the semester. Thomas predicts that this decision will lessen students motivation to learn material even more. The physical act of not going to class has made Thomas, and many other students, “just do the bare minimum so [we] can pass.”

Julia Davis, a Stratford alumnae and current student at Louisiana State University, is feeling distraught from the current situation. After Texas closed off its border to Louisiana, she is feeling even more detached from her coursework. With her textbooks and belongings trapped in Baton Rouge, she is having a hard time with the course load.

“LSU is still holding us to the same academic standard, even after switching to optional pass/ fail grading,” Davis said.

Most of Davis’ classes consist of pre-recorded lectures that are hard to concentrate on. As an aspiring law student, she is worried that the online courses will affect her learning abilities. She is just “hanging in there” and hoping for the best during this period isolated learning.

So will the switch to online learning affect students’ education? Most definitely. Without campus resources and face-to-face classes, students are feeling less motivated to learn the curriculum. Whether it be a college or a high school student, drastic measures will need to be taken in order to increase learning in the fall 2020 semester.

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