Q&A: Are Online Classes Effective During The Pandemic?
On March 16 Governor Phil Murphy closed all public schools and universities. This sent the Nwanonyiri family and every other student in New Jersey home to do their classes online. Without much planning, teachers were forced to move everything online and their students are suffering from the lack of preparation. Chioma Nwanonyiri, a Rutgers University junior, Obianuju Nwanonyiri, a Union High School sophomore, and Chiamaka Nwanonyiri, a Union Elementary School fifth-grader sat down to share their experience transferring to online classes.
Are you still working?
Chioma: Yeah. I’m on a hiatus. Or whatever the heck you call it. I was working as a scribe at a hospital before the pandemic got super terrible. We had a meeting on March 1 to discuss how it wasn’t safe for scribes to be in the ER anymore. Before we were still working, but taking precautions.
Have you guys been able to focus on your schoolwork?
Chiamaka: Sometimes yeah, because I’m in the dining room doing all my work and sometimes dad’s yelling on the phone with work.
Obianuju: I’m less motivated to study as hard because you know one the teachers are going to be giving crazy questions and you’re going to have your notes right in front of you. Being in high school, if there’s a big test coming up everybody reviews together. It helped me because if I didn’t know something they could help explain it.
Do your classes meet synchronously or do they email you assignments?
Obianuju: The school district called and said that we’re gonna start doing that [class meetings online] next week. I don’t know if they’re serious or not. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.
Chiamaka: No, I haven’t done any Google meet things that I said before. My math class was supposed to have video chats with my teacher or the rest of my class, but it didn’t work.
Chioma: All my classes are recorded except for one class where we meet as a class, but of course BigBlueButton [on SAKAI] never works.
Have you had any technical difficulties taking up your class time?
Chioma: Yes, but it’s less of a tech problem and more of the teacher. I have this one teacher who at the beginning really couldn’t get it together on Sakai. We’re trying to use BigBlueButton on Sakai where you have classroom meetings. It’s so easy, but when we’re trying to click into the meeting it would say there’s no moderator. A couple of people could get in the class and use Sakai chat to say the teacher is talking right now and we can’t get into this meeting. Eventually, she would have to record it. With exams, I think teachers are getting bold now because they know that we have our notes and they know most people are going to be working together so they make the test questions harder and would word the questions to confuse us. It’s easier to make mistakes when you’re asking the question. So for my last three exams, I had teachers after we all took the exams and the teachers would have to go back in and fix their errors and change grades.
Chiamaka: My teacher tried testing out Google Groups. It didn’t work.
Obianuju: There haven’t been technical difficulties because, for me, it’s straight to the point. It’s here’s the work, figure it out. The only technical difficulty would be the teacher assigning the wrong thing and then by the time the teacher realized their mistake, it’s like 8 o’clock at night and everybody already did the work. Besides that it’s been pretty straightforward, here’s the work. There you go. That’s it.
Do you feel like you are receiving an education equal to when classes were in person?
Obianuju: It’s not the same if you were in school. Most of my teachers send me to YouTube. If this is what I could have been doing, why was I even going to school before? I need some student to teacher communication instead of them just giving us the work. I feel like this way feels more isolated than them sending a quick video. Two of my teachers have been sending videos, which is helpful. But, honestly, they don’t explain the work, we have to just figure it out.
Chimoa: I’ve noticed with the younger kids that they are done with their school work in like two hours. Before, their school day was seven hours. They’re definitely not learning as effectively as they would if they were in school. When you’re in those younger grades you actually want to have teacher-student communication because you’re learning a lot of brand new stuff in elementary school. In college, there’s less of a connection because people take online classes and professors lecture off PowerPoints. Being in class puts me in the mindset to focus and listen to the teacher. Now I’m home which I don’t associate with school. That’s why I decided to dorm. For my class on Tuesday, my professor records the meeting so I did a workout instead. I was going to listen to it later and get everything done, but now my brain is scattered. Being home is different, but not terrible. But for the younger grades, I don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all a joke.
How should your teachers improve their online classes?
Obianuju: Yeah! Get a whiteboard and start teaching. It’s their class and at the end of the year, they’re going to be testing for the information you want. So why send us videos of somebody else teaching.
Chioma: If they could just send videos of them teaching it would be more beneficial. Like I said, some of my teachers already do that which is way more helpful than just getting a YouTube video from some random person.
Obianuju: Right now they just send the work and they chill all day. Some teachers post the assignment for the day and don’t log on until the next day. If you have a question you have to catch them at a certain time.
Chioma: Most of my professors are quick at answering emails. I haven’t talked to one of my old professors in a year and I emailed him about Organic Chemistry. He replied immediately. College really isn’t any different. I’m still sitting down, listening to a lecture, and watching a PowerPoint. They just need to calm down with the harder exams. I’m sure people are really going through it. They don’t need all that extra stress.
How have your performance and art classes transitioned to online learning?
Chiamaka: I don’t have vocal classes anymore. For my instrumental music class, the teacher sends us a writing assignment every two weeks, where we watch two videos of his favorite artist and write a paragraph. He also gives us a practice log to fill out.
Obianuju: For gym class, you do an activity for 25 minutes minimum and then fill out a Google form on what exercise you did and for how long. Before COVID in my ceramics class, we were learning about clay masks. Now we research clay masks and look at pictures. We don’t actually do any ceramics.
Is there anything good about having class online?
Chioma: I’ve noticed that people are a lot more comfortable asking questions. I was never that uncomfortable asking questions. Usually, the class is so big and it’s a lot of effort to talk to them after class because a whole line of students are waiting to ask their questions. I tell myself that I’ll email them but I never actually do. With online classes, I can just type in my question and then they’d answer.
Obianuju: Now I feel like I have less questions than I usually do because I don’t even know what to ask a question about. I do it and hope it’s right.
Have your professors added more work to the syllabus to compensate for being online?
Obianuju: When we first started it was bad. Oh my gosh. It was so overwhelming. I was doing work for hours. Then they started this system to split your schedule between even and odd days. Now things are a lot better.
Chioma: Only one of my professors has added more work. She’s been interviewing PAs [physicians assistants] and doctors about COVID and then questions us about them on the exams. That’s the only thing I have to do that’s extra. I wouldn’t complain if the videos were shorter. I have to watch the lectures, study for the MCAT, and then on top I have to watch these 30-minute interviews. They’re interesting but I don’t have the time.
Anything else on your mind that I haven’t asked?
Chioma: Open Rutgers fall 2020!
