Online Classes, Where Do Teachers and Students Stand?
How DaVinci Academy used online classes in 2015, and what a teacher and a student thought of learning through a screen.
As technology progresses so has our education system. More and more schools have been using technology to teach. Each school uses technology differently. School funding is going more towards the use of technology in classrooms. A common use of technology nowadays is in online classes. Online classes can be used differently depending on the class.
DaVinci is constantly using different methods to prepare high school students for the future. One of these methods is online classes. DaVinci offers multiple online classes for students to take. Colleges are even leaning more towards the use of technology. Schools are attempting to prepare students for college by introducing online classes.
However in some schools they choose not to use online classes because they do not like that teaching strategy. Teachers do not always like teaching with a computer instead of teaching in a classroom. Students sometimes feel like they can’t ask questions when working with online classes and sometimes feel isolated.
Most teachers think online classes are great for students who struggle with homework or classes that move too quickly or slowly. Mrs. Anderson, the head of online classes, states, “Online classes are for specific students, it works well with students who are highly motivated or students who struggle with homework. It gives students a good experience to manage their time.”
Katerina Winkler, a student at DaVinci Academy, takes in-school classes for the first half of the day and online classes for the second half of the day. “It’s efficient time-wise but I like in-school classes better.” Katerina also agrees that it is more difficult to take online classes because there’s no social interaction, the work is harder, and you have to take lots of notes.
Online classes are a wonderful tool to help prepare students for college life, although they are not for everyone. They can help students manage their time and learn how to overcome the challenges of taking a difficult class. Even though online classes can do many things to help students, not everyone feels comfortable not taking classes in a school with a teacher being face to face.
What researchers found
The pandemic later forced a huge, unplanned test of learning away from the classroom. A 2022 study (arXiv:2208.11606) estimated the cost of school closures and online learning for every Italian student in grades 5, 8 and 13 during the 2021/22 school year. It found average national losses of 1.6 to 4.1% in math test scores and 0.5 to 2.4% in Italian. The drop was larger for high school students, which the authors link to older students relying more on their peers. That was emergency remote teaching, not elective courses like these, but it echoes the worry about missing social interaction.
