Kids Virtual learning experience (1 Viewer)

I teach high school in Georgia and we were face to face learning all year, with some students who chose virtual learning.  Just curious what the experience was like in other states for your students, whether it was face to face or virtual.

Standing Hampton said:

I teach high school in Georgia and we were face to face learning all year, with some students who chose virtual learning.  Just curious what the experience was like in other states for your students, whether it was face to face or virtual.

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In Michigan, pretty large suburban district. We offered F2F or virtual. Parents got to choose. We had about 1000 HS kids choose virtual and about 3500 HS kids choose F2F. 

Though F2F was paused several times due to COVID outbreaks.

full virtual for my kids since March 2020. 

it sucked. bad. March '20 - June '20 was basically "you're on your own." which was somewhat understandable in that this thing kind of hit out of nowhere, but the school district had no plan at all. they eventually rolled out some stock program for kids to follow that amounted to about 20 minutes of generic work a day.

took them until probably Christmas last year before they got their arms around how to teach kids remotely. and then they tried forcing kids back to in-person school.

the remote kids got maybe 10% of what they needed. meet with their teacher(s) once a week for 5-10 minutes. meet with the other remote kids once a week to giggle at each other for a few minutes.. everything else completely up to a stock program that was not the same curriculum as the in-person kids.

we thought that a majority of kids were remote schooling. just got he kid's yearbooks. the school separated in-person and remote students in to different sections. out of about 100 in each grade, maybe 10 were remote.

i'm pretty pissed off about it and feel like my kids are a year behind. they're going to struggle a ton next year. school district's response: "aww, it's cute that you're mad.. maybe you should have sent your kids to school and not been such a sheep?"

mr. furley said:

full virtual for my kids since March 2020. 

it sucked. bad. March '20 - June '20 was basically "you're on your own." which was somewhat understandable in that this thing kind of hit out of nowhere, but the school district had no plan at all. they eventually rolled out some stock program for kids to follow that amounted to about 20 minutes of generic work a day.

took them until probably Christmas last year before they got their arms around how to teach kids remotely. and then they tried forcing kids back to in-person school.

the remote kids got maybe 10% of what they needed. meet with their teacher(s) once a week for 5-10 minutes. meet with the other remote kids once a week to giggle at each other for a few minutes.. everything else completely up to a stock program that was not the same curriculum as the in-person kids.

we thought that a majority of kids were remote schooling. just got he kid's yearbooks. the school separated in-person and remote students in to different sections. out of about 100 in each grade, maybe 10 were remote.

i'm pretty pissed off about it and feel like my kids are a year behind. they're going to struggle a ton next year. school district's response: "aww, it's cute that you're mad.. maybe you should have sent your kids to school and not been such a sheep?"

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How old are your kids?

Ilov80s said:

Though F2F was paused several times due to COVID outbreaks.

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We had that too.  
Also had many students quarantined during the year due to a case of COVID or contact tracing.

Standing Hampton said:

How old are your kids?

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I’m not trying to contradict what you’re saying about the lack of preparation by the school system, but you must understand that this did come out of nowhere and we too had “canned” platform.   The students, and parents, realized how important face to face instruction is because of accountability, response time, access, etc.  

Standing Hampton said:

How old are your kids?

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going in to 5th and 8th grade in the fall

Standing Hampton said:

We had that too.  
Also had many students quarantined during the year due to a case of COVID or contact tracing.

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At one point we had over 100 positive cases among students. Another time we had 20% of our students quarantining. 

Standing Hampton said:

I’m not trying to contradict what you’re saying about the lack of preparation by the school system, but you must understand that this did come out of nowhere and we too had “canned” platform.   The students, and parents, realized how important face to face instruction is because of accountability, response time, access, etc.  

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100% understood and honestly i figured the SD would punt on the 2019/2020 school year instead of trying to limp through the last 2 1/2 months.

that they put up anything was surprising and we had no expectations of success at all. it as just nice to have the kids doing something even if those 2 1/2 months were totally ad hoc.

but 5 1/2 months later when the 2020 year started up and the SD's solution was "well, we didn't really talk about how to handle this coming school year because everyone is off during the summer and we just reconvened to discuss plans a week ago....."

and that it took them months to get anything like a syllabus or agenda together for remote kids, who were a total afterthought as it turned out, is a joke.

we were told that if our kids fall behind or struggle in school it's our fault for not sending them in-person where there were no safety protocols in place. none. 

in the beginning of the school year we were getting emails about kids/teachers/staff having been quarantined for covid. notes about in person being shutdown for a few days/week, etc. then those notes stopped. we heard from other parents that their kid/their friend's kids/parents/etc. were under quarantine, but school said nothing. parents weren't notified in any way.

so a group of parents with remote learning students who were waffling on sending their kids back (we got to opt in or out every trimester) sent a letter to the school asking why the notifications had stopped and the response was in a nutshell "we couldn't keep sending notifications every day.. people were getting worn out by the news so we stopped."

not exactly a confidence booster.

Fully virtual most of the school year. A few months ago they offered 2 days a week for those who wanted some F2F. That then increased to 4 days a week. Two of my kids (both HS) went back 2 days and then 4 days. One kid (middle school) started off going back 2 days a week but then we just switched him to virtual the rest of the year. The few days he went in, he was the only kid on the bus and his classes only had 2-3 people in them. That was also true for the older two, but they didn't seem to mind that. For my younger one, I think he was excited about going back at first because he thought he'd get to see some friends he hasn't seen in a long time. But they weren't there. I'm not sure what the overall numbers were, but it definitely seemed like most kids just stayed virtual.

mr. furley said:

but 5 1/2 months later when the 2020 year started up and the SD's solution was "well, we didn't really talk about how to handle this coming school year because everyone is off during the summer and we just reconvened to discuss plans a week ago....."

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I'm not going to comment on every district because some handled it poorly for a variety of different reasons, but the lack of gov't direction/resources and yo-yo policy throughout summer put schools in a position to fail. Can't make a good plan when you don't know expectations, limitations, or additional available funding.

From a learning perspective our kids hated remote days, but I don't think it had a tangible impact because it wasn't frequent. Our kids were F2F, but they did one remote day every 2 weeks. At first it was for cleaning purposes, but they stuck with it because they realized by having them when exposed/positive kids went remote the transition was smoother (they're used to it). There was only one unexpected school shutdown (3 days iirc) and they decided to do a full remote week immediately after both thanksgiving and christmas. 

I can't comment on a spending perspective at the K-12 level, but I assume their experiences were similar to what we had at the college level. I also assume they couldn't prepare with it in mind because we didn't have access to those resources until after the school year began - and once released to us spending policies kept getting amended (without notice ). I think we administered relatively well because we had already established a priority list, but we certainly would have better utilized it had we received that funding in a more timely manner and restrictions related to it not constantly change.

11-12 year old boy in 6th grade in Northern California. We were full-time distance learning from March 2020 up until April, then 2 days a week in person. Then full-time the last 6 weeks of school.

The full distance learning was awful. My kid struggled badly. It was obvious the teachers were struggling, too. My kid just couldn't pay attention for a full school day, while sitting in front of a computer. He would get tempted to surf the internet and was constantly downloading apps and not pay attention. His level of engagement was horrible. He would constantly turn off his camera, assignments were always late or missing. I struggled all year to figure out ways to keep him motivated and engaged: Sat in with him for the full day a couple of times (which embarrassed the crap out of him), took electronics away during the week, offered cash incentives for good grades, spent hours doing assignments with him that he should/could have gotten done in class. 

The one teacher who was most effective was the guy who taught Social Studies and PE- he was an old school, no-nonsense guy who had a good handle on technology. He would txt me immediately if my kid was falling behind and force the kids to all have their cameras on. He had a predictable syllabus, with a rigid structure and assignments to turn in on a regular schedule. He was also comfortable with technology, and even though he told a lot of dad jokes, was engaging with the kids through video. 

The most ineffective approach relied on using canned videos and on-line learning portals that had some really shoddy interfaces and weak content. One particular teacher seemed overwhelmed by technology and her whole curriculum seemed to rely on those. She came across like a reluctant warden at a forced labor camp.

Once face-to-face learning started, my kid had a lot more engagement in school. His grades came back up and assignments were being done, on time and usually during classes. The whole year was horrible. That's not even taking into account the social aspect of not hanging out with other kids for an entire year. 

ProstheticRGK said:

The full distance learning was awful. My kid struggled badly. It was obvious the teachers were struggling, too. My kid just couldn't pay attention for a full school day, while sitting in front of a computer. He would get tempted to surf the internet and was constantly downloading apps and not pay attention. His level of engagement was horrible. He would constantly turn off his camera, assignments were always late or missing. I struggled all year to figure out ways to keep him motivated and engaged: Sat in with him for the full day a couple of times (which embarrassed the crap out of him), took electronics away during the week, offered cash incentives for good grades, spent hours doing assignments with him that he should/could have gotten done in class. 

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this was my 10 year old. she needs interaction with other people. she needs to be in a classroom to focus. she gets way too distracted sitting in front of a computer basically trying to teach herself. she struggled terribly and her teacher either wasn't equipped to help, or didn't care.

we tried spending time with her during the day, after school hours, after dinner, etc. and that helped some, but it felt like school essentially outsourced their jobs to parents while still expecting us to pay fees, etc. and promote their institution.

up until about spring this year the teacher my kid worked with were extremely irregular about responding to emails.. and when they did, were really poor about offering anything useful.

i think what the teachers were told is "we're rolling out this stock online program we found and paid for, therefore remote kids will get what they need from the program so you can focus on the in-person kids".  i get it, but by doing do the SD essentially abdicated any responsibility for those kids to the parents.

we know some parents who got fed up and sent their kids in-person, only to result in covid in their homes. whether it came from the school or not.. hard to say.. but at least in 2 instances the only outside of home contact anyone in their family had was their kid being at school, so it seems at least likely covid came from school, which didn't need to happen.

all in all i hope this never happens again. homeschooling might be great for stay-at-home parents whose sole focus is schooling and providing a modern education, but it's not great for parents who work full-time, or who just aren't capable of providing anything like a competent educational experience.

it definitely gave me a greater appreciation for teachers (and i hold them in high regard) in general, but my confidence in the local SD and their handling of this whole situation took a huge hit.

We homeschooled my 9 year old daughter this year. Some issues but we muddled through.

My 6th grade son was remote for the first 9 weeks then went back f2f 3 days a week, then fully back for spring semester. 

My 9th grade some was f2f all year. It was mandatory for ROTC kids. 
 

My oldest was quarantined 5 times and had to be tested 3 times. 
Middle son was quarantined 3 times, all in the last weeks of school. Tested positive 3 weeks or more ago. Oddly, it wasn’t while he was quarantined and the HD was unable to trace the exposure. He also played soccer all spring. That is my guess for where he got it.
 

Ilov80s said:

At one point we had over 100 positive cases among students. Another time we had 20% of our students quarantining. 

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[sarcasm]

But wait! Others in the FFA said that their face-to-face wide-open schools had barely any student cases at all! How could your school have had over 100 at once?

[/sarcasm]

In brief:

I had a 12th-grade daughter and an 8th-grade son in full 100% virtual this past school year. Both needed quite a bit of prompting to pay attention to their lessons, though my daughter ended up doing better and better as time went on. Still, she was turning in practically every assignment late (sometimes weeks late). There was leniency built into the virtual-school system that allowed her to get away with this with relatively minor effects on her grades. But still -- it was less than ideal.

My son going through 8th grade remotely was a mess. He really needed an adult sitting next to him at all times THAT COULD STRICTLY WATCH HIM WORK. No "sharing the kitchen table with a parent doing office work". Adult eyes on my son's screen at all times or he wouldn't participate. We got him to pass 8th grade by the skin of his teeth, but it required a ton of re-teaching and propping up.

One thing that sucked about my son's virtual program was that he was required to be in five 90-minute Zoom calls a day. I'd struggle hard with that and would most definitely be doing something off on the side to fight boredom. My son struggled immensely. Sending him back face-to-face wasn't a good solution -- the kids at the physical school were still learning virtually at laptops, just doing it in the classroom instead of in their home. Same Zoom calls the remote kids were in. Teachers were sometimes in the classroom (but could not walk around and make rounds) and sometimes remote from home.

ProstheticRGK said:

The full distance learning was awful. My kid struggled badly. It was obvious the teachers were struggling, too. My kid just couldn't pay attention for a full school day, while sitting in front of a computer. He would get tempted to surf the internet and was constantly downloading apps and not pay attention. His level of engagement was horrible. He would constantly turn off his camera, assignments were always late or missing. I struggled all year to figure out ways to keep him motivated and engaged: Sat in with him for the full day a couple of times (which embarrassed the crap out of him), took electronics away during the week, offered cash incentives for good grades, spent hours doing assignments with him that he should/could have gotten done in class. 

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Preach.

Sad thing is ... for self-motivated kids, my son's virtual program was probably laughably easy. It was like an attention-span contest every day.

Doug B said:

In brief:

I had a 12th-grade daughter and an 8th-grade son in full 100% virtual this past school year. Both needed quite a bit of prompting to pay attention to their lessons, though my daughter ended up doing better and better as time went on. Still, she was turning in practically every assignment late (sometimes weeks late). There was leniency built into the virtual-school system that allowed her to get away with this with relatively minor effects on her grades. But still -- it was less than ideal.

My son going through 8th grade remotely was a mess. He really needed an adult sitting next to him at all times THAT COULD STRICTLY WATCH HIM WORK. No "sharing the kitchen table with a parent doing office work". Adult eyes on my son's screen at all times or he wouldn't participate. We got him to pass 8th grade by the skin of his teeth, but it required a ton of re-teaching and propping up.

One thing that sucked about my son's virtual program was that he was required to be in five 90-minute Zoom calls a day. I'd struggle hard with that and would most definitely be doing something off on the side to fight boredom. My son struggled immensely. Sending him back face-to-face wasn't a good solution -- the kids at the physical school were still learning virtually at laptops, just doing it in the classroom instead of in their home. Same Zoom calls the remote kids were in. Teachers were sometimes in the classroom (but could not walk around and make rounds) and sometimes remote from home.

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We did GoogleMeets and, being high school, were asynchronous so we'd have a regular class time.  This meant that the meeting would take place during the face to face school time, and I'd record every meeting.  The students could log into the meeting if they wanted to, but it wasn't required.  I usually didn't have any students show up, but I would still go through the material for that day and post the session in their learning platform.  I had some students who never even logged into the class.  These are juniors in high school, mind you.  

Had comments from parents about how they "couldn't get their child to do anything".  What?  And this is when we were quarantined during the year for a week or so.  They wouldn't even log on.  Having to do a lot of "recovery" classes this summer because so many students failed because they did nothing.  

I don't know how many of you FFG are working remotely now, but look at this from a workforce perspective.  Today's high school students won't do school work remotely, how we they fare in a remote working environment?

12 yo in SoCal. Most of the year the school was broken up in two 2 cohorts.  A on campus 4 days in the morning, B on campus 4 days in the afternoon.  just under 3 hours per day.  Wednesdays were remote for everyone.  

Kid likes school so she was bored and hated it.  Missed out on her first year of changing classes, getting lockers, etc. Also some of her friends were in different cohorts so she didnt get to see them as much.  Didn't feel like she was learning but made the best of it.  Excellent grades though.

She is hopeful to be back in full next year.

Standing Hampton said:

We did GoogleMeets and, being high school, were asynchronous so we'd have a regular class time.  This meant that the meeting would take place during the face to face school time, and I'd record every meeting.  The students could log into the meeting if they wanted to, but it wasn't required.  I usually didn't have any students show up, but I would still go through the material for that day and post the session in their learning platform.  I had some students who never even logged into the class.  These are juniors in high school, mind you.  

Had comments from parents about how they "couldn't get their child to do anything".  What?  And this is when we were quarantined during the year for a week or so.  They wouldn't even log on.  Having to do a lot of "recovery" classes this summer because so many students failed because they did nothing.  

I don't know how many of you FFG are working remotely now, but look at this from a workforce perspective.  Today's high school students won't do school work remotely, how we they fare in a remote working environment?

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We had required synchronous classes but lots of kids skipped or showed up, turned off their cams on went on mute so presumably weren’t paying attention. Lots of missing work. Really high failure rates and these kids/parents volunteered for virtual both for first semester and again for second. I felt bad for the online classroom teachers because they were basically just talking to themselves for 9 months.

Indy suburb.  We were virtual March - June 2020.  We were F2F starting 20-21 school year with option for virtual.  Then back to all virtual when winter spike hit.  Then after Spring Break, back to a hybrid of virtual on Monday and F2F the other 4 days.  This was middle and high school.  Elementary school was F2F the whole year.  
 

Virtual sucked IMO in 20-21. I get the 2020 spring was just put a band-aid on it.  But this school year seemed “light” when it was all virtual.  My high schooler was fine but my middle schooler struggled massively. I shudder to think how bad it would have been if my elementary school kid was virtual.  
 

The school has announced 21-22 will be normal F2F.  No virtual option.  

NJ started year hybrid.   With option for full virtual.

November maybe they went full time (virtual option) but reduced hours no lunch.  So basically 7:30 to 12 instead of 7:30 to 2:15 

Our schedule always rotates classes so they have 6 of their 8 every day.

There were a couple shutdowns along the way and I think we went virtual a couple on purpose after Christmas break and easter.

Overall very well done, I know others not so lucky 

Our Governor over reached and I'm not sure how much he had to do with school districts, but ours handled it as well as possible imo 

We also go to a large school that's typical suburbia.   So I don't know how poorer or kids with special needs in our area faired

Virtual since last March as well. As others said the last 2-3 months were unimpressive but also sort of understandable. This school year was more structured but seemed like very little work to me. Very little actual virtual class time each day. Maybe an hour and half? Seemed to get a little better by year end with supplemental time required to be logged in different learning platforms. She was in 6th grade and is not only headed to middle school but was also recommended by her teacher to join the gifted academy at the school. Somewhat surprised me as she had tested when younger and didn't have the grades nor really seem like that type of high functioning learner. She's a smart kid and I'm sure she'll do fine but I think she's gonna have a little bit of a shock at the increase in work required. Part of this jump is skipping a level of math so she'll be doing a summer school 8 day pre-algebra program in school for 3.5 hours a day. Will be weird dropping off to in person school again.

I have taught and been an administrator for an online school for 7 years. My daughter did virtual learning the entire year as a 2nd grader and excelled. She tested a 210 in Math which is halfway through 4th grade. She reads at a  P level, that is the beginning of 4th grade. 

I feel like I have a very good grasp at virtual learning. If anyone wants any tips or tricks for the summer feel free to reach out to me. 

I posted about our experience in the other thread, but to expand a little here:

We have two high schoolers, at different high schools.  We were virtual from September to March, and both went back F2F for the end of the school year.  A few positive covid tests in each school, but manageable (I would guess about 50% of the students went back in March).

Older daughter - bad high school, new principal, and they struggled a bit with content delivery.  We are on a block schedule, with 4 classes per day.  Daughter would have a zoom class with 2 classes on M, T, Th, F - and Wednesday was a free day (even when they went back to school).  She would have asynchronous learning in the other two classes each day - so she effectively met with her teacher/class once per week.

Daughter struggled in this format - just not organized and self-dispiclined enough to keep up with assignments, and we steuggled to keep her on task, meaning she spent the better part of the last months of the semester in full catch-up mode.  In the end, everything got done - but would not want that experience again.  When she did get to go back in March, she was not a fan - she preferred her social isolation - and fought the decision.  But, once she got back, and into a routine, she bounced back nicely.  Overall, I think the entire year was a maturing process for her.

Younger daughter had similar block schedule, but she is in a better school, and better program within that school.  She met with each of her classes every day on zoom, except Wednesdays, so she saw her teachers twice per week.  She is very organized and disciplined, and had no issues with remote learning.  In March, when she did go back she was fine academically, but being introverted, made it a tough adjustment socially.  She was mentally and physically exhausted just by being back in person.

All in all, we were fortunate to make it through the year relatively unscathed.  Grades did not suffer, but it was a bit more of a chore for our older one.

msudaisy26 said:

I have taught and been an administrator for an online school for 7 years ... 

I feel like I have a very good grasp at virtual learning. If anyone wants any tips or tricks for the summer feel free to reach out to me. 

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If you don't mind answering a question publicly:

Can a kid (a) with no self-motivation and (b) little available adult supervision succeed in an online school? If not, are there good strategies available to bring a kid along, building up to a point where they can work independently? Thinking more middle-school age here, not small kids.

Standing Hampton said:

don't know how many of you FFG are working remotely now, but look at this from a workforce perspective.  Today's high school students won't do school work remotely, how we they fare in a remote working environment?

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Those kids won't succeed as office drones (I am a drone, no insult intended). Desk-jockeying from home 8 hours a day is not everyone's end point.

There are things my son is interested in and can do reliably unsupervised, but none of it is related to traditional schooling. He's at a crossroads now ... entering high school with a compromised skill level (a grade or two behind in everything, maybe a 6th-grade level of math). Unsure how to help him succeed going forward.

Doug B said:

If you don't mind answering a question publicly:

Can a kid (a) with no self-motivation and (b) little available adult supervision succeed in an online school? If not, are there good strategies available to bring a kid along, building up to a point where they can work independently? Thinking more middle-school age here, not small kids.

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The answer to your first question - it is highly unlikely. I don't want to say 100 percent no because there is always a small group of kids that do better without supervision. 

The best strategies to working a kid up to that point would be either a reward or punishment system. It depends what works best for the child.