Students Learning in PJ’s

Hannah Estes is a junior and attending virtual school for this year. She has a younger sister, Ashlyn who is attending virtual school as well. As for her daily routine, much hasn’t changed. She wakes up at 7:45 to see her assignments and then works until noon. After that she’ll eat lunch and then work until 2. For the most part, the schedule for “school” is the exact same besides for a few hours. When she’s not working on her own work, she’s helping Ashlyn with her work or helping her mom around the house. The best part about all of this she explains is, “Whenever it’s late at night or whatever I can just log in and work at my own pace.” 

The virtual program called Edgenuity was introduced as the school year started on August 24. “When you log in there is a schedule with all of your classes. When you click on each of your classes it will show you what assignments you have and when they are due. Most times you have a lesson, warm up, practice, and then a quiz/test,” Hannah Estes, junior and virtual student, explained what the rundown of the program is actually like. 

Junior Kaitlyn Wilson further elaborated on the program. “We watch videos over the lesson and have an assignment which is normally multiple choice with a few short responses. Then we take a quiz which is normally 10 questions.” 

The program might seem really simple, but some students find it hard to learn from. “When it comes to being different from in person learning, there’s a lot of differences. You don’t get to ask questions, you aren’t able to see the teacher face to face, and you don’t know what you need to take notes on,” Estes explained. 

There are students doing virtual learning whose schedules have remained unaffected. Some students who don’t work are staying home throughout the day. For example, Kaitlyn Wilson’s school day is not affected due to the fact that she has a normal routine like there would be for in person learning. 

Hannah Estes’s day is also not affected due to the fact that she doesn’t have a job either, so her routine is close to the same as it would be for school inside the classroom.

On the other hand, some students doing virtual learning have been able to adapt their schedules from their in person learning. Junior Hannah Elsey works a job at Dairy Queen during normal “school hours” and she is able to do her school work and work a job without worrying about an eight hour school day and work.

Junior Austyn Edminston works  in St. Louis. He is able to get his school work done as well as working a job thanks to virtual learning. Without it, it would prove difficult to work if they were in a classroom. If they attended in person learning, then they wouldn’t get as many hours working due to the fact that they were attending an eight hour school day.

When you think about virtual learning you may think that it is quite a bit different than in person learning. According to msutoday.msu.edu, “Online learning can be as good or even better than in-person classroom learning. Research has shown that students in online learning performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction, but it has to be done right.” These students have stated that virtual learning isn’t all that different in the aspect of what kind of student they are. Virtual learning is seen as almost the same with a little more work then you would in a normal classroom, and is almost like more of a college experience allowing you to become reliable for all of your work and notes instead of like it would be in a high school setting. 

The main question that people want to know is if the students really enjoy virtual learning. Hannah Elsey stated, “No, I don’t like virtual. It sounds good in theory, and a great way to still be able to learn and keep up with school work during these uncertain times. Although the program is good it’s a lot more work then you would have for in person learning.”

“Virtual school isn’t something that I thought I would ever do, but I actually kind of like it because it gives me the time to work during the day and still come home and do my school work at night so I’m not missing out on my education.” said Austyn Edmiston. 

From Hannah Estes’s point of view she likes, but also doesn’t like virtual school. She stated that, “I like it because it helps with my anxiety of being at school because right now I’m just really scared of catching the virus so I’m glad to be able to do virtual. However, I don’t like it because I don’t get to see my friends or teachers and it stinks when it comes to that.” In conclusion, Hannah feels like virtual is good for the situation that we are currently in, but if everything was normal she would have returned to school learning this year.