Distance learning cannot replace traditional teaching

 Due to the corona virus outbreak, everyone was advised to stay home and keep away from other people. As uncomfortable as this may be, it is the only way to stop the spread of the virus. This also means that public institutions like schools and libraries are closed until further notice.

However to keep us, students educated, teachers implemented a new form of teaching. It is called distance learning. Even though it is the only form of teaching we have at the moment, I strongly believe that it is inferior to traditional teaching.

Distance learning is a way for us to receive learning material at home. Teachers send us exercises, explanations and homework, using email and other apps. And to make sure that we are keeping up with the work that we are given, we have to send pictures of our homework to them.

Can distance learning compare to traditional teaching? No. We, the students can not interact with the teachers as freely as we were able to in school. Nothing can compare to live classes, where we can ask the questions during an explanation and actually understand all about the topic that we are talking about. With distance learning we are only given an explanation and mostly have to figure it out by ourselves. It is not nearly as effective as traditional teaching in school. Besides that it is a lot more work for us and even the teachers. Tests are especially problematic, as many students cheat on them. Cheating is much harder to prevent if students can take the test from home. Besides cheating, we have knowledge gaps in certain topics, as it is harder to understand them from the explanation. I think that knowledge gaps we are crating now could be very harmful to our further education and especially to our high-school graduation exams. Our knowledge from the past 2 months has already been affected by this and we can only hope that we will be able to make up for it.

To sum it up I believe that traditional teaching is much better for countless reasons. Distance learning has many flaws and can not even compare to traditional teaching.   Personally I don’t like distance learning and I think that traditional learning is much better.  I just hope that we will be able to go back to normal school as soon as possible.

Jernej Stegnar, 2.a

Life during corona virus

Intro

The purpose of this report is to present how the current pandemic affects the life of students. It is written by a student of Gimnazija Jesenice on the request of a teacher, for the purpose of being posted on a website.

Distance learning

When lock-down was instated by the government all schools closed. To combat this, distance learning was implemented by the teachers. It is a way for students to receive learning material and learn from the safety of their homes.

How it works

Most meetings are hosted on an app called Zoom. The exercises, explanations, homework and instructions are sent to students via email or other apps. Student feedback is appreciated as it helps improve the overall learning experience. To make sure that students do their duties, teachers collect homework at the end of each week. These assignments are a part of the finishing grade and are required in order to pass.

Effectiveness

Even though the distance learning program was developed well by the teachers it still cannot compare to live classes held in school. Tests are a similar problem.  While cheating is hard enough to prevent in school while  students sit right in front of teachers, it is almost impossible to prevent when the student is taking a test from the comfort of their home. This is being prevented by some teachers who exclusively test students verbally. This kind of testing seems to be the best solution for now.

Stress

While the distance learning has been adjusted to the current situation, it is not easy for the students. It seems that severe stress is being experienced by many students, due to the dangers of the current pandemic and also because of its effects on world economy. Many parents are losing jobs currently  and are unable to pay even for the most essential expenses such as food and housing. For this reason students are being put in a stressful position. The stress experienced by students is usually lightened by extracurricular activities such as different clubs and sports. While these kinds of gatherings are now forbidden, many students don’t know how to deal with stress caused by the epidemic.

Conclusion

To sum up everyone is working hard to keep the educational system working, and even though it has some flaws it still gets students educated even during an event such as an epidemic.

Considering the current situation, most students will not set foot in school until next year, so the described schooling system will stay active until then.  Even though it may not be as efficient as actual school however it is the best that can be done for now.

Jernej Stegnar, 2.a