Staff Highlights Communication as Key to Lock of Online Learning Challenges

First semester was anything but easy for everyone in the Oshkosh Area School District. Students, however, don’t have to go into the second semester completely blind. West faculty has offered support and advice for students to make the rest of the school year a success. 

After finishing the 2019-2020 school year online, students entered the new campaign in a hybrid learning environment. However, in September, students and staff transitioned once again to fully-virtual classrooms. English teacher Jennifer Stellpflug saw this accentuate the toll of the transition into high school for her freshman students. 

“We always have transition issues that we know we will see with the freshmen, so we were already anticipating those,” she said. “The virtual model just amplified all of those issues. Students learn so many things by simply being in a classroom and being around other students, but this year the freshmen were completely cut off from that model.”

Many have voiced their feelings that the class of 2022 was the last class to have a normal high school experience, due to them being sophomores when the initial quarantine began. Counselor Lynn Swoverland advises students to look to the future for the positive possibility of a normal high school career. 

“It really will get better,” she said. “I’ve told students in the past that it can take even an entire semester to become accustomed to the high school setting. The current freshman class didn’t get that semester experience and the current sophomores only got the one semester. But that doesn’t mean that normal years won’t be in the near future.”

Being taken out of the classroom so abruptly caused many students to lose motivation and interest in their classes. Math teacher Ken Levine theorized the reasoning for this. 

“When a student is physically sitting in my classroom, I can get their attention, and in a way, almost force them to at least be aware of what is happening in class,” he said. “At home, a lot of parents can’t sit and supervise their children at all hours of the day. Because of this, kids were left on their own to tune-in or to not tune-in. In a virtual setting it is really just self-discipline that would be the cause of focus.”

Levine’s speculation involves students taking responsibility for their own motivation when participating in virtual learning. Junior Claire Garton pushes students to work together to create a support system in school.

“Making sure that we encourage one another to continue focusing on school would be a great way to build each other up,” she said. “We need to encourage good habits, not doing each other's homework, but instead collaborating safely as long as CDC guidelines are met.”

Though students are encouraged to offer each other support, every student has a different plan of action for the second semester. Much like every student is different, Levine understands that every class is different as well. 

“In classes like history, the next unit doesn’t normally build off of the previous topic,” he said. “For example, if the first topic of the semester is World War II, but the student didn’t try to learn about World War I, that student may not understand the reasons why World War II started. However, they can still learn about and understand what happened in the war. In a math or science class, the next unit builds off of the previous one which can make it really difficult to keep moving forward.”

Levine points out that without basic knowledge, it can be difficult to build new concepts. Math teacher John Stack wants students to know that they can still come back even after missing some concepts.

“As students keep going in math and science classes, ideas keep growing,” he said. “But if a student misses an idea, they can work with their teacher to go back, further develop the initial concept, and then keep building. It's about a student communicating with a teacher.”

Communication has been difficult for the community at West due to minimal face-to-face interaction. Stack has been faced with obstacles when it comes to communicating during virtual learning.  

“When we were fully online, and even now that we’re hybrid, communication needed to be at an all-time high,” he said. “From what I’m seeing, it has been at an all-time low. I know that if I send out too many emails to students, they will just be disregarded. So if I only do it every so often and a student gets one, my hope is that the students will see it as being important.”

Communication, motivation, and participation all stem from a student. Psychology teacher Patrick Bertram continues to emphasize the importance of self-care during both remote and in-person learning.

“Keeping to a schedule at home is so important to create a structure in the day,” he said. “If a virtual day is set up in a similar way to an in-person day, students will be able to find their flow. It can build their motivation simply for the fact that they will have a routine. Being able to take a break and really focus on classes in order of their class schedule will help to allow students to not give up on themselves.”

Through self-discipline, self-care, communication, and collaboration, the second semester of the school year can be a vast improvement for the entire West community. Math teacher Travis Miller encourages everyone at West to keep looking forward.

“We have to keep our heads up,” he said. “As teachers, we are here to help and build relationships with our students. It's the part that I love most, and being able to push through as a whole will help us finish strong.”

By Sophie Burke

Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue 4

January 29th 2021