On December 12, 2019, the first covid-19 patient was diagnosed in Wuhan, China, and the number of cases continued to increase until 21 January 2020, when the first case of covid-19 was reported in Washington DC, USA. Due to the strong infectiveness of the coronavirus, some states, led by Washington and Seattle, have made adjustments to the teaching modes of high school and universities, changing face-to-face classes to online classes, and online classes have gradually become popular all over the world.
Online teaching is not a student’s choice, but a teaching method that has to be adopted due to the epidemic. It’s a new way of teaching, a new challenge, and it’s being taken up by hundreds of millions of students around the world. Can students adapt to online teaching? What are the advantages and disadvantages that students feel in online teaching? If the epidemic is over, should such extensive online teaching continue to exist? These questions should not be guessed at at will. The audience of online teaching is mainly students, so students’ evaluation of that is an important factor for whether online teaching should continue to develop. So getting into the inner world of students, understanding their ideas and lifting the veil of online teaching, that’s what we’re going to explore together.
Hairong, a Chinese student studying in the United States, has adapted online classes very well. With a period of learning online classes, he thinks he has gained a lot and says “Online courses make my learning time more flexible, and I can learn more things independently with more relevant materials released by the teacher, such as texts and videos.” He credits the online format classes with giving him more autonomy in learning, which he describes as a “great experience”.
This is really one of the advantages of online teaching, which demand more independent learning because it is up to the individual to use the course and its online resources to maximum benefit. Zoe’s view of online classes is more straightforward, “I just don’t like learning,” she says. “No matter what kind of class it is, I like it when there are fewer classes and less homework.” According to the students’ feedback, if it is a face-to-face course, a class should be taught at least three times a week, but since it is changed to online class, this class could be taught only once or twice a week. In a sense, it lightens the burden of students.
Like Hairong, most students adapt well to online classes and consider it a fresh experience to be able to attend classes at home. Being able to attend classes in pajamas or even in bed makes the boring task of learning enjoyable. But after a long stay at home, problems began to set in, and almost all of my interviewees felt a sense of emptiness, an atmosphere lacking interaction with teachers and classmates. Kelly, an English major, says, “The biggest issue I have with online classes is that problems can’t be solved in time.” She thinks emailing teachers after class to ask questions and even texting group members to discuss projects is inefficient.
Kelly also makes an interesting point about the drawbacks of online classes. She has a cute guy in her class who is “kind of my core motivation for learning,” she says. But Kelly hasn’t seen her cute guy for a long time since the school started the online teaching, especially when the camera is not turned on during the ZOOM video. “I lost my motivation to learn,” she says.
People tend to label things as “double-edged”, and for good reason. Online classes are indeed a “double-edged sword”. In the home online class, rich knowledge, life and rest rules, the benefits must be some, or a lot of, but you have to say there are some disadvantages. At first, Online classes at home, there is no teacher’s supervision or inspection, parents are not always in our side, we are easy to have no self-control, let alone in their own comfortable home; Secondly, after all, the online course is on the computer, which is very easy to have problems, causing a very bad experience for the teaching quality.Besides, as mentioned before, students are unable to have class discussions, so the efficiency of online classes is far less than that of real classes.
This story only talks about students’ comments on online teaching and their feelings about online courses. In my next story, I will interview students from different countries about the impact of online teaching on their grades and psychological state, so as to analyze the pressure brought by the mode of education to students and ideas about education instilled by different countries.
Your lede is good, but I don’t know that you need quite so much background on when COVID hit – that is pretty common knowledge now, you could instead focus more on the impacts on education a bit sooner – this is personal preference, though.
Make sure to get some sourcing/citation for claims such as hundred of millions of students to make sure it is verified.
Try to avoid putting yourself in the story by saying things like “I, we, us, you” and instead let the story tell itself
Your quotation set up is really well done, just a slight change would be to not add in the “and say” and just stop at he has gained a lot. Then go into your quote.
Your second quote set up is perfect, well done.
If you can get first and last names, that would be preferable
Again, try to avoid saying things like my interviewees, instead you could say individuals such as NAME and NAME have felt a sense of … or change the wording to eliminate putting yourself in there
The quote about the cute guy is funny, I would make sure that the part of her saying she has a cute guy is attributed to Kelly so it doesn’t sound like you as the author thinks he is cute
This was a really nice piece for your first story, and you have some really nice talent as a writer. As you get more comfortable with new writing a lot of these things will become easier for you. Well done!