The 2020-2021 school year has been more different than any other year Tigers’ have had. Covid-19 has forced us to adapt in many ways, one of them being online learning.  In order to get a feel for how online learning is going, The Roar staff  conducted a survey, where 13 participants shared their view.

The pandemic has forced students to stay home and have classes over Zoom, whereas other years they would have been able to go to school in person. From Tuesday, September 8, 2020 to November we will be learning over Zoom, then on November 10th we will come back to school on a hybrid system. A hybrid system is where half of the students go into school on certain days and the other half will go in on the other days.

Online learning to some students may be easy, but to others it can be difficult. At home they have distractions such as family members, pets, phones, even the kitchen; but at school they only really have classmates distracting them. Distractions like phones, family, and daydreams are some of the bigger distractions during Zoom classes. These distractions can cause students to have low grades and even fail.

On the survey, one of the questions asked for their thoughts. Junior, Allie McGehee, answered this and said, “Taking breaks is really helpful, the classes that do I can more easily focus because I have time to get up and use the bathroom, take a mental break, so I can focus better when class resumes, get water or coffee, finish writing notes down, and my eyes can take a break from the screen so I can more easily focus on the task at hand. It also gives me a chance to check on/remove distractions that may occur during class time.”

Junior, Aliyah Dupree believes that staring at the computer tires her out. Aliyah said,

In this survey the, the surveyors were also asked if the 10-minute breaks between class helped them focus on their classes, 31 percent of students said yes it does help, 54 percent said it helps a little and 15 percent said that it doesn’t help. One of these students was junior, Connor Will,  who commented by saying “Maybe throughout the classes themselves we can have breaks if the teacher is doing a lesson.   Will continued, stating that  “Mr. Wonders and Mr. Stietzel will have 5-minute breaks every 20 minutes of class teaching.”

All in all,  when teachers integrate more breaks into class and between classes students are better able to pay attention and stay alert during classes.