Parents Around the World are in Crisis With Remote Learning
Classes on Canvas Dashboard.
November 18, 2020
Virtual schooling impacts millions of parents in the United States. When the stress of keeping track of your child’s, work collides with keeping track of your own, balancing it seems almost impossible.
Schools remaining closed have caused countless problems for all parents. They are having difficulty keeping their kids focused and learning all the while still trying to have time to do household chores and keep alive a normal day to day routine.
Dr. Rebecca B. Reynolds, PHD, Associate Professor at Rutgers University said, “The lack of a much needed ‘presence’, critical for younger learners, provided by teachers in elementary school” when asked to state one of the pedagogical disadvantages of online learning. She went on to say that teachers have the chance to support and observe kids constantly, unlike many parents.
The official virtual school year for Prince William County Schools (PWCS) started on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020. Since that day parents are becoming increasingly overwhelmed with the number of responsibilities being added to their lives.
All PWCS schools are using the platform Canvas, a web-based learning management system, and Zoom, a platform for audio and video conferencing, to execute online learning.
In April Canvas performed a survey to show how parents are managing virtual school. In the survey parents named their top three challenges with remote learning which were keeping the kids focused, balancing responsibilities, and unclear instruction and communication from the school and the teacher. Hillary Scharton, VP of Strategy for Canvas voiced, The first thing we as parents need to do is set realistic expectations with our children, their teachers, and ourselves. We cannot recreate all the benefits of the face-to-face classroom, but we can give our children more freedom to explore while learning. — Hillary Scharton
However, Dr. Christine Greenhow, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University, explained, “Online learning can be as good or better than in-person classroom learning. The best online learning combines elements where students go at their own pace, on their own time, and are set-up to think deeply and critically about the subject matter.”
Parents sent their children to school to be cared for, for free. Now that schools are closed, many parents cannot afford an alternative. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 13.6 million unemployed persons, which causes many families to be unable to afford the technology needed for school.
