My Experience with Remote Learning
To say the least, my last years experience with remote learning was not at all positive. I found it incredibly difficult to truly be engaged with my courses, as we were forced to spend hours a day watching countless lectures and videos, that I usually had to rewatch multiple times because it was so hard to pay attention and comprehend information at the same time. Missing out on that in-person connection was hard, I felt alone with my eyes constantly glued to a screen on my couch, in my room or even during my breaks at work. I remember I got a lot of headaches and migraines, and was constantly exhausted and overwhelmed on a daily basis. At the beginning of the year it was great being able to do school in bed and not have to commute everyday, but that got old fast! I was so grateful when I discovered that our second year of the program is completely in person. Life is finally starting to feel somewhat normal again, but it’s definitely been a huge (sometimes uncomfortable) adjustment going back to in person learning!
A quite extensive list of the negative impacts of online learning on students mental and physical health can be found here
Asynchronous vs Synchronous Learning
In my opinion, synchronous learning wins hands down! I had a few asynchronous courses last year and while the lack of firm deadlines was sometimes a plus, it was easy to fall behind by procrastinating when I was trying to focus on my synchronous classes first. I had to take my second elementary math course in an asynchronous manner, and it’s safe to say that was the worst school experience of my life! It was all about simply. reading the chapters and getting the worksheets done, there was no face-to-face learning, conversations or even pre-recorded lectures to watch. I’m ranting a bit now, but it was incredibly frustrating that I paid for a class where I had to completely teach myself everything from a textbook, and the midterm and final exams were worth a total of 70% of my grade. While my synchronous online classes were also difficult at times, it was nice to have the opportunity to build relationships with my professors and get in-depth explanations of the content, even if it was in a digital manner.
A brief comparison between the advantages and disadvantages of both asynchronous and synchronous learning can be found here
Benefits of Online Learning and Collaboration
While I still didn’t enjoy the experience, a benefit that I experienced was less anxiety when speaking to the class or my professor. I didn’t have a single teacher that forced us to have our cameras on (except for exams), so I felt a lot more comfortable speaking out and doing class from my bed! At times the flexibility of online classes and assignments was relieving, but I still didn’t benefit from the lack of structure and hard deadlines. I also discovered the benefits of google docs and google drive, which made online collaboration and group work a lot easier, and both are something that I will continue to use throughout my current and future university journey!
Sources
- Cover photo by Unsplash
- Disadvantages of online learning: theroswellsting.com/5200/opinion/online-school-has-more-negative-impacts-than-positive/
- Asynchronous vs synchronous learning: https://www.eduflow.com/blog/synchronous-vs-asynchronous-learning-whats-more-effective