STEP-UP students' reflections about online learning - What worked well and did not work so well?

[Melissa Chessler]

STEP-UP program participants -- Please respond to the question below.

Teachers and other NJ-PTAG Google group members -- We welcome your responses to the STEP-UP participants' posts!

Which online instructional approaches/experiences do you feel worked well and what did not work so well for you?  Why?

[Tyler Balas]

I feel the short and sweet lectures worked the best for me. Instead of there being a full 80 minutes of being talked at, some classes were condensed to half that time or only met once instead of twice a week. This way only the essential information was given and it was way easier to focus and get the work I needed to done in a timely manner. What didn't work was the professors who tried to keep the same teaching template as when in school: 2-3 lectures a week for the full time. I lost focus very easily and dreaded having to sit through the lectures everyday. 

[Pierce Wickenden]

I was not a big fan of traditional zoom lectures, however I enjoyed when the professor would post their notes and give us direction as to what we need to know. Thereby, we can set out and learn it. However, it's important that when professors did this, they should have office hours where they can readily answer any questions or concerns on the material, expectations, etc. 

[Nathan Moncayo]

However, what worked the most was the teacher being able to add additional time to the assignments for the transition between working in-person to working from home. It felt as if it was easier to have work done easier and I was able to manage my time much more efficiently than beforehand. As well as saying that most of the class time was cut off which did feel like a breath of fresh air and time to have personal space from the computer itself. 

[Elizabeth Parisi]

For remote learning, some of the things that worked well for me was the longer time to complete assignments. Most of my professors provided a few hours to complete and hand in assignments. This made it less stressful as a student. In addition, some of my professors assigned daily check ins and would ask us a number of questions regarding how we are doing, what are we doing to maintain our stress levels, and a fun fact about our favorite song, TV show, etc. One thing that did not work well for me was not having the availability to work with and collaborate with others on homework or classwork. At school, there was a lot of collaborative and I felt like that stopped when our learning transitioned.