By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – For a trio of seniors at Ocean City High School, they are not thrilled with the online learning forced by the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that is keeping them from school.
All three are able to handle the workload, but they would prefer more interaction with their teachers and being able to enjoy their final spring as seniors walking the hallways at OCHS.
“I personally don’t really enjoy having to do all of my classes online,” said Abbey Fenton. “It is difficult having to complete some assignments on your own and not being able to get that real face-to-face interaction with our teachers. The teachers have been great with staying in touch with us and many use the video conferencing within our assignments to help. It is nice to be able to have the video conferences with our teachers because it allows us to still interact and receive help when we need it from them.”
“I’m not the hugest fan of doing everything at home,” said fellow senior Casey McLees.
She isn’t having problems understanding the material, but, “It’s a little overwhelming having to manage eight different classes and eight different assignments due at different points. It’s not usually daily for everything, but you have to manage everything the teachers want you to do. And what the teachers want you to do that night. There’s just a lot going on to manage everything at the same time.”
While other classes are by videoconference or Google chats that allow interaction, hers have involved getting sent presentations and assignments, “things to read and answer and it’s all turning it in online.”
Senior Eve Chiarello said she is a hard worker and has always been able to manage her time. However, for her, “the only thing that’s odd is I’m doing so much work at home and it’s not instructional, a connection with my teachers. So it’s more pressure put on students to keep up with their own work, but also I feel like it’s difficult for the teachers to provide solid content because they’re not able to talk to us face to face.” She explained having that direct interaction lets the teachers provide more context and explanation than what is on the assignments.
She prefers when she can work directly with her teachers, even if far apart.
“Most of my classes we just get our lessons and assignments,” Chiarello said, “but my AP calculus class teacher has set up videoconferences that we do where the whole class participates and she is able… to talk to us and we are able to talk to her and it’s basically like being in class, but on a computer screen.” She said that is what is happening as they review for the AP exam.
“I definitely like that class a lot more than the other classes with assignments that seem like busywork,” Chiarello said. “It’s a better social interaction, which I need, but also a lot more constructive with the learning aspect because I’m able to bounce ideas off of other people and my teachers.”
The seniors would like to get back to school.
“Not only are we missing out on learning in the classroom, but we are also missing out on the high school experience and making memories with our friends,” Fenton said.
“There are some friends I don’t talk to too much outside of school or that I just won’t get to see because I’m obviously self-quarantining and I’m home all the time, not going out with friends,” McLees said. “It does stink to not see my friends all the time. I’d really be upset if I didn’t get to go back to school for a couple of months before the end of the year to at least round out the whole high school experience.”
“Without being able to see everyone it kind of presents a challenge of staying social and staying connected,” Chiarello said. “I know me and a lot of my friends looked forward to the end of senior year and all the perks that come with that. And now it’s kind of a waiting game to see if we’re going to be able to go to school and be able to enjoy our last bit of high school.”