For my article, I decided to interview 6 men and 6 women on the topic of hybrid learning.  I asked them if they preferred in-school learning or remote learning. Overall, the results in total were 7 people in favor of learning in-person ( 3 boys, 4 girls), 4 people who preferred learning remotely (2 boys, 2 girls), and one person who preferred both for different reasons.

One of the questions I asked was, ¨Do you produce the same amount of homework at home that you do at school?¨ One student felt like he got more homework done at school, because of the authority factor. He also added that he has too many distractions at home. For example,  some distractions would be parents yelling at you, or dogs barking, which tends to cause students to look up and take their attention away from the screen.  He also pointed out the fact that it is difficult to look at a screen the whole school day, especially since students only have 4-5 minute breaks in between most classes. In addition, he mentioned that when he’s in school and has a teacher watching him,  he feels that he gets more work done because there’s a teacher supervising and making sure students are on task. On the other hand, when he’s at home, he doesn’t have anybody watching him or telling him to get his work done.

The second question I asked was, ¨What’s the greatest challenge with working in a group with people remote?¨ One student responded, ¨Yes, it is a little difficult when you’re in class and the other person is on Zoom.¨  He said one of the reasons it made it difficult was the fact that the teacher wouldn’t let him go in the pod or out in the hallway. This was an issue because he couldn’t really talk with his partners, considering everyone else was talking in the classroom. He also mentioned that it is hard to get a hold of students using email because they don’t really respond back in time. In addition, communication is a problem because if students have to participate in a group project, for example, creating a poster, there is no way that students can really both work on the poster unless they were to meet up outside of school.

Lastly, I asked how easy it was to get 1 on 1 help and how hard it is to contact your teacher if you need help.  This student said it wasn’t hard to get 1 on 1 help at all. It was actually pretty easy to get in touch with the teachers because they are constantly checking their email and getting back to you as soon as they can. He said he doesn’t really need to contact any teachers at all because all the assignments are pretty straightforward and everything is on Google Classroom.

I interviewed Mr. Wood and asked a variety of questions. The first question I asked was, “What is the greatest challenge you could face teaching in a fully remote setting?” He replied, ¨The biggest challenge would not be being able to have a personal conversation with people. It is also a challenge because in person you can tell what or how people are feeling by their body and facial reactions. The lack of personal interactions and reading everything on the screen would be difficult.¨ The second question I asked was, “What technology best helps you deliver information for kids remotely?” He responded, ¨Google classroom and Zoom worked the best.¨ The next question I asked was, “How challenging is it to contact kids if they’re fully remote and do they respond back within a reasonable time?” He said, ¨So far, yes, kids have been great with responding with emails or with the chat on Zoom.¨ I also asked him if kids pay more attention when they’re in school or fully remote. He told me, ¨When they are in school, they tend to pay more attention to the teacher because there are more distractions at home.¨ Another question I asked was whether teaching fully remote was effective or sustainable? He responded, ¨It would be more effective in school rather than remote from the teachers’ perspective. It would not be very sustainable or effective for obvious reasons.¨ The last question I asked was, “How well do students manage their time in the remote environment?” He told me, ¨Most of the kids that are remote are getting their work done, but yes, he didn’t really know how they managed on time because he wasn’t really there to pay attention to them.¨