Transitioning between in-school classes and online learning has brought challenges like staying caught up, scheduling, and motivating. 

   Melissa Lotz, an algebra teacher at Nixa High School, said she is concerned about keeping students caught up. 

   “A lot of kids have been coming back and having lots of questions before they can take their missing tests and quizzes,” Lotz said. “… It is an extra layer of stress trying to get them caught up.” 

   One issue with learning online is able to understand the material without much instruction. 

   “It’s just a struggle learning online without being in the classroom to ask the questions and get that one on one help,” Lotz said. “A lot of kids have been coming back and having lots of questions before they can take their missing tests and quizzes … It is helpful to be able to self teach, but I just think it’s really difficult.” 

   To make things easier, the math department has spread out the work. 

   “At the beginning, it was pretty stressful,” Lotz said. “We kinda shared the responsibility in the math department. There is a teacher who does the virtual class anyway, so she is posting her videos, which is helpful, but there are other times where you have to make videos for your own class.” 

   Brannon Paganucci, a freshman at Nixa High School, has not had a good experience with quarantine learning. 

   “It was really hard to find my assignments,” Paganucci said. “They have to post three weeks [of school work], so if you can’t find it for one week, you have to go to the next week.” 

   In order for students to learn, online teachers have three weeks of lessons posted in advance.

   “Everything is posted to Canvas for the kids,” Lotz said. “For math, we try to post videos of the lesson for the day so the kids can get on there and watch the video, and their assignments are posted to Canvas.”

   Learning from home is not the best for everyone. 

    “It’s a lot better in class,” Paganucci said. “There is not a whole lot of a struggle, just waking up at a certain time.” 

   Each school handles quarantine differently, and that brought some confusion. 

  “I thought it would be on Zoom because everyone was making memes, … but instead it was sit down and do a week’s worth of work,” Paganucci said. “… It was even worse [going back] because I had to do band, so I had to wake up two hours earlier. It was tiring and hard to make a schedule because my entire life is based off a schedule.” 

   Without others to learn from, learning can become more complicated, 

  “There were no people,” Paganucci said. “I couldn’t be around my parents because of covid and they had it at one point.”

   Learning alone is tricky, but with some self-discipline, it can be done. 

   “You have to be very self motivated and very dedicated,” Lotz said. “that’s the struggle for some kids, they weren’t ready for the amount of work … to do everything virtually. You have to set your own schedule.”