After participating in the #AdvanceSELinCA activities this summer, I decided to start the year with a focus on trauma and recovery.

The first step was asking my students two questions. Here is a sample of their responses.

What is one thing that you are most afraid of this school year?

I’m not that good at online anything so I am afraid that I will mess up on some assignments because I don’t know how to do them properly. 

I suck with online school.

I’m sorta afraid of waking up super super late and completely missing almost all of my zooms for that day.

Not knowing how to do the work because of online classes.

I am scared of not being able to understand/learn much with online learning.

One thing I am afraid of this school year is messing up or not knowing how to do my assignments.

One thing I am afraid of for this school year is that I won’t be able to figure out how to submit certain things because I am new to using schoology. 

This school year I am afraid I will fall behind in school work and become overwhelmed.

One thing I’m afraid of is not knowing how to do things in online school because I’m not very good with technology.

I am afraid of not learning the same online as I did in person.

I’m afraid my internet won’t work and I won’t be able to join a class.

I’m afraid of not being able to understand the material as much because online learning is very different than in person. 

I’m afraid that I’ll be behind my school work and not know what’s going on during my classes.

One thing I am scared of this school year is missing zoom meetings.

I’m afraid that I’m going to fall behind on schoolwork.

I am scared that I’ll miss a class and just miss an important lesson.

I’m afraid of not being able to retain information from online work and classes.

I am afraid I will procrastinate too much and fall behind in all my work.

I’m afraid of being late to class due to the fact that my sleeping schedule is messed up.

I am afraid of missing assignments and zooms because I couldn’t find or access the materials. 

a few things i’m afraid of for this school year are procrastinating and not actually learning.

I’m scared of accidentally missing assignments or zoom meetings, like if I forget to check one subject or platform. 

I’m scared that I’m gonna keep getting distracted and have a hard time learning.

Some things that I am afraid of are getting distracted and falling behind. I like to wait until the last minute to do things and I get distracted easily. working from home isn’t going to make that any easier.

I’m afraid of not understanding a topic and messing up the homework.

One thing I’m afraid for this school year is that we won’t go back.

I am afraid that I will get distracted and will fall behind.

I am afraid that I won’t be able to attend the zoom meeting due to internet issues.

One thing that I am afraid of this school year is having online school next year because I don’t learn as well when on remote learning. I am also afraid of procrastinating.

I am afraid that I will miss a class or be really late and miss everything and not understand the lesson well then doing bad on the test. 

The main thing I am afraid of this school year is falling behind and missing assignments. 

My biggest fear for this school year is failing or procrastinating a lot more than usual

I’m scared that I can’t handle all the classes I signed up for and can’t keep up like I thought I would.

My biggest fear for this school year is getting overwhelmed with the work given to me.

One thing I’m afraid of is that I’ll get piled with so much work that i won’t know how to get back on track or what to complete first. 

My biggest fear is failing my classes and AP tests.

The one thing I’m most afraid for the school year is failing the classes because online is different that in person

One thing that I’m afraid of this school year is falling behind or feeling too overwhelmed with class work getting pushed all into one hour.

My biggest fear for this school year is falling behind classes and not going back to school until next year. 

Failing my classes 

What should your teachers do to manage your concerns about online learning?

Teachers should offer more practice to learn instead of giving busy work for a letter grade.

Provide extra support for homework, and have patience as all of us are new to online learning.

Teachers should communicate with other teachers to not overlap work dates and just overall spread out due dates. 

To manage concerns about online schools our teachers should have all assignments and due dates placed somewhere clear to see so that there is no confusion.

I feel like teachers should be understanding and try not to give so much work as to stress the students out too much considering we are all going through a stressful time right now. Also extra credit since people will be missing out on alot.

I feel like teachers should help and understand when there are technical issues with zoom when it’s needed. I feel like students get these feelings because they are exploring a new way of school and are so unaccustomed to being there in the classroom.

Be available during school hours to help student who may have extra questions 

Teachers should motivate us and understand that this a whole unique way of learning. 

Teachers should be more patient and offer substitute assignments to help understand harder concepts

Teachers can help manage concerns by answering questions and communicating with us.

Teachers should address the concerns that the students have and provide simple solutions for said problems. This will help guide students through these concerns with less anxiety; another thing that the teacher may do to help students is being open to discussion about these problems and working with students to overcome them. 

Send reminders for students to remember what’s coming up, if it’s either assignments or important dates.

Teachers should try to use similar websites so that us students will have an easier time finding things and feel more organized without being swarmed with tabs.

Teachers should offer more ways on how to help on hw

I feel that we should be given more creative ways to learn instead of just straight out of the book.

Teachers should find alternatives to schoology, for instance if schoology crashes, having a backup plan would be helpful. 

I think teachers should try to be more understanding and have patience because online learning is all new to us. We’re all kinda stressed out so I think we’d appreciate it if teachers don’t pile a ton of work on us just because we’re learning from home.

Teachers should be patient with us one of my teachers already has stuff for us to print out and my printers at target

Teachers should make sure all students are aware of deadlines. It would be helpful to have some sort of schedule posted as well as organized materials in either Schoology or Google Classroom. 🙂 

Teachers should just take their time with their lessons and take time with learning this new process.

I was most scared of showing my face on camera. I feel like if it wasn’t forced then it wouldn’t be so bad I guess. But it’s not that bad.

I think that teachers should concentrate more on posting lessons and lectures rather than giving out busywork. I also think it would be helpful to keep the zoom meetings for more of a discussion rather than teaching lessons on zoom because something student’s internet cuts out. 

Teachers should record lessons and post them in case we need them, like they do in colleges. Also to be patient and understanding. 

I think that teachers should answer as soon as possible, as well as understand that this is a whole new learning environment for us. 

I think patience is key, since we’re all new to online learning. I also think we shouldn’t just rely on Zoom meetings, and find other ways to learn and practice, such as being recommended online articles, or having worksheets.

Teachers should offer after school help and should take this time to go more in depth with assignments instead of just giving us extra work.