Graphic Organizer Layout Notes

BACKGROUND SETTING:

blended learning background setting

- the description could start off On an early morning of October 2019

- I woke up to an outline of a clouded figure sprinting across the messy walls of my room. Galloping from the wall that had a poster with flowers embedded upon the sides, to the wall that had my disproportionate mirror that was way too big considering the size of my room, the shadow seemed happy. Sprinting from each wall as if it was part of a marathon, that I was definitely about to be the contestant that came into the last place since I continued to stay in my bed.

- I was drained from completing my four pages of double-sided notes that were required for my global history class. The blaring shriek of my five a.m. alarm clock rang, declaring the victory of the shadow and my defeat. The screeching alarm that was accompanied by my school schedule is only now a faint memory.

- Memories from my time as a student that went to school physically every day are now considered as “blended learning”; a system that is now acknowledged as an option, rather than a mandatory choice as it was before the pandemic emerged.

- The above sentences provide the description of the first page on what the character experiences

BACKGROUND SETTING:

remote learning background setting

- the description could start off On the early morning of October 2020,

- I woke up in the late hours of dawn to scattered papers, a laptop that had yet to be charged, and was immediately bombarded by notifications from Google Classroom. It's eleven in the morning, yet I was already in class as I joined my virtual meeting on my phone; barely awake though attentive in class. This was the reality of remote learning.

- THE BEGINNING ^

PANDEMIC NOTES

- The pandemic brought several factors to the environment that have changed our lifestyle drastically. Specifically, the American public education system has been modified to adapt to new laws that are crucial to support our community and to keep everyone safe.

- Thus, the public educational system has brought forward a new plan to sustain our school community for the betterment of the student’s experience, while simultaneously considering every student.

DIFERRENCES BETWEEN REMOTE VS BLENDED NOTES

- Every student works differently. One student may prefer writing notes on flashcards before an assessment; whereas, another student may prefer just glancing over their homework.

- Regardless of their studying habits, the newly-implemented instructional policy has created a system that has affected every student’s school routine.

- Last year, waking up early in the morning was the norm. In contrast, most students now wake up minutes before their classes to attend the class for roughly four hours a day. Although many may argue that a shorter school day should be considered easier for students, the new remote learning environment has conclusively led students to spend their days staring at a device absorbing little to no information.

- The adverse effects that remote learning has on a students’ mental and physical health can be derived from how students are easily distracted due to their surrounding environment.

PRIMARY SOURCES

- Most students do not have a suitable home environment for remote learning, for which they might opt for the blended learning option. According to Lawrence Brown, a current 11th-grade student attending Long Island City High School, “I personally like blended learning. Of course, every school is different, but my school does not have many students in blended learning. So, there’s little chance of contracting COVID-19. I also prefer to see my teacher because I can get up and actually go somewhere. It gives me energy.”

- PRIMARY SOURCE EXPLAINED: Lawrence is one of many students that favors the blended learning system due to its practical similarities to the conventional educational system.

- CONNECTED TO ESSAY: However, many students do not have the opportunity to attend their favored system due to their circumstances, as many are in fear of contracting the virus or are not allowed to attend the blended learning system due to being in a high-risk tagged community from the pandemic.

BACKGROUND ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM:

- The American public education system has always been controversial. From causing bickering over receiving too much homework, waking up at ungodly hours, and a multitude of standardized tests, this current system is not only different from before but one that has embedded fear into each student wondering what the next school day is going to be like as it was created in a response to catastrophic terms.

- A typical day of remote learning consists of a lot more work than a regular in-person school day depending on the classes that a student may take.

SECOND PRIMARY SOURCE:

- According to Sharika Khatun, a current 11th-grade student at Grover Cleveland High School, “Learning from home has to lead me to get better grades. I get to join more clubs without worrying about getting home late, and I can do my work at any time, for which it is much easier to wake up for classes. I also get perfect attendance, get to spend more time with family, and I feel much safer staying at home.”

- Sharika communicates that she favors the remote learning system as she expresses that it is an overall much easier system than her prior schedule of physically going to school would entail.

- primary source explained: Although the virtual meeting lasts roughly an hour, the work that is given afterward almost seems never-ending. Blended learning is similar, with the additional cost of attending school once or twice a week.

- background on primary source: The blended learning system in New York City traditionally incorporates two days of physically going to school, with the rest of the week of working from home.

- Thus, even blended learning students are in the remote learning system. No student is going to school five days a week anymore, as the current circumstances of the pandemic have presented several safety possibilities such as accidentally contracting the virus from another student.

SCHOOL SYSTEM EXPLAINED:

- The United States’ public education system immediately infiltrates every child’s lifestyle the moment that a child enters the classroom. Unfortunately, it is nearly too often that a student learns the conditions of homework first and how to complete assignments on time.

- Most of a student’s life is spent on being assigned and completing homework; although it is tragic, homework was never the issue. The primary concern revolving around homework is that it provides little to no benefit to students' learning process, besides producing monotonous, lifeless, and burned out children.

OUTSIDE SOURCE:

- Nevertheless, the newfound educational system has disregarded such issues, as homework and staying up to complete homework is considered to be within the past events in a student’s life now. In Helaine Olen’s “It’s time to admit it: Remote education is a failure, she states, “Here’s how that worked out: In Houston, the number of students with failing grades is exploding. In St. Paul, Minn., a high school student is almost as likely to be on track to fail a class as pass it.” Olen expresses that regardless of the learning system that students utilize, both the remote learning and the blended learning system needs to be created for the better of the students.

- The new learning model did not take homework into consideration for which students are still staying up late. Furthermore, statistics from Olen’s article illustrate the impression of students being in a state of equally failing as they are passing, showing that the system needs to be improving, as no one is benefitting.

DIFFERENCES:

- The sole difference between blended learning and remote learning in New York City is that students have the opportunity to physically go to school twice a week to meet with their teachers.

- In spite of being given the opportunity to go to school, students that attend blended learning are not being given any more favorable circumstances than students that attend remote learning are.

- Circumstances such as families that are in public houses and have children with special needs may prefer a system that does not require working at home. In hindsight, some students prefer the current system as they may prefer having the option of being able to choose between blended learning and remote learning.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS:

- Bullying is an issue that may take place in the physical atmosphere of a classroom, for which it is also seen as a problem that can perversely take place in a virtual classroom. According to the article, “Remote Learning Can Bring Bias Into the Home'' by Gail Cornwall and Kelly Glass, they state, “Her daughter’s response aligns with research showing that discriminatory experiences can lead to sleep loss, impulsivity, anxiety, anger, depressive symptoms, and other emotional issues, as well as stomachaches and headaches — all conditions that suppress engagement in school and affect cognitive functioning.”

- This illustrates the impression that a particular learning environment may be favored by parents as they are now experiencing concerns associated with bullying.

- Students that are in a similar situation to Chancley’s daughter, as described in the New York Times article, may prefer to be in a setting where they can communicate with an adult to express discomfort that they may feel in the classroom faced by their teachers or peers.

- Such conversations for particular students and even their parents may be uncomfortable to be discussed in a virtual setting.

- A blended learning environment is comparable to a remote learning setting and even favored particularly based on a student’s needs of well-being, as each student faces different environmental struggles when attending school.

COMPARISON:

- The comparison of remote learning and blended learning can be correlated as a response to catastrophic events for which the public educational system has done its best to create a newly implemented learning environment for its students.

- Although the system presents two options of which are blended and remote learning, the two models do not present merely enough options for students to choose from.

- The future of the educational system should provide students more alternatives rather than having a slim choice of wanting to stay home or go to school, for which there need to be more options for each student as every household has different circumstances.