School was probably the only thing keeping our brains active as well as our social lives, with that came the question of how school was gonna be while stuck at home all online with no in person teaching; almost everyone was affected by this, the people most affected would have to be our teachers who didn’t get to see their students for almost two years. 

Dawn Adams, art teacher at CKHS, located in the CTE building says she first heard about the lockdown she wasn’t surprised but at the same time like it felt very abrupt. When she first started online learning one of the big challenges was making videos for her students because she lives in Seabeck. She had to be very mindful while not having a lot of resources.

The way online teaching affected how she teaches now is her being more efficient at using Google Classroom and getting rubrics out that are more organized; Adams still finds it better to do it in person so that she can stay in contact with her students. When she did teach online she planned way ahead of time and made videos. Adams felt it was hard for her students to be their creative selfs and meet the requirements over online.

Lars Jorstad is a P.E. teacher at CKHS but has also taught health in the past. At the beginning of quarantine Jorstad was nervous about the future, also really nervous to go out in public the following year. A lot of teachers were not adapted to providing and recording themselves and putting it out to the students; he feels like when they were in the google meetings that attendance should have been  required, even though some students did not have internet access. The way online learning affected teachers Jorstad said “help most teachers be better at communicating and have a lot more backups for students who were out there, they can find out what’s happening during the week.” After teaching online for a year he definitely uses the strengths of teaching in person and what he’s good at as a teacher; Jorstad felt like things were not the same online as they are in person.

David Tracewell teaches English for Juniors, Broadcast and Visual Communication at CKHS. When the lock-down started he was shocked that it came so quickly on March 13th, he was angry when the news was saying it wasn’t as bad as it actually was; he actually attended a concert on November 29th. The first thought about online learning was that he would have to scale back from how he teaches in person, luckily  he was already familiar with google classroom and presenting English online, but he did find it really difficult to respond to all the emails from students.

Tracewell found it difficult to upload videos for Broadcast and Visual Communication, he used google classroom and other online sources to record and submit; it was still nice to talk to students and talk with them and it was much easier for visual communication.

With in person learning Tracewell is much more appreciative but also much more tired; while also maintaining the google classroom. When students are home they can use the google classroom to find their assignments even without COVID-19 times, 70% digital and 30% paper; he thinks it improved his way of teaching. He now makes his assignments due on Saturday instead of Friday to make it an easier schedule for his students after being in lock down this whole time.