Virtual Learning Presents New Distractions for Elementary Students

 

College students aren't the only ones using Zoom.

For those of us in the academic world without children, it easy to forget that elementary students were also asked to adjust to this new e-learning way of life. Unfortunately, though, many of their questions remained unanswered when their world began changing so rapidly. This post will explore the thoughts and feelings of one current 4th grader. For privacy reasons, her name has been changed. 

A 4th grader's personal anecdote. 

In March 2020, two days before the elementary school shifted entirely to virtual learning, Sarah's father took her out of school and told her she would not be returning until the COVID-19 pandemic was under control. Sarah, who was still in 3rd grade at the time, did not understand what was going on, but she understood that, as her father said, she probably would not be returning to school for a while. The following Monday, Sarah received all of her textbooks and a Chromebook in the mail. Her teacher contacted her parents through email and discussed that they would be finishing the Spring semester online, due to concern about the global pandemic as well as the health and safety of students.

Sarah's school continues to conduct e-learning through Zoom, now eight months later. The distractions are certainly harder to avoid, and Sarah noted two different main distractions during her virtual classes.
Here are the challenges she has perceived while she is unwittingly becoming a Zoom e-learning expert.

1) The background-changing feature.

Zoom allows its users to pick different backgrounds that replace the image of what is actually surrounding the user at home. First, Sarah notes that many of her classmates switch backgrounds numerous times during a single class, particularly during English class when her teacher is reading to them. The background changes are distracting, not only for the student choosing a new one but also for Sarah who is excited to see what new background is up next. When Sarah was asked why the students are not asked to stop changing their backgrounds, she stated, "Oh, they have been, but they don't stop and most of the time it seems like she [the teacher] doesn't notice. Some of them are pretty funny and I like them, but my mom says I can't change my background." While Sarah follows her mother's instructions to not change her background, she is still distracted by the other changing backgrounds, as are the students choosing to change theirs. 

It was hard enough for teachers to ask 10-year-olds to sit still in a physical classroom, but have you considered how much more difficult it is when they are in their own homes? This brings us to the second distraction Sarah noticed.

2) Elementary students like to move around their homes.

Most of us are guilty of grabbing a mid-meeting cup of coffee or running to the fridge to grab a snack in the middle of a lecture, and our elementary students are no different. 

Sarah has a fellow classmate that has difficulty sitting still during their Zoom classes. It was observed by Sarah that, during her English class, the boy moved to a total of 5 different locations during the single 45-minute session. This raises multiple concerns:

- The student moving from location to location in his house is not being attentive to the presented lesson; therefore, he is not learning to his full potential. 

- Sarah is counting the number of places the student is moving to; therefore, she is not learning to her full potential during the session. 

Many adults were asked if they had an environment at home equipped with everything they needed to perform their jobs from outside of the office. Our elementary students were not asked this same question. Children were sent home without being asked if they had a learning-facilitating environment there. Without a learning-centric space in the home, elementary students struggle to focus. "A healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment enables students, adults, and even the school as a system to learn in powerful ways. Such an environment promotes innovation, inquiry, and risk taking. Moreover, such an environment reinforces and enhances leadership capacity" (Budge & Parrett, 111). Our students with unstable learning environments struggle to learn and retain information (among other valuable life skills), in comparison to their peers with stable learning environments. E-learning makes creating that learning-centric space harder than ever.

Concluding thoughts.

We should take a moment to thank the teachers in our lives that are trying their best to keep learning accessible for elementary students, even with the new distractions that are seemingly unavoidable through Zoom and other video-conferencing-turned-e-learning applications. If you have elementary students at home, take a moment to ask them how they are doing and if there is anything you can do to help. They have a surprising amount of thoughts and feelings going on in their developing minds and we don't want them to get left behind while the rest of us are also learning to adjust.  

Reference:

Budge, K. M., & Parrett, W. H. (2012). Turning High-Poverty Schools into High-Performing Schools (Illustrated ed.). ASCD.