Doubled over a mess of printed out AP French papers, senior Nicky Hatzidimitrou expresses her opinion of online classes this year with a long, drawn-out sigh.
Introduced this year to combat low enrollment, online classes, and the majority of the students enrolled in them, have proven to be slowly failing.
After dropping AP French a month into school (the start of the course was delayed two weeks due to coordination issues), Hatzidimitrou explained, “We were already so far behind. There was no interaction and when I didn’t understand something, I couldn’t just raise my hand and ask a teacher.”
Although each student is provided with a mentor at JC who helps guide them through the class, Hatzidimitrou was still overwhelmed: “We only met with mentors on Monday, and by then we’d already had a lot of assignments, and it was really hard to backtrack.”
According to senior Charlotte Hagerman, who is another one of three students previously enrolled in AP French online, “We were all trying to drop them. They were more geared towards home school and weren’t accommodating to our school schedule.” An example of this is an assignment one day for all students to watch a live webcast at 11 AM in the morning. For those with hectic schedules, it was near impossible.
All three students enrolled in AP French dropped the course within three weeks of starting.
For AP Art History, only one out of three enrolled seniors, senior Rebekah Alban, who is only taking four classes this year, has had the time and persistence to remain in the class.
Vice Principal of Academics Gary Scholl said, “I don’t think any of us were prepared.” Although JC had a “great hope that the online courses would provide a great opportunity,” the unstructured AP courses were designed for homeschoolers who weren’t taking five or six other classes.
Seniors Katie Doherty and Luke Sedney, two of three students enrolled in AP Art History, dropped the class only two weeks into school. For Doherty, “The online thing did not work for me.” She, like Hatzidimitrou and Hagerman, also describes the need of a teacher to talk to and discuss with, “especially with that subject.” Also, “the website was not user-friendly at all.”
“I don’t blame students; these were some of the brightest, most capable students, but the rigor and independent nature of online courses made it very difficult for students enrolled to handle,” said Scholl.
Dropping the class will not affect students’ schedules or appear on their college transcript. But for seniors like Hagerman and Molly McComiskey, who want to fulfill the recommended four years of language, there are no options left. They needed to drop the class due to failing grades, but will not be granted an independent study form of the class. “Some students are allowed [to take independent study classes] but we’re not. We’re paying a lot of money to come here; the least that could be done is let us just be guided through the course,” said McComiskey
But Scholl said that it is impossible to provide a teacher “on the fly.” If the administration were to provide a teacher for AP French or Art History, they would have had to do the hiring and planning last year. The problems are “too much on too short notice” to address.
On a lighter note, although AP Art History and AP French prove to be better learned in a classroom setting, computer-based online classes, such as Programming, prove to be effective. Out of the five students who have taken the course this year, none have even considered dropping. And since programming is not on an AP level, the students enrolled are more at ease.
Senior Mike Horka, who is one of the five students, describes Programming as “cool and convenient; I can do it at home whenever I want, and there are no deadlines.” For Horka, “It’s a new experience. It’s the future.”
The entire process has been a learning experience for the Administration. According to Scholl, “It was a learning experiment, and for 2 out of 3 classes, it didn’t go well. If we plan to do online courses next year, we will have to take a very careful look and provide more groundwork to prepare students.”
Alex Bahr can be reached for comment at [email protected].