Frankenmuth

A Y E A R O F V I R T UA L L E A R N I N G B Y J O C L E V E L A N D There are four of us in our family: our daughter Gabriella (Gabby), who just completed 7th grade; our son Ben, who just completed his first year of high school; my husband, Sean, who is a Multiple Myeloma (blood cancer) patient; and myself, Jo, a full-time working wife/mom. We took our cue from Sean's oncologist that we needed to take Covid seriously; Myeloma patients do not do well if exposed to Covid, so we knew that we had to take precautions as a family. The Frankenmuth School District has made navigating these crazy Covid-times easier on our family by providing the option for the kids to complete this past year of school virtually. There have been apparent obstacles, but also several less obvious silver linings. We feel so blessed and recognize how fortunate we are that we have the resources available such as laptops, access to the internet, ability to work from home, etc. H O W V I R T U A L L E A R N I N G W O R K E D Gabby's classes were accessed, taught, and initially graded through a virtual platform called Michigan Virtual. She had four core classes (Math, English, History, and Science) and two electives each semester (Computer Skills & Study Skills; Spanish & Character Education). Her Michigan Virtual teachers were assigned to her each semester. EFR provided a virtual mentor (Mrs. Jacobs and Mr. Wagner) to the students who checked in with them throughout the week. It was slightly more complicated for Ben, and I'm honestly not even sure I fully understand how it worked. His core classes were accessed via a virtual platform called Edmentum, while he accessed his electives through the Michigan Virtual platform. FHS Teachers were available for questions and were responsible for "unlocking" tests and quizzes provided by Edmentum. As a 14-year-old freshman, Ben was very independent and did not share much with me unless asked directly. T H E G O O D , T H E B A D , A N D T H E U G L Y The best part of Virtual Learning was the obvious, initial reason: the ability to keep our beloved immuno-compromised family member safely quarantined. There were also many unexpected silver linings. There was an abundance of shared family time that we otherwise wouldn't have been gifted with. Having the kids home with us allowed for much deeper conversations and numerous "life lesson" teaching moments. Both kids know their way around a kitchen now (cooking way more than I do!) They know how to run a load of laundry. They both had the opportunity to "sit in" on several of my work Zoom calls and meetings, learning how to handle themselves professionally. Oh, and they learned from their school work! Ben learned/taught himself some pretty tough Algebra and Biology material. However, he completed most of his work during "nontraditional" school hours. The material itself is excellent to learn, but we believe that knowing HOW to learn and having the self-discipline to keep up with the work on his own was just as, if not more, valuable. In addition, the electives that he took generated some great family discussions. The personal finance class challenged Ben to think about the best ways to manage and invest money in the future. It reminded me of those memes often seen that say, "Why don't schools teach kids how to balance a checkbook and compare mortgages?" It turns out they do! And from what I hear, there is a similar (non-virtual) class offered at Frankenmuth High School. One of the homework assignments talked about figuring out student loans and required the student to look up tuition costs for colleges they might be interested in. As Ben worked his way through the assignment, Sean and I would get tidbits of what he had researched. It was so interesting to see and compare costs of private vs. state schools and then contrast that to the "income" of attending a Military Academy. Things like this add to his motivation to aim high and work hard. Although it's difficult to learn Spanish 2 without a live person to converse with, the most challenging part for Ben was the formatting of math answers; With virtual math, it was never apparent if an answer should be typed a^1/2 or a^ (1/2). Sometimes, if Ben missed a question, he was never really sure if he missed it because he fundamentally did not understand the question and how to do it or if he did not type the answer using a specific format. This led to the frustration that if he missed 1 out of 5 questions, he automatically received an 80% on a quiz. For a motivated virtual learner, that's a pretty tough line, 100% or a B-. It was frustrating for Ben that no 10

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