Change Your World Week Winter 2021 (Archived)

What is the issue with virtual learning? 

What are the negative consequences of it?

The problem presented before us is one that was caused and enabled by the coronavirus. Not only did the Coronavirus cause major upset in the economy, it also caused a major upset in the education and well being of students around the country. Public  American education has been around for decades, first through twelfth graders show up to the same place everyday for in person classes for the majority of their lives. They learn how to work in an interactive face to face atmosphere, and this is how they have been taught their entire lives. 

Now that the pandemic has taken such great affect over our lives, in person learning is hard to come by. The kids that have graduated high school and continued to college are suffering immensely. Not only are they struggling in the aspect of growing up, getting a job, financial stability, school, and work; they have to reteach themselves how to handle a full time academic schedule online. For many students, the online format is completely new to them and is hard to juggle with all the different responsibilities, virtual learning is just another stresser that adds to a college students life (Gupta, S. 2021, January 22).  Not only does online learning inhibit the learning experience by limiting labs for med students and in person instruction for many people that learn better that way, it also inhibits the way we interact as humans. Virtual learning is not only vital for our education and knowledge base, but for our human development as well. 

College is suppose to be a time for people to find themselves, students are suppose to be making connections with professors, staff, and fellow classmates. Many people find their life long best friends in college, some find their mentor that a help them get a job someday, and some people meet the love of their lives. All of these things are being hindered by the increase of virtual learning around the country due to the pandemic. 

Last fall, nearly two-thirds of colleges were fully or primarily online (BestColleges. 2021, February 12). As discussed above, keeping kids from college campuses takes a toll on every aspect in their lives, it is shown to cause mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and loneliness. From personal experience, I have seen many people drop class after class until they are no longer enrolled, the online learning is too much stress for them. I have also had many cases where kids are failing their first semesters, especially the kids that are coming straight from high school. This passed fall semester I had 2 friends that failed their first semester of college. 

TAKE THE POLL BELOW, WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE WHAT YOU THINK!

What can be done about this issue?

Who can make it happen? 

WHAT CAN BE DONE???

Throughout the country, colleges are taking action to combat this problem with regulations and guidelines they come up to keep the students safe so they can return to learning face to face. For example, colleges like North Carolina State University administration cancelled the normally scheduled spring break and enacted "wellness days". Instead of allowing their students 2 weeks off for a spring trip to somewhere warm, they enacted wellness days, which are days that happen once a month where the students have no school work and primarily get o rest and decompress for the upcoming days. 

As things like this happen in North Carolina, they are starting to happen in some Michigan colleges as well.  A liberal arts school located in Calhoun county has taken great measures to ensure their students are provided with in person instruction. Albion College has about 1500 students with a 11:1 student to teacher ratio and here, 90% of their students live on campus (Albion College, Key Facts). 

• Here they have implemented polices like weekly COVID testing for all students.
• no student was allowed outside a 15 mile radius of Albion.
• They were not allowed to travel home on the weekends unless for a doctor or religious purpose.
• Dinning halls were closed, food was provided in take out form only.
• athletics were limited, and gatherings of any kind were also prohibited.
• These things they could change due to their circumstances as a college, but they did enact another policy that I think all colleges should highly consider at this time. 

Albion's Biggest Change

•  Split their semester into 2 halves.
• The students took part in two accelerated classes, face to face for the first 7 weeks of the semester, then the 2nd second 7 weeks of the semester was another 2 face to face accelerated classes to finish the first fall 14 week term.
• Online format was always available to the students if they were in quarantine or if they felt uncomfortable coming to class (Healthy and Wellness, Albion College, 2021).
• This policy allows students at Albion to stay face to face and away from the virtual if at all possible. It allows them to learn the needed material in the correct fashion. 

On the other hand, we hear all the time that the only way to eradicate the vaccine is to make sure everyone in the country is vaccinated. Therefore, why don't colleges just mandated the vaccine so that students can go back to in person learning? Well, with the vaccine being so new and not the majority of the population having it yet, we don't necessarily know if this would be a healthy solution to the problem, due to the lack of research that comes with the vaccines and colleges campuses. Mandating a vaccine that is so new may cause more problems than it will solve. 

WHO IS GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?

Now that we have a solution in mind that is working, what can we do about it? What can the government do about it? 

In the near future, I foresee a mandate or regulation of some sort coming from an elected official to enact this policy of accelerated learning at every college. The government can pass a regulation or even a law that mandates colleges to at least provide this opportunity to their student body. Whether the students want to partake is their choice, but I think ALL students deserve the right to be offered in person learning like they are being offered at Albion. 

DON'T FORGET THE POLL!

Below is a letter addressing the issue of virtual learning and its negative effects on students. This is a letter you can send to a law maker near you, asking for a positive change for the situation! Check it out!   

Also! Included in the letter is contact information for Senators and House representatives in the Delta College area!

Who is affected by this issue?

Would be responsible for enacting the policy change you identified?

Students - This issue directly affects the student going through their academic career right now. Since they are the ones with the most interest, they are the ones who can make the biggest impact on the situation. By expressing concerns and voicing complaints they can make the change they want to see. Because without students, there are no teachers, there is no school. 

Parents - If the issue effects the child, then it effects the parents. They want to see their child getting the best education possible, and they also want what they are paying for to be worth their hard earned money. If the student is paying for it then that student feels the same way, if not stronger about the issue. Parents have thir child interest at heart, therefore they have a voice in this change as well. 

Teachers/Professors - When these people chose their profession, they probably didn't anticipate they would have to teach on a virtual platform. Many people chose the profession due to the fact that they would be able to make connections with students in a classroom setting. They wanted to teach students more than just things in a textbook and research on google. The online format making this very hard for teachers is another direct impact and interest, meaning their voice matter in this issue!

Tax payers - Most counties include college taxes on the residents of the area, this money is going directly to the colleges. These tax payers dollars are being spent on the students and soon to be working members of society. Tax payers are investing in the students of the area, and if they see that their dollars are not being used to the full extent to get the students what they need, they sure will have interest in exactly how they are spending that money. 

College administration/President/Review boards- People in these rolls are also directly effected by the virtual learning crisis. They should have a lot of interest in the problem at hand. By taking into consideration policy changes to better the education at this time would be a smart educational move and looking at it from a business stand point, it would also be a smart move. If more in person learning is offered, the enrollment for your college might go up, therefore, more money, more revenue, more attention. 

Michigan Department Of Education - These peoples jobs are to make sure their state is up to pare in the educational area, that we are keeping up with educational developments and staying on track with other surrounding states. They are to make sure students are getting what they need, so, they are directly involved in this matter and should take great interest in how the students of Michigan are feeling about their education at this time. 

United States Department Of Education - As the head of the education system in our country, it is their responsibility to make sure students are getting the correct treatment in school and colleges of every shape and size. If this issue is brought to a bigger scale and the negative effects the virtual learning has and polices that work are shown, then they would be interested in helping make a change. 

Center of Disease Control and Prevention - Once more attention is brought up by students and staff, they may start to rethink their regulations. Once they see how many ways their are to prevent covid spreading through college campuses. 

Mandating the Covid-19 vaccine is one of the most widely discussed topics at the moment due to its polarizing stances in society.

The discussion has now made its way to colleges with the general consensus that they will not mandate the vaccine right away, but there could be many benefits to a mandate.

With this information it looks like the last people that will be getting the vaccine would be healthy young adults which is a good description of most college students.

Even if colleges wanted to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine, they are not going to have the supply to do that until at least the next (2021-22) academic year (Schnell 2020).

Since there is not a lot of concrete evidence for mandating the college vaccine and it's hard to put into perspective how influential it will be for getting students back into in class learning.

In 2018 there were about 20 million college students along with 1.5 million teachers in the U.S. which makes college campuses a large infection and spreading zone for the virus (Snyder 2021).

Mandating the vaccine would cut down on the amount of cases in the U.S. significantly while saving many lives in the process and allowing students to get the in class learning they desire.

In some people's eyes this would outweigh the risks, but there is not enough support behind the push for the vaccine.

This could be due to The American College Health Association not making a decision about whether colleges should require the COVID-19 vaccine, they are waiting for guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (schnell). Without the backing of the CDC it is hard to find a reason to outright mandate the vaccine to college students without push back.

Works Cited

Schnell, L. (2020, December 14). College campuses Drove Major COVID-19 outbreaks. now, will they require the vaccine? Retrieved March 04, 2021, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/12/10/covid-vaccine-required-school-college/6495727002/

Snyder, Susan. “Should College Students Be Required to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? It's Too Early for Colleges to Decide.” Https://Www.inquirer.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 Jan. 2021, www.inquirer.com/education/college-coronavirus-vaccine-requirement-2021-students-20210110.html.

What we have done to help get your voice out to the politicians in your community is create a Change.org petition for you to sign!

If you feel that you have had a negative experience with virtual learning then we want you to sign our petition, This isn't for the removal of virtual learning but to show that the system needs improvements and reforming

Right below is a link to send you straight to the petition!

http://chng.it/4rDHGBpr77