Hey there! It’s Allyson from OnlineTeacherAllyson.com where stay-at-home moms learn how to teach online so they can earn an income from home even if their children are in tow. Today is kind of a continuation of last week’s. Last week we talked about all the positives of online teaching and if you didn’t catch it I’ve got it linked for you. Remember there’s two tiers of online teaching. There is the 2020 formal school online teaching which isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the tier of online teaching where you and I fall which is where stay-at-home moms with maybe no experience can do it. I have a video on that too, so I’ve also got that one linked if you want to catch it.
PS – This is also a YouTube Video! If you prefer to watch it, you can catch it below. If not, continue reading for the full breakdown ๐
PPS: This is also a podcast episode! If you prefer to listen, it’s at the verrrry bottom, or find wherever you find podcasts. Just search for Simple Tools for the Online Teacher!
Negatives of Online Teaching
Today we’re talking about the negatives. It’s kind of yucky and no one wants to hear the negatives but there’s pros and cons to everything. If you’re like me you like to make those mental lists, and today we’re going to talk about the cons.
Not Every Student Will Learn Well Online
The first one I want to talk about is how not everybody learns that way. I alluded to it last week and I said I would be getting into it so here we go! I feel like online teaching is really great for some kids and not so great for others. So when you think about those kids that learn really well by seeing or by hearing – so your Auditory or your Visual learners – this is great for them! Online learning lends itself to that very well! But when you have your Kinesthetic learners, the kiddos that need to do things hands-on, or the ones that are really very active and have to keep moving, that’s a little harder.
If you think about Science, I always wanted to do a Science class online but I had trouble because of all of the Science tools that their families would need to have, or to buy, so I never created it. The things you need to do hands-on severely limits you. You probably hear my son today in the background, don’t mind him! It severely limits you so it doesn’t lend itself as well to those Kinesthetic learners. That’s not to say that those Kinesthetic learners can’t learn and you can’t find ways to do hands-on activities online. It’s just not as easy. It comes with more creativity on your part as the teacher, and it also comes with more flexibility, and maybe more purchasing power, on the family’s part to get all the things you need. So keep that in mind because I understand that not everybody learns that way and it’s a bummer, but it is what it is right? We’re all our own individual people and that’s the beauty of online learning. You get to choose, like I said last week, you get to choose your teacher, you get to choose your classes, you also get to choose, hopefully, if you even take online classes or not.
Students May Live Far Away From Friends They Make Online
Another negative is they can be really far away from friends they make. I talked about last week as well that some parents facilitate with a teacher wanting to share email addresses because their kids get along really well and they want to be pen pals. Sometimes they’re really close and sometimes they’re really far geographically. So that can be hard too! You never get to see your friend, maybe ever, or it’s rare. We all know how hard travel and how expensive travel can be, so that can be a really big bummer. But again, the beauty of the Internet these days is we have Skype and FaceTime and other ways to talk with them that we didn’t have back when I was growing up.
More Screen Time
And now the word we all hate to hear: screen time. Online learning obviously comes with more screen time because they’re staring at a computer or a tablet. So you have to weigh the for fun screen time, like TV, video games, and movies, with the kind of educational screen time that your kid is going to be getting as an online learner. Even if they’re not taking an educational class per se. They’re taking maybe my friendship bracelet class, I don’t offer it anymore just FYI, but maybe they’re taking something more for fun. But they’re still learning! They’re still learning how to interact with the teacher, how to interact with students, how to take an online class, how to learn, and it lends itself really well to higher education.
I remember my first experience with online learning was my online classes for college. I think I took one. I hated it! Online college classes are very different from the way online learning is set up, so don’t compare the two, I’m just comparing the feelings that I felt.
Online Learning is Extra Classes
Here’s another one, extra classes. I count online learning as an extra class because we are not the classroom teachers. You are not a classroom teacher. You and I aren’t. So, it is an extra class, or two, or three, or whatever for the student. Maybe they’re taking reading tutoring so that’s more lessons for them. Maybe they’re taking math tutoring. Even if it’s fun it’s still a class. So it’s more learning and focusing time for the student. Extra classes, again, they don’t bode well for every student. Maybe their schedule is too busy with sports, or maybe they’re too busy with other things at home. That could be another pitfall. Really, it lands on the families to know their students and whether or not they’re going to benefit from online classes.
Online Learning Costs Money
Another one is, it costs money! Iโll be real, online classes are not free, and some of them can come at a pretty penny. When I taught for VIPKid they sold their classes in packages. So you get a certain amount of classes for a certain amount of money. As teachers we didn’t really know exactly what those packages were they were selling, but word on the street was a 25-minute class was running the parent about $20. These kids were taking two, three, four hundred classes on the platform. Over time obviously, they would buy another package. So that adds up if you think about $20 each time. If you think about the Outschool vein, $12 for a 20 to 30 minute class is kind of average to see for a group class. Then you’re going to see about a dollar a minute for a private class. It really does cost the families extra money. While I do see there are amazing benefits, both academically and socially, with online teaching, I understand that we’re in some crazy times. It just might not be in the budget right now for some families and that’s okay. It’s just a bummer. So of course it’s a negative that students may be losing out on classes because of new budgets within their family trying to pay for gas and food.
Reminders of COVID and Isolation
Finally, online learning could have reminders of isolation and 2020. I know that for a lot of students this was a lot of their learning and a lot of them didn’t like it. A lot of teachers didn’t like it! A lot of my friends were over it. So, it could come with those negative reminders about COVID, and isolation, and the fear that came with it for a lot of us – adults and kids included! That’s not always what you want your kiddo to think about. So, as the teacher, you would have to talk to the child and understand that’s where their fear is, or their hesitancy is. Parents, if you are a parent signing your kid up for online learning, or you as the teacher just suggest nicely to the parents that maybe they talk to them because you worry about it. So that’s another thing, I thought about COVID for a long time because that’s when I really got my start with online teaching was when COVID was very big in China. Remember, it hit China before it came over here so there was about a month or so where it was really really prevalent in China, and we had heard about it but it wasn’t bad here, and that’s when I really got my start. So I think about it all the time when I think about online teaching because that’s just when I got my big olโ running start.
All right, I know that wasn’t necessarily the most fun to talk about but I think it’s important, because we are in it for the students, right? I mean yes you want money. I understand that, me too! But on the other hand you’re here for your students whether they’re adults or theyโre children. So I hope that kind of gave you some perspective as to the other side of online teaching because we all like to talk about what we know and love but it’s not always all sunshine and rainbows and I wanted to talk about that too. All right I hope you have a great week. I’ll see you next week! Chat soon!
