MAY 28 • 2020 | 15

A Whole New World:
Virtual Learning
During a Pandemic

Teachers face new challenges trying to educate
their students from a distance.

CORRIE COLF STAFF WRITER

Jews in the D

B

efore the coronavirus 
pandemic, classrooms 
were filled with students 
and teachers, hallways were a 
place to see friends and catch 
up on the latest gossip, and 
gyms were filled with athletes 
and families cheering them on. 
Now, everything has moved 
online, and classrooms are 
now in kitchens, bedrooms 
and office spaces in students’
 
homes. 
Technology glitches are 
inevitable and are now com-
mon occurrences for some 
classes. Amy Stein, a Jewish 
studies teacher at Farber 

Hebrew Day School, was 
bringing her students back 
from a Zoom breakout group 
session when everyone’
s videos 
had frozen. Luckily, the sound 
was still there. Stein continued 
with the lesson and slowly, one 
by one, each student’
s video 
began to come back.
Teachers have also had to 
encourage engagement from 
students through discussions 
by calling on them individ-
ually to discuss homework 
assignments or in-class exer-
cises. Stein, for example, has 
her students mute themselves 
and use the chat box function 
on Zoom so no one begins to 
talk over one another. Talking 
over one another is hard 
enough in the classroom, but 
in a virtual setting, the result 
is deafening silence due to 
Zoom’
s settings automatically 
muting crosstalk. 
It has now been over two 
months since Gov. Gretchen 
Whitmer closed schools 
throughout Michigan due to 

COVID-19. On April 2, dis-
tricts were tasked with devel-
oping individualized plans for 
their teachers and students to 
engage in distance learning.
Many students, especially 
seniors, are still struggling 
with the notion of not being in 
the classroom and celebrating 
the end of their high school 
careers with proms and grad-
uation.
Zoom classrooms, Google 
Hangouts and recorded lesson 
plans have become the new 
“norm” for students and teach-
ers. Sitting at home, staring 
at a screen all day is difficult 
and strange, but still allows 
for students to feel a sense of 
togetherness while being apart 
from one another.
However, teachers from 
local schools around Oakland 
County have risen to the 
challenge and are trying to 
overcome obstacles to engage 
with their students as much 
as they can through this new 
virtual age. 

FRANKEL JEWISH ACADEMY
At Frankel Jewish Academy in 
West Bloomfield, teachers have 
been using Google Hangouts 
to engage with their students. 
Rebecca Strobehn, a ninth 
grade Jewish studies teacher, 
has been a teacher at FJA for 
three years. Although she is 
proud of her students’
 resil-
ience, nothing can compare 
to seeing her students face-to-
face on a daily basis.
“The part of teaching I love 
most is the daily interactions 
with my students, both formal 
and informal. In our current 
online learning structure, we 
have limited face-to-face time 
with our students and such 
limited opportunities for just 
being together without the 
pressures of a lesson plan,” 
Strobehn said. “Even as some-
one who has grown up in the 
digital age, I have always pro-
cessed in-person interactions 
differently from digital ones. 
It’
s just not the same seeing 
and talking to my students on 
a screen.”

Strobehn has also changed 
her approach to teaching 
during this time. She tries to 
make time during each lesson 
to check in with her students 
and find out how they’
re doing 
outside of academics. In a few 
of her classes, she has struc-
Amy Stein

“It’s just not
the same seeing 
and talking
to my students
on a screen.”

— AMY STEIN

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