Changes to routines have caused difficulties communicating and coordinating over Zoom. Senior Emily Zhao says that her house doesn’t have enough space to be able to truly dance. “In my house, I’m knocking stuff over when I’m trying to dance,” she said. “It’s hard to go full out when you’re dancing. Also, if people are teaching you choreography, it’s rather difficult to see their whole body and actually get the rhythm down.”
Another aspect that has been affected by the restrictions is competition. However, the cheer team has been able to compete virtually. “Competition season is also going to start very soon, so we are going to do virtual competitions, and hopefully, if we win, we will be getting to go to nationals in-person this year,” Cheer Team Captain senior Amelie Solis said.
For athletes in hopes of using their senior year to increase chances of recruitment, that opportunity has become much slimmer. Hallada feels as if he has missed an opportunity. “There are a lot of schools, that maybe if I have a good year, I could get interest from them, but that’s out of the realm of possibility at this point,” he said “I’m not going to be able to use senior film, which is, a lot of the time, a huge part of what gets people recruited.”
In spite of all of the restrictions to sports this season, Gleyzer remains optimistic. “Even with the million uncertainties surrounding our season, the whole team is working extremely hard to go with the flow and maintain a positive attitude,” she said.

For Kitada, being placed in a new environment has created its own share of problems. “I think the [challenge] that is giving teachers the most trouble is trying to translate some of their traditional classroom activities and lessons into an online format,” he said. 

Kitada, like his students, misses the daily, physical interactions that distance learning has made impossible. “One thing that’s really hard to create over Zoom is a sense of community and camaraderie,” he said. “In a regular class, students come in at all different times. I can walk around my class, or I can stand at the door and have small talk. I think that that is reduced over Zoom.”

His curriculum has also had to change pretty drastically, due to the shortened schedule. “In terms of content and curriculum, I’ve had to cut a bit,” he said. “In one of my classes I had to cut a whole book, and other things I normally would do.”

Kitada has found that students are reluctant to participate in a virtual format, which can lower the quality of group discussions.  “With Zoom, I think students are more hesitant to unmute themselves and contribute; breakout rooms don’t always make for great small group discussion,” he said.

Still, he has learned to make adjustments. He’s found that his students have benefited from a change in workload, and changed assignments accordingly. “I’ve noticed for some reason—it might be because it’s in a different format or maybe students are at home so they feel more distracted—but I find that some of the activities or homework I assign takes a lot longer to do,” he said. “I’ve decided to reduce assignment load in general.”

Moving forward, Kitada believes that a hybrid model of both synchronous and asynchronous learning could help students that have experienced Zoom fatigue.“It seems like not all students and teachers want the 100% synchronous system,” he said. “So maybe we could try to figure out different ways to have a hybrid model.”

Despite the drawbacks of distance learning, Kitada has found a silver lining. “Attendance has gone way up, and tardiness has gone way down, which is very helpful as a teacher when I can start my lessons on time and when more students are there in class,” he said. “I don’t have to spend as much time catching people up or answering emails about what people missed in class, so that’s been nice.”

Ultimately, Kitada feels his priority as an educator is to provide the highest quality education to his students. “It makes me feel sad that a lot of what students expect and want got lost during the pandemic, so I’m trying my best to recreate that energy and passion that I would have in the regular classroom, on Zoom,” he said.

Before you start organizing your school work, you must organize your time first. Start with purchasing a journal or use an old notebook. Next, write down all of your assignments, projects and tests into your planner with the date next to each entry. This will help you remember your deadlines and will serve as the foundation to your success.

2. Maintain a Clean Work Space:

In the era of Zoom classes, it’s especially important to have a workplace that’s clean and open; after all, this kind of environment can help boost productivity and efficiency. Having a designated place in your house to do work can help you build the habit of a routine work schedule. 

3. Work in Intervals and Take Breaks:

Once you have established a schedule and a clean workspace, the challenge becomes sticking to that routine. For starters, try to work in 30-60 minute periods of time without pausing. Then, give yourself a break as a reward. 

4. Rid Yourself of Distractions:

Often, students struggle with focusing on one particular thing at a time.With the amount of distractions around us within the confinement of our homes, it’s easy to see why. Keep your workplace free of distractions, whether that be your phone, a TV or even a pet. 

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Sophie Fan

According to a survey the Oracle sent out to Gunn students.

The PAUSD Promise is a document created by the Board of Education to outline the future of the district. “This guiding document is designed to clearly, concisely and coherently outline our critical priority areas, provide space to explore our aspirations and determine metrics to monitor our progress,” according to The PAUSD Promise website.

Discussions about SBG began in a three-day profession- al learning and event centered around assessment called PA-YOU!-SD in June of last year. According to Principal Kathleen Laurence, the plan is still in its infancy. “We’re working on our backward planning from fall of 2022 in each department and professional learning community,” Laurence said. “There will be some overarching kind of way we do it, with nuances for different subject areas, certainly, but we aren’t there yet. We haven’t designed it.”

SBG is a system of education that focuses on assessing a student’s ability to demonstrate learning. One of its main goals is to allow students to be aware of what they have learned and what they need to work on. This principle is reflected in its grading scale.
Every assignment is graded on a one to four point scale; the scores are then used to determine the grade for a bucket score. Bucket scores are calculated from the scores that appear most often and most recently in that category. The overall grade is also calculated in the same manner—based on the bucket scores.

Since curriculum becomes increasingly difficult as the year progresses, assignments toward the end of the year are weighted heavier. “[Assignments] at the end are always weighted more than those at the beginning because the things that are meeting the standard by the end of the semester are much more difficult than the things that meet the standard at the beginning of the semester,” said Sci- ence Department Instructional Lead Laurie Pennington.

One drawback of the current system is that overall grades do not always accurately represent a student’s un- derstanding of the material. Since grades are calculated in broad categories, there is a degree of ambiguity. “If you are a student who maybe doesn’t do their homework but aces all their tasks, you might earn a B,” Pennington said. “If you are a student who does all your homework and doesn’t do as well on the test, you might also earn a B. Have we measured the same things? No.”
Another key principle of SBG is that students have the ability to show their understanding throughout the course of the semester. One drawback of the current education system is that it doesn’t allow for students to demonstrate learning after they have been tested. “The thing that should be the variable is the time, not the learning,” Lau- rence said. “And in the traditional system, the learning is the variable and the time is set.” Under the new SBG plan, students will be able to remediate assignments.

Currently, SBG has been incorporated into all lower lane, first year chemistry classes at Gunn. As one of the first courses to implement SBG into their curriculum Pennington believes that SBG will have success. “I was reading about the great things that could come from it and because I really personally care about student learning, it’s been something that I’ve really tried to learn and work
toward,” she said. “I think that yes it’s [SBG] possible and yes, I think it can work in every single class.”

The overarching purpose of SBG is to help students understand what they’re learning and how to do so in an effective manner at their own pace, with the goal of pre- paring them for the future. “By the time students get to college, they’re going to know how they learn, what they need to do, where they need to buckle down and where they can let go a little bit,” Pennington said. “All those different things, I think, can come from standards-based work. So, the ultimate goal is learning better learning and where students can learn on their own, and learning for learnings sake, not for the grade sake.”