Areeb Siddiqui, Wired News Editor
Hi, my name is Areeb Siddiqui! I'm a staff writer for Westside Wired this year. I'm a sophomore and a fun fact about me is that I'm a dual citizen. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at [email protected]
![“I kind of liked the 50% [capacity] and, you know, I liked being able to work from home and have that at-home feeling as well as still coming, seeing some of my friends,” sophomore Nathan Swanson.](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210114_121641592-675x900.jpg)
![“It was a little much. I felt like I was ignoring either my online students or my in person students. And as anyone knows, any time that you feel like your kids aren’t active in class, you feel like [you are] wasting their time. We don’t have a lot of time with them anyway, so it was frustrating,” English instructor Charlotte Weyler](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210120_135034343-675x900.jpg)
![“I think the biggest challenge [of teaching online and in person] is just knowing exactly what the at-home students are doing. In my classes I have everyone, even when we’ve been at our 50% [capacity], any student that's at home, whether they’re an extended campus student or it’s just the opposite alphabet that day, they all have to join class via Webex. Everybody is expected to attend synchronously, but again, even though they’re logged in, cameras aren’t always on, whether they’re actually there and paying attention, I don’t know,” math instructor Kevin Koch](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210114_142627863-675x900.jpg)
![“Last semester, honestly, I thought it was a little disorganized, especially when the learning is unsynchronized. You’re learning stuff [for] two days a week and then you have to learn the same stuff, you know, the other days of the week. It was hard to kind of keep track of the work since everything is online. You didn’t have that constant ‘teachers telling us what to do’,” senior Lauryn Richard](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210114_142243985-675x900.jpg)
![“I’ve allowed, this semester, to have my online students separated from my in person students, so this semester had been a lot better as a teacher for me compared to last semester, because last semester it was in person and online [students] at the same time, and it was… a struggle,” social studies instructor Amy Studts](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210114_142111993-675x900.jpg)
![“It’s definitely hard during online, it’s really hard. Most people don’t really do [online learning anymore] because they’re tired of it. But being in person is actually pretty easy,” junior J'Michael Simmons](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210114_141751016-675x900.jpg)
![“We’re really fortunate [to have] the technology, the Webex. I think that that does the best job that it can to make the [online] students feel like they’re actually here,” social studies instructor David Bywater.](https://westsidewired.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_20210114_141612440-675x900.jpg)
