Courtesy photo Amber Kinonen, who teaches English classes at Bay College, works on the online classes she has been teaching.

ESCANABA — K-12 and college classes in Michigan have moved online as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Local teachers and students have recently been adjusting to this.

At Bay College, spring break was extended by two days in mid-March to allow for face-to-face classes to transition to online instruction. These classes resumed virtually on March 18.

Amber Kinonen, who teaches English classes at Bay, said online instruction is not new to her. She has been teaching classes online for “eight or nine years.”

Kinonen did have to convert some classes that were being held in person to online instruction this semester. She said one class that has been relatively difficult to convert has been her Reading and Writing Skills class.

“It’s meant to help students who are below college level and to build their skills in reading and writing,” she said.

While about 85 percent of Kinonen’s students across all her classes have continued to actively participate after Bay’s transition to online instruction took place, roughly 50 percent of her students in Reading and Writing Skills are still involved.

“Some of them have disappeared, but some of them are doing well,” Kinonen said.

Kinonen has held some phone calls and a Zoom session with her active Reading and Writing Skills students as part of the class. She said the Zoom session was “actually really enjoyable.”

“They were able to give me their perspectives and they were also able to give suggestions for how to make the transition to solely online & easier for them,” she said.

Kaily Fox, a student in Kinonen’s Reading and Writing Skills class, said moving to virtual instruction for this class has not been challenging for her. She has had experience with online classes in the past.

“In high school, my last couple years I did online,” she said. She noted students had been filing assignments for Reading and Writing Skills via Blackboard Learn before the pandemic hit, as well.

However, shifting to online instruction has come with some challenges.

“She [Kinonen] explains things very well, but sometimes it’s frustrating not being able to be there in person and ask her questions right away,” Fox said.

Despite these issues, Fox encouraged her fellow students to remain calm.

“My advice to other students would be to just be patient with your instructors, because this is also something new for them,” she said.

Eric Parrotta, an automotive instructor for the Delta-Schoolcraft ISD and an adjunct instructor for Bay College, was among the local teachers learning how to hold online classes.

“It’s something new, because I’m used to teaching face-to-face,” he said.

He also said moving the classes he teaches online has come with its own set of challenges.

“Half of that is in the shop setting,” Parrotta said of his classes.

That said, Parrotta said things were going smoother than he had expected so far.

“With the high school students, they’re familiar with the online world to begin with,” he said, noting his textbook was already available online.

Parotta has been uploading videos for his students, including lectures and shop demos. For the most part, Parotta said the demos are non-intrusive enough that students can recreate them in their own videos at home.

The videos made by Parotta are posted to Google Classroom, and are accompanied by a series of questions. Students are asked to email their responses to these questions to Parotta.

“That way, I can engage the students,” he said.

They can also use email to ask questions about the class.

Additionally, Parotta said he has been holding Zoom meetings so his students can meet at the same time.

Escanaba Area Public Schools introduced its remote learning program on Monday, April 13. The program was introduced after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that Michigan K-12 students would not return to school buildings for the rest of the academic year earlier in the month.

Chris Ogren, a geometry and AP statistics teacher at Escanaba Area High School, said he got a jump-start on online education at the school.

“We went official Monday of this week, but I started posting things last Monday for my overachievers,” he said.

Ogren started preparing for online instruction by creating scans of assignments he would normally hand out in class at this time of year. He went on to group these assignments into weeks.

“I teach three lessons in a week, and I just record a video of myself teaching,” Ogren said.

Some of Ogren’s video lessons are recorded in front of a whiteboard in his house.

“Other times, I use a program where I write on my iPad and it takes a video of what I’m writing and it records my voice,” he said.

Along with the assignments and video lessons, Ogren holds virtual office hours for an hour a day. At these times, students can video chat with him online.

“If they want to talk face-to-face, we do still have that option,” Ogren said.

On average, he said one or two students take advantage of his office hours each day.

So far, Ogren said online instruction has been going smoothly for him. Of his 113 geometry students, 90 have been participating in online classes.

Ogren also said the district has been trying to make online instruction as accessible as possible by distributing devices to students who need them. It has also set up a Wi-Fi hotspot for students without internet service at home.

“They’ve set up high-speed internet in the parking lot,” he said.