UCLA Community School Students Conduct Research on Life in the Pandemic
An article on “Finding our voices, and our research skills, during the pandemic,” written by UCLA Community School high school students has been published in EdSource. Gustavo Aguilar, Alex Alejo, Guadalupe Laureano Carranza, Jamie-Lynn Juco, Nareli Juquilita Lopez and Adriana Rios-Cruz, are in grades nine through 12 and serve on the Student Advisory Board at UCLA Community School, a K-12 public school on the campus of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles. Their essay shared the experience of creating a research project on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on their classmates, teachers, and families.
“In a year that many have considered lost, we have learned much,” the students write. “We learned that we have many gifts and talents. We got better at our hobbies and discovered new hobbies, too. We learned that we are good at chipping in — we can cook for our families and take good care of our siblings. We learned how to fix things and do chores properly. We also learned how to manage our time, avoid procrastination, practice self-care and love, and appreciate and enjoy the present.
“Our school lives were transformed just as much. When the coronavirus changed life as we knew it, we came together to be sure that student voices were heard as our school moved to online learning.”
Using a bilingual online survey, the students received a 60 percent response from their peers, which revealed how different groups of students were doing in the new remote learning environment. The students also learned how to code students’ open-ended responses with the help of a UCLA researcher in order to analyze these data, and created tables, word clouds and graphics to show their findings.
“We found, for example, that our peers struggled to balance a number of additional responsibilities outside of school as a result of the pandemic,” the students write. “Like us, students shared that they had to care for younger siblings or their older relatives, cook and do chores because their parents were working. Some took on outside jobs for pay — in some instances more than one job — to help their families.
“We discovered that students, based on grade, differed in how useful they found school-provided resources, i.e., internet hot spots, computers, breaks during class, allowing late work, meditation/yoga. We also conducted grade-level focus groups to deepen our understanding of students’ feelings regarding what and how they were learning.”
The students stated in the essay that they “gained insights into our community and online learning,” and found that their peers varied in opinion regarding the rigor of their lessons and schoolwork. They also recognized the added challenges to their teachers in managing both family life and their students’ needs. In appreciation, the students encouraged their peers to turn their video cameras on during distance learning on a particular day and time to show their appreciation.
“Bottom line: It is hard for our teachers to please everybody!” noted the students.
Principal Leyda Garcia invited the student researchers to present their findings to the entire UCLA Community School staff during their weekly professional development meeting. In Zoom breakout rooms, the students led discussions and answered teachers’ questions about the needs and concerns of their fellow students.
“It felt good to share the information we had found and to help our teachers see and learn from it as we had,” the students write in EdSource. “While it was nerve-wracking to talk to so many adults, speaking on behalf of our peers was empowering and exciting. Teachers were thankful for our efforts. One shared that learning from us can help set the culture at the school and ‘let ourselves be human’ during these times. Another teacher said she learned she needs to give ‘our kids and ourselves grace.’”
The students found that across all the groups they surveyed, their peers missed the in-person school interaction the most.
“As one student shared in a focus group, ‘We must be grateful for each other,’” the students write. “In particular, we have learned that, even during these difficult times, our teachers continue to be there for us and are eager to hear our voices.
“This year has been far from ideal, but it has not been lost. We have learned that our voices matter and that we have the power to gather information, communicate it and make things better — for us and the entire school. These are lessons that will stay with us for life.”
Click here to read “Finding our voices, and our research skills, during the pandemic,” by Gustavo Aguilar, Alex Alejo, Guadalupe Laureano Carranza, Jamie-Lynn Juco, Nareli Juquilita Lopez and Adriana Rios-Cruz, as featured in EdSource.
Courtesy of UCLA Community School