There are many electives here at South Lakes that are difficult to teach in an online environment. Even though it has been hard in some of the classes that need to be there physically, each class has found their own way to run their lessons smoothly. 

Culinary classes are trying to teach cooking online. Freshman Malak Mohamed takes Intro to Culinary says, “I liked it a lot the last time I took it but so far the class isn’t as enjoyable as I anticipated because all we do in class is review kitchen safety and tools and play kahoot.” She says she doesn’t appreciate the amount of assignments that impact her grade from this specific class.

“I would like the class more if it was more hands-on and if we actually got to participate in cooking activities instead of just taking notes and writing journals. I think we should make the most of our time in online school and start cooking at home since we can’t go to school, ” Mohamed added.

Andrew Gutierrez is a sophomore who is taking STEM Design here at South Lakes. OnShape is a developed website that they have been using for their class time and how it makes up for the classes hands-on activities they would’ve done if they weren’t doing school online. Gutierrez said, “The elective online is not hard because we are using OnShape which we wouldn’t be if we were doing normal school. The class is more hands on.”

Music classes have been trying to adapt, including chorus (read more here), band, orchestra and guitar. Dania Machado is also a sophomore here who is taking guitar. She said the class isn’t that different because she is still focusing on the main point of the course, which is playing the guitar. During class, they will usually put their laptop in front of them, and practice playing the guitar that they either rented from the school, or bought on their own while waiting for further instruction. She explained that there are different levels of guitarists in her class which makes it how it’s hard for her teacher to keep up with all the people, but he is still doing a good job handling them all. 

“The teaching environment is definitely different. The teaching hasn’t really changed other than what we do in class. My teacher gives us time to play individually for most of class and a few minutes to do practices on what he has just explained. Overall the class is fun not really much has changed other than who we play to being a camera now and that it’s up to us if we wanna pay attention or not,”  Machado shared.

Most electives here at South Lakes have been doing pretty well virtually, despite challenges. They all have their different ways of teaching, but they are trying to reach their main goal of teaching students in an online environment.