​I don’t think I understand creative writing

Hello all! I am someone who has recently started a creative writing class, and find myself confused about the material.

For context, this is an online hands off creative writing course, centered around studying short fiction. The class doesn’t have any virtual meetings, and we are supposed to write in discussion boards and submit essays for a grade. There’s also an assigned group that we are put in, which we are supposed to collaborate with for end of the module essays. (My group has a hard time getting together and planning activities. Probably because we’re all busy with stuff on top of this class.) We are given a textbook with a collection of short stories, and I believe we are all supposed to use that book only for our studies

Was that all said, I found myself struggling with the material. From how far i’ve gotten in the class, most assignments have us looking for things like tone, imagery, character movement, shifts in time, pacing, voice, etc. My main problem is, I don’t know what any of these things look like, much less their explanations or any clear-cut examples. Looking for definitions and explanations to meticulously study, probably isn’t the best way to go about this. But when I let loose and try to find these things for myself, I still have a hard time identifying them.

I just think I don’t understand what goes into making short fiction, and maybe that I still have a reader’s perspective on everything. I want to understand it though, so I want to ask if anyone here has had any similar issues, or has ideas on how I can improve. If you need more details about the class or have any other questions, i’d be more than happy to answer them. (Also if you find any grammar mistakes in this post, feel free to point if them out to me!)