What Have Educators Learned About Distance Learning?

[atyy]

Many of us know that Chegg is a hugely problematic, so if you are in a position to do so, I recommend trying the above.

Isn't this deliberately lying to the students? Its underlying motivation seems precisely to teach the ethos of cheating. To me it doesn't seem like an honest teaching tactic.

 

[berkeman]

But here is the real issue: when they went online, the technology they used did not provide a way to see what another person (even the professor) was writing

Oh my, that can't work well at all.

 

[anorlunda]

Isn't this deliberately lying to the students? Its underlying motivation seems precisely to teach the ethos of cheating. To me it doesn't seem like an honest teaching tactic.

It gets messy. In theory, the duty of a teacher is simply to teach and nothing else. In reality, we expect teachers to grade their students, and that requires detection and prevention of cheating.

Khan Academy can be much closer to the ideal of simply teaching. No student is going to flunk or get kicked out of Khan Academy for not learning. No student is paying tuition to Khan Academy. No employers are demanding to see the diplomas from Khan Academy.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

In the sudden, involuntary transition to distance learning, many teachers seem not to have been willing to put in all the extra work that would have been needed to create as good a learning experience on line as was originally planned for the classroom.

Recognizing this, many have altered their assessments out of a sense of fairness, so I expect grades will be better than or about the same as usual, even though actual learning is much lower.

I expect once standardized tests fire up next school year, lots of performance deficits will be attributed to how COVID-19 interrupted this school year.

 

[atyy]

It gets messy. In theory, the duty of a teacher is simply to teach and nothing else. In reality, we expect teachers to grade their students, and that requires detection and prevention of cheating.

Teachers should detect cheating and ensure that exams are as fair as possible, but they should use honest methods.

 

[Vanadium 50]

not to have been willing to put in all the extra work

"Willing" may be a little harsh. Our local high school teachers were informed one day that their next classes would be virtual. Doesn't give them much time to switch gears.

 

[symbolipoint]

"Willing" may be a little harsh. Our local high school teachers were informed one day that their next classes would be virtual. Doesn't give them much time to switch gears.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Probably the biggest 'lesson learned' is the lack of computing/internet resources available to students- about 30% of our students reported not having a computer or reliable internet access.

This turns out to be particularly true for large families. Every family may have one computer with a big screen and every kid may have a phone, but people are re-discovering the advantages of large screens. Jane may get to watch her classes on the computer, but all that's left for Bobby is his phone. Lectures do not get better when the screens get smaller.

 

[anorlunda]

but people are re-discovering the advantages of large screens.

That's a very good point. Some phones are able to 'cast' mirror their screens on the home TV. Details and nomenclature vary.

 

[mathwonk]

This may sound ridiculous, and even be so, but it is my experience after decades of teaching. I spent most of my life as a very hard nosed grader, totally intolerant of any cheating, regarding it as a violation of university rules as well as the sanctity of my relationship with the students, wherein I was sincerely trying to help them. I wondered how they would like it if I lied to them, thereby cheating them of a chance to learn the material correctly. I usually had only about one cheater in a class of 30 or so, but that one made my life miserable, and absorbed more energy than all the rest.

Finally as I aged, I changed completely, and began to just try to remove the fear the students had of failing, which led them to cheat. When monitoring a test, if I saw a student glance surreptitiousy at a neighbor's paper, instead of marching back and ordering them to move up front where I could supervise them better, I simply walked back with a smile and asked if there was something that was giving them trouble. Usually they indicated a question they had no clue about, and I would just give them a helpful hint. If I saw an error on their paper I might suggest they rethink that one. Then I went back up front and wrote the same hint on the board for everyone.

I tried to give the impression, and to actually feel, that I simply cared about helping them learn the material as well as possible. When they began to buy into this. they seemed to stop trying to fool me, or maybe I just quit caring so much about the few who had been the whole problem in the first place. The result seemed not to be much change in the grades, i.e. the weak students didn't do much better even with the extra help, but they felt better about our relationship. It was no longer me against them but the both of us united trying to master the topic.

So naive as this sounds, under the present circumstances, I would just make very clear to the class just what behavior is acceptable for online tests, and try to make help available, and see how they respond. Maybe extra attempts could be offered in case the online format makes it harder for them to express themselves, some kind of retakes.

I realize my hard nosedness, from which I was finally liberated, is probably much greater than most other peoples, and that most people here already are more sympathetic than I was, so this may not change your approach as much as it did mine. There is also the inevitable annoyance that some answers handed back are not legit, and the scores are changing in a way that has no logical explanation, but it did seem to help me to try to focus more on helping and less on catching people out. The future is not kind to the cheater ultimately, as they don't learn anything, and that becomes clear under any kind of real test. I learned to avoid seeking to punish the person who tried to cheat, and made an effort to teach them this is a poor choice. Of course I tried also not to reward it.

I also have struggled greatly with the small amount of online teaching I have done, which was only with extremely gifted youngsters. In my experience it seemed the child took advantage of the distance between us to mostly sit back, and let me do all the work. It became more of a performance by me, than a shared lesson, and I felt the child learned little, even when they enjoyed and appreciated it. In an in person class, I always learned the students' names, and called on people throughout the lesson. This is tougher online.

Offered for what it is worth, maybe very little, by a retiree who does not have the problem now. I don't envy you this challenge. But I would suggest trying to avoid laying traps to catch the students, and would focus more on helping them navigate the new difficulties. Good luck!

 

[mathwonk]

maybe you have seen this one, a music teacher's take on the challenges of quarantine:

https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Ma...al-with-TikTok-quarantine-song-569815591.html

 

[jim mcnamara]

@Vanadium 50
Where did you get this? - the CDC does not have some of it and I want the red part please:

There are good reasons for colleges to close, but student safety is not one of them. Do you know how many people aged 15-24 died of Covid in the US? 37. Total. Out of a population of 43M. Given a college full-time enrollment of 12M, that means 10 or 11 college students. Compare that to ~50 students murdered per year.

 

[Vanadium 50]

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku

We're now up from 37 when I wrote this to 42.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@Vanadium 50 = check the headings on the dataset, this is medical data. Ex: Secondary to pneumonia means the person was admitted for pneumonia or ARDS, but the underlying cause is Covid 19. I know you posted elsewhere on this problem cause of death, maybe I should have stepped in then. But this is what it assumes: no Covid == no death would have occurred. Covid 19 could also be iatrogenic. Same meaning.

In reality this will not change your original post above. And you can argue, but do not aim at me. I'm just the bearer of a correction. Aim at physicians. But I see how you got 37. Thanks.

FWIW:
Physicians write death certificates however they personally deem appropriate. And other physicians get what they meant. And we do not want that changed. Physicians "see" things that you and I do not. And usually it works to the patient's advantage, death certificates not withstanding.

 

[Vanadium 50]

this is medical data

But this is what it assumes: no Covid == no death would have occurred.

The whole idea of a single "cause of death" is problematic. As I pointed out in another thread, if someone gets the purple pox, drives to see his doctor and gets in a fatal car accident, is it due to the purple pox or not? After all, if they didn't catch the purple pox they'd still be alive.

But, as you say (I think), in this case it does not matter. Whether it's "really" (if "really" even makes sense) 37, 42, 10 or 100, it's a very small number. Smaller than murder. Much smaller than alcohol or suicide.

 

[atyy]

maybe you have seen this one, a music teacher's take on the challenges of quarantine:

https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/Ma...al-with-TikTok-quarantine-song-569815591.html

Bluegrass death metal?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Isn't this deliberately lying to the students? Its underlying motivation seems precisely to teach the ethos of cheating. To me it doesn't seem like an honest teaching tactic.

I don't understand what you mean- who is lying, and what are they lying about?

 

[atyy]

I don't understand what you mean- who is lying, and what are they lying about?

The teachers are lying. They are setting up a deception to catch the cheaters.

 

[Andy Resnick]

The teachers are lying. They are setting up a deception to catch the cheaters.

That's what I don't understand about your claim- can you please be explicit about this? Where exactly on my post (#24) is "The teachers are lying"? Asking a question with no answer is not lying.

I'm not being stubborn, I honestly want to know how you construe a lie from that post.

 

[atyy]

That's what I don't understand about your claim- can you please be explicit about this? Where exactly on my post (#24) is "The teachers are lying"? Asking a question with no answer is not lying.

I'm not being stubborn, I honestly want to know how you construe a lie from that post.

Yes, I would consider asking a question with no answer to be a lie in the context of an exam.

 

[Vanadium 50]

That's why I was hoping to see the question. That said, I have had exams where "no solution exists" was the answer.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Yes, I would consider asking a question with no answer to be a lie in the context of an exam.

Ok, that's your opinion.

 

[vela]

Related to that, one thing that has not surprised me is that I still question the integrity of tests and exams given online. I am no longer surprised by the disparity between students who take the same tests online doing significantly better than the ones who took them in-class. And then students who had trouble in their first in-class exam, somehow and surprisingly did brilliantly when they took the 2nd exam online. Again, draw your own conclusion.

I've found it's not just a few students either. Most of the class somehow suddenly does significantly better than expected. If they are all indeed cheating, it's disappointing that such a large fraction of students have no qualms about doing it.

The subject of cheating came up just the other day on a mailing list I'm on. One instructor said he allows students to use any resource they want, but they have to turn in essentially a short essay on how they solved the problem. So students can look up and find a similar problem on Chegg, but if they can't articulate their reasoning, they're not going to get much credit. I'm thinking of doing this in summer and possibly in fall if I'm still stuck giving exams online.

 

[symbolipoint]

vela, your post #58 is interesting. I might also believe that obtaining every student's writing sample can be useful for understanding how each student handles discussions in written form; like their compositional tendencies, or their style. If some way later that a student expresses something seems way off, then the evaluator might guess that it is not a genuine composition of the student.

 

[Andy Resnick]

That's why I was hoping to see the question. That said, I have had exams where "no solution exists" was the answer.

Having the question referred to in post #24 isn't that helpful (was what I was trying to say back then...)- not only do we not know the course, but we also don't know what discussion the instructor had with the class prior to the exam: what kinds of questions to expect, for example.

So, while I haven't done this exact thing, I have done similar things- making up 'impossible to answer' questions is not that difficult for intro Physics.

 

[atyy]

Ok, that's your opinion.

It's also troubling that the teacher posted a deliberately wrong answer on Chegg.

BTW, who is Jearl whom you mentioned in your post?

And did what you posted actually take place, or was it a gamed scenario?

 

[Andy Resnick]

It's also troubling that the teacher posted a deliberately wrong answer on Chegg.

BTW, who is Jearl whom you mentioned in your post?

And did what you posted actually take place, or was it a gamed scenario?

Jearl = Jearl Walker, I assume the comment I posted actually occurred, but I have no information about it. Jearl was not the professor who asked the impossible question, just my colleague who forwarded me the idea.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Chegg denies this happened. ("Fake news" is what they called it) Their position is a teacher wouldn't be able to post an incorrect answer on Chegg.

 

[atyy]

Jearl = Jearl Walker, I assume the comment I posted actually occurred, but I have no information about it. Jearl was not the professor who asked the impossible question, just my colleague who forwarded me the idea.

Wow, Jearl Walker is your colleague?! Sorry, Andy, you've got an impressive CV, but Jearl Walker is legendary. When I was in junior college (equivalent to US grades 11 & 12), the vice-principal of my school, knowing I was interested in physics, recommended I read Jearl's Flying Circus. OK, I confess I did locate the book in the school library, but never did more than flip a few pages. But in one of the later versions of Halliday and Resnick, I still remember Jearl's suggestion that the final exam for a physics class should be to walk on hot coals - that would be a real test of whether a student believed in the laws of physics. Not sure how to set that as a take-at-home exam with safeguards for cheating ...

 

[atyy]

Chegg denies this happened. ("Fake news" is what they called it) Their position is a teacher wouldn't be able to post an incorrect answer on Chegg.

By googling I found an earlier version of the story from 2019 that refers to an in-class exam. So it might be apocryphal.

 

[ZapperZ]

I've found it's not just a few students either. Most of the class somehow suddenly does significantly better than expected. If they are all indeed cheating, it's disappointing that such a large fraction of students have no qualms about doing it.

The subject of cheating came up just the other day on a mailing list I'm on. One instructor said he allows students to use any resource they want, but they have to turn in essentially a short essay on how they solved the problem. So students can look up and find a similar problem on Chegg, but if they can't articulate their reasoning, they're not going to get much credit. I'm thinking of doing this in summer and possibly in fall if I'm still stuck giving exams online.

The first exam that I gave online this semester was right after we went completely online. It was, in fact, the first week we went to totally remote learning. So I did not have much time to prepare and basically gave the same exam that I had written for an in-class, closed-book exam. I made it open book, and that's when the D and C students suddenly did very well, while the 3 A students did poorly.

I am not surprised by this, because I've seen this before. I've also seen where students did amazingly well with their online homework problems, but when I took one of the problems and put the same, EXACT problem in an in-class, closed-book exam, 1/3 to 1/2 of the students could not do the problem correctly. When I asked these students what happened, none of them could give me an answer. Draw your own conclusion (this is my running theme).

For the final exam this week, none of the free-response questions are taken from anywhere. I had time to prepare this time, and all the questions came out of my own head. So they can Chegg or google them all they want. To me, this is the most direct step I can take to prevent someone from looking up solutions that may exist somewhere. And in my exam, they have to upload their solutions, because they have to show work to get full credit. As I've said before, all my students were told to have a scanner app that they can use to scan handwritten work. So they have to show how they obtained the solutions, not just give me an answer.

I'm still weary and suspicious of the quality of understanding of students that went through an online course, especially in physics. This whole mess has not change my mind.

Zz.

 

[symbolipoint]

LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE

I'm still weary and suspicious of the quality of understanding of students that went through an online course, especially in physics. This whole mess has not change my mind.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Wow, Jearl Walker is your colleague?! Sorry, Andy, you've got an impressive CV, but Jearl Walker is legendary.

Why are you sorry? He's 2 doors down from me and is every bit as awesome as you expect.

 

[Vanadium 50]

He's 2 doors down from me and is every bit as awesome as you expect.

I kind of imagine a floor of hot coals and a chair that's a bed of nails.

 

[LuisFelipe]

I recently started teaching high school Physics in a private school in Latin America. This private school is very similar to a public high school in the US. It is not as expensive as a charter school, but not cheap either. I had a smartboard, whiteboard, and laptop in each classroom. All the students have smartphones and access to a computer with internet, although they might have to share with siblings or parents.

Before the pandemic, my classes would be like this: introduce the topic with real life examples, work out the relations, explain what they mean, and do examples. I also had a lab which I divided into two sessions (so they could also complete a report). During the second week that we did the lab, I also put a classwork of 5-6 problems with each problem exploring a concept. The difficulty was linear with the last problem being as difficult as one of the last problems in each section of the book. Problems were taken from the school book (Holt 2012 ed.) or from outside resources like Physics Classroom website and Schaum's 3000 Physics Problems. Then came the tests which were concepts, problem solving, and a challenge bonus problem.

I've transitioned this to a virtual classroom with a setup that took me a few weeks to get right but fortunately I already had a few things working (google classroom) and a tablet pc I bought at the beginning of the school year. But before I get into that, let me talk about my experience with students.

My class is of 30 students on average. In the A,B+ range there's two types, usually a few who simply are good at math and don't need much help and others that do well but with effort. I'd say these two make like a 1/4. There's another 1/4 (mostly B,B-) that is honest and doesn't cheat but simply make too many mistakes or lack math skills. They remember the concepts though! From the remaining half, 2/3 cheat, and the last group has some type of disorder such as ADD or simply doesn't pay attention at all in class. Nobody is failing (but that's because of the system's curve). The Fs and Ds are from those that cheat and/or don't turn in assignments. They get F in tests but unfortunately I haven't thought of a way to penalize them in homeworks if the procedure is correct. However I'm very strict with significant figures and not skipping steps so just cause answer is correct doesn't mean full credit and that's where I kinda penalize them.

There's two ways I tackled the cheaters:

1. Changing the wording of the problem and data.
2. Coming up with your own problems.

Changing the wording actually prevented them from finding the problem online. However, even though it wasn't the correct solution, there were several similar wrong solutions (they found an equation, but not the right one). Ok, at least that's traditional cheating, but I encourage group work so even though I know who copies from who I'm not on a witch hunt. The thing about these problems is that they are simple and cover different concepts or approaches. They are the classic problems found in textbooks.

Coming up with your own however has to be done very carefully. Obviously if what you are asking is the same as a textbook problem you are rewording it. So I came up with real-life situations, simplified them, and then came up with a problem. Even though there wasn't any Physics beyond what they knew, the students had trouble applying the Physics or math to that real-life situation though. I had to guide them a lot more. Almost no one cheated here. I graded leniently too, however when the test came most of them knew what to do or at least the first few steps. Almost no blank problems too. So coming up with completely new and different problems, if you guide them through, can actually help them understand the Physics better. I realized later that the reason they had so much trouble was because they couldn't just apply a formula (two-step problems).

Something that pretty much kept me on track with classes was that I make my own presentations. These presentations have the most important ideas, videos, the derivation is written in latex, and they have examples. I try to write just the most important in the slides, and then do the rest by writing on the slide (now I use the tablet, but before I was doing it on the smartboard). The examples were solved on the whiteboard, and the same solution was presented clearly step by step in the presentation with latex. I also complement the presentation by how I interact with the students and set the transitions.

The way I'm working right now is by preparing youtube videos with these presentations and also doing conference calls. The youtube video is a one-sided lecture of me explaining everything in my presentation and working out examples. I do this by recording what I write on the Power Point with my commentary. It's the same I do in class except for the interactions. With the conference calls, I go over the same presentation (hoping they've seen the videos) and for examples my smartboard is Microsoft Whiteboard which I write on with my tablet. It does a good job and you can also share the link of your whiteboard. Basically, I share my screen of Whiteboard for problem-solving, and of a PowerPoint presentation if I'm lecturing. I also save what I wrote in Whiteboard and send it in a PowerPoint. The students also have access to the class recordings. Here the problem is the obvious difference that students could see me and I could ask them directly. Now when I try the same, there are almost no answers or questions. The ones that asked a lot before, still ask, but a lot less.

As for the lab, I used one of the PHET simulations. It was actually a virtual lab. I wrote guidelines, and asked them to fill a report. I showed them how to work and get data from the simulation. I also explicitly in the conference calls explained what is that I wanted to see in the report. For example, in the results they had to calculate some parameters so I explained what values are reasonable or not for the answer. This was this week so I haven't graded it yet. However, no one complained and I wasn't getting much questions as with other labs. It was much easier for them though.

The homework I put was the type were I changed the wording only. I gave them an assignment through Google Classroom and they sent back their work. It was usually a PDF which I graded with "Comments" from Adobe Acrobat. I haven't sent these files back but I do give them a solution and work out the problems with them. I just don't want to upload over 100 files one by one so I need to figure a convenient solution. Here, my interaction with the students was on the private forums from Google Classroom. I did have a lot of students or the same student asking a lot of questions. I encouraged this and even had a private call with a few students. Unfortunately, the ones who cheat still cheat. However, in general, there was an improvement in grades.

Something I did differently, was for each problem that I gave, I would give them hints. Enough hints, that they should get the answer right away. The reason for this, is because this is the end of the year and I want them to understand this last chapter at least. I want them to take away the most important parts, not necessarily master the material. Now, this is something I have to revise if schools are still closed by Fall.

I have also put an online test. I used Forms from Google Docs and even found out how to put a timer but I didn't include it in the end. This test was set so that only one email could be used to answer it and it had to be approved by me or the school. This test was mostly concepts but I did put word problems and a bonus. As for the concepts, most did pretty well. In the word problems I found the same as with the homeworks. There was a fraction that copied from each other a solution they found. Basically, they found out an equation that gave the solution and used it without showing where it came from. There were even more copying this time, I believe, because it was a test. The bonus was only attempted by the A students. I did find a good average on the concept part of the test.

My setup is actually two computers right now, and a camera with a capture card. It's like a streamer setup but with my tablet pc as a wacom. The Microsoft Whiteboard allows me to write in the tablet, and see it on my other computer with I use in the conference call and is conected to the camera and the headset. I'm using OBS Studio for recording.

Right now, we have three weeks left. They have to submit a homework, I'm putting another online test (focused on concepts), and there's a presentation (I wanted them to build something but that's no longer possible).

When this all started, I looked for online or distance learning Physics classes. Other than virtual tutors there isn't much information. I hope I'm on the right track here. I need to seriously revise all this if we are to continue next year online. The advantage of the concept test is that it's the diagnostic to see how I did teaching online.