Mariana Illarramendi, Reporter
@MarianaIllarra2
This year, test-taking protocol looks different due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While in the hybrid model, assessments were administered online. For some students it has been difficult to adapt to this new type of test-taking.
Sophomore Kennedy Kreutzer said she performs better on paper. Technical difficulties and having to type out math assessments have created challenges for Kennedy, even with the advantage of often having open-note assessments. “Language classes were especially difficult over zoom,” Kennedy said. “Sometimes it was hard to understand what teachers were saying.”
Similarly, sophomore Avery Laird said she had a tough time adjusting to hybrid test-taking. Once moving back to fully in person learning, she saw an increase in her grades. Assessments distributed on paper eliminated the technical difficulties that made exams far more stressful during e-learning.
Avery believes that fast typers have an advantage during online assessments. She thinks that moving forward, students should have the option to take tests online or on paper.
Although Avery did not enjoy hybrid test-taking, she found that teachers did their best to make everything as fair as possible, as they were more accomodating and patient. “I had more time to prepare and felt that teachers were explaining things more thoroughly,” Avery said.
Chairman of the Social Studies department Robert Stevenson does not believe that hybrid assessments proved as successful as hard copy assessments distributed in class.
“I think that it is a flawed imitation of secure testing,” Mr. Stevenson said. “I didn’t use the popular lockdown browser because I found it to be useless. Students can find a way around it, and it doesn’t work on every device, which means it’s not fair to have everyone use it.”
Mr. Stevenson also saw grade inflation when he counted test scores as a smaller portion of student grades. Because Mr. Stevenson found online assessments to be inaccurate, he experimented with a mixed system of students in class taking quizzes and students at home taking notes.
“It is beneficial for me to learn about student note taking capabilities,” Mr. Stevenson said. “The following weeks I would switch things around. Students who had once taken notes would for the next quiz day be administered an assessment and vice versa. Notes were in turn regarded as quizzes.”
Mr. Stevenson shared that the struggle of student honesty was one of his top concerns with online assessments. “As soon as students are testing outside of my classroom, I have no confidence in a fair test-taking environment,” Mr. Stevenson said. “I’m putting my students in a situation where they are tempted to cheat and this doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t think it’s fair.”
Mr. Stevenson tried to eliminate this problem by building tests that included case studies. Which ensured that students could not google the answer. “I felt like a first year teacher again,” he said. “It was difficult having to reinvent every single lesson and rethink what it means to be a teacher in a classroom.”
Sophomore India Sutton said that it often seems as though students in class are less prepared than students at home. “Online assessments are unfair to the students in class when those outside of class are cheating and those in class are winning honest grades,” India said.
India said she directly experienced this inconvenience after she was initially confused as to why students in her class had performed better on assessments. She later learned they had been cheating.
Co-chairman of the math department Rebecca Pavia said she also had a similar struggle. “From a teacher’s perspective, it is now a lot more challenging to create accurate and deeper questions that ensure students won’t cheat,” Ms. Pavia said. “I experimented with including more complex questions, yet shorter assessments. I found this to be the most successful.”
Ms. Pavia’s grades were slightly higher but not as high as her initial prediction.“It was hard to support students in order to make them learn and feel comfortable online. We never learned how to do that,” Ms. Pavia said. “Because we were having to grade tests from multiple different platforms, grading was a lot harder and more time-consuming. Multiple versions of assessments had to be distributed.”
Ms. Pavia said she is excited about in-person learning because she believes communication and partner work is crucial. “At some point when things calm down, there might be a better school-wide conversation about the meaning of testing and what authentically represents student progress,” Ms. Pavia said.
