But is it Googleable? Online testing in the age of COVID-19

Author: Kathleen Almy

One of the number one concerns I hear from math teachers as they are testing online is the issue of cheating. It’s a valid concern and one that should be addressed. We also need to acknowledge that we’ll never fully rid ourselves of cheating, regardless of the location of the classroom. Students cheated in face-to-face classes too. It’s wrong, but not new.

So, what are your options? Proctoring tests can reduce a lot of cheating. You might have a proctoring service, but you could also watch students during a synchronous Zoom meeting. Ideally, they would turn their cameras on. Many teachers are exhausted right now and struggling to get students to engage at all. Everyone’s worn out, overwhelmed, and in need of a break. The issue of not having their cameras on is hard to fix at this point, but for the 20-21 school year when remote learning is highly likely to still exist in some form, this is a classroom etiquette skill to work on with students. Really, we all need to work on this. When the camera is on, we engage. We can when it’s off, but it’s far easier to do other things.

The approach of proctoring via live Zoom meeting with a limited amount of time and requiring students to take a picture of their test and return it works fairly well. The issue with traditional algebra classes is that students will still try to use apps that will work out the problem for them. I asked our resident online learning expert Maria Andersen how to deal with this cheating issue specifically. Since she teaches at Westminster College and uses remote teaching regularly, long before COVID hit, she has tips from experience that work. Here are her suggestions for your students who continually try to use apps to cheat:

1. Give the answer to a problem. Ask the student to provide two explanations for how the result can be reached.

Some students will still find apps to help them with this approach. Another option is...

2. Require students to record themselves explaining a problem and submit it. 

This typically takes care of the cheating issue quickly but there is potentially more time to grading. To address that concern, reduce the number of problems you have students explain. If you're still concerned that they're cheating...

3.  Require students to do a live, oral explanation via Zoom or whatever synchronous platform you use.

Give students a set of clear objectives and let them know they’ll get 3 questions related to the objectives and 15 minutes to explain their response. You can be the writer. Their job can just be to explain how to work through the problem.

The issue that you're fighting is something Maria and I both refer to as a problem being Googleable. Meaning, students can search Google for the answer or find some online program or app that can solve the problem. If that's the case, it begs the question of why we're asking students to do the problems. There are times when regardless of technology being available that we still want students to have a skill. The issue is how often does that happen? Right now, much of our math curriculum is obsolete with technology. What's not obsolete are real problem-solving skills. That leads to another option to combat cheating…

4. Change assessments to use real applications, real data, and more word problems.

This approach will dramatically reduce if not eliminate the usefulness of online apps.

Unfortunately, any way we go, more work is involved to ensure integrity. We can stick with our current approaches, but we have to accept that cheating and grade inflation may come along for the ride. It's hard to think of re-imagining all the aspects of teaching your course AND recreating all the assessments. I'm overwhelmed just thinking about my fall statistics class. 

While it won't remove all the additional work, getting tips from an expert who has taught this way effectively and efficiently for years can save you time and frustration. We've opened registration for our May cohort of the Taking STEM Online training and mentoring program for college faculty moving to online instruction. 

If your level of exhaustion is too much to take the program this month, we also have cohorts in June and July. Check out this page for more information and registration for any of these cohorts.

If you're a middle school or high school teacher looking for training and mentoring, we open early bird registration for our OnRaMP program next week. You can sign up to get on the waitlist for more info.

And if you want support today from other teachers in the same boat, please join our Facebook group on elearning.