Article about cheating - something that high schoolers and college students should know about

[8filltheheart]

 

7 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Persons with disabilities are much less likely to be employed because of the deficit mindset exemplified in this thread.

If only it were so simple.  It is playing ostrich to not recognize that disabilities actually interfere with the safety of some working situations or the ability to cope with others, etc.  Disabilities offer real limitations that are not easily accommodated in all work environments.  It is why having a good DRS is so important.  They are equipped to match disability to employer work environment where both parties benefit.  

For example, our ds could never work in the plant where my dh works.  His inability to cope with stress and rapid pace changes would be a life-threatening hazard to all other employees.  It is not a work environment that can accommodate his specific disabilities.  It has nothing to do with "deficit mindset" of the employer.  It has to do with how his plant processes are run and whether or not there is a way to be flexible in the process.  

The goal should be to find jobs that fit the strengths of the individual, not that all jobs be modified.  

[EKS]

10 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

It shouldn’t be tightly timed for ANY students.

Yes.  But what should be and what is are two different things.

[Farrar]

I find it extra depressing that a bunch of people who value the personalization and tailored nature of education in homeschooling are so rabidly questioning its feasibility in higher ed. Real education is slow and labor intensive and expensive and it doesn't matter if that's for a kindergartener or an undergrad. And we should support looking for ways to support that and not throw our hands up and say "ain't nobody got time for that!" and leave students to fend for themselves. If that's the attitude, then no wonder kids are dead set on cheating. Because the teachers aren't paid enough to care much other than to punish them, so why should they bother.

[EKS]

9 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

I propose preparing tests of the length/complexity you deem necessary as an educator and allowing 3x as much time as *you* might deem necessary

This is absolutely not the same thing as untimed.

[maize]

22 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

What does the online proctoring consist of in these situations?  Is the student recorded taking the exam?  Is there a human proctor?

WGU and BYU had human proctors as well as software locking down the computer screen. With WGU I remember being required to show the entire room with the webcam, including under the desk, before the exam; show that the desk surface was clear aside from the computer; and to show my phone placed out of reach.

My most recent test with SUU used Proctorio, which is AI proctoring. No human proctor involved but everything on my screen and through the webcam was recorded. Supposedly the AI flags suspicious behavior.

Edited June 1, 2022 by maize

[Sneezyone]

5 minutes ago, EKS said:

This is absolutely not the same thing as untimed.

Trying to find middle ground; doesn’t change my view of what’s best.

[maize]

8 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

 

If only it were so simple.  It is playing ostrich to not recognize that disabilities actually interfere with the safety of some working situations or the ability to cope with others, etc.  Disabilities offer real limitations that are not easily accommodated in all work environments.  It is why having a good DRS is so important.  They are equipped to match disability to employer work environment where both parties benefit.  

For example, our ds could never work in the plant where my dh works.  His inability to cope with stress and rapid pace changes would be a life-threatening hazard to all other employees.  It is not a work environment that can accommodate his specific disabilities.  It has nothing to do with "deficit mindset" of the employer.  It has to do with how his plant processes are run and whether or not there is a way to be flexible in the process.  

The goal should be to find jobs that fit the strengths of the individual, not that all jobs be modified.  

I think it is a combination.

There are a lot of jobs my dh could not do, with or without accommodations, but there are also a lot of jobs he CAN do with accommodations that he would be unable to do without. 

Some accommodations are possible with any job.

Not all accommodations are possible for every job.

Accommodations wouldn't make it possible for my blind sister-in-law to be a pilot, but they do make it possible for her to teach college English classes--even though she would be unable to teach without significant accommodations. She shouldn't need to only look for jobs that she could do without special accommodation.

[8filltheheart]

3 minutes ago, maize said:

I think it is a combination.

There are a lot of jobs my dh could not do, with or without accommodations, but there are also a lot of jobs he CAN do with accommodations that he would be unable to do without. 

Some accommodations are possible with any job.

Not all accommodations are possible for every job.

Accommodations wouldn't make it possible for my blind sister-in-law to be a pilot, but they do make it possible for her to teach college English classes--even though she would be unable to teach without significant accommodations. She shouldn't need to only look for jobs that she could do without special accommodation.

I agree and don't believe otherwise. It is the lack of recognition of real boundaries that makes the position unreal. 

[Farrar]

The online proctoring for ASU that ds used seemed to be pretty good. No human labor. You were required to scan the entire room before the test. Screen locked down. Eyes tracked. Noises tracked. There were retests (so, yes, with this system, you had to have the ability for students to retest, so question banks had to be larger than a single test) without penalty with the assumption that it was possible for something to go wrong that was not your fault (like, your dog could come in and move things and draw your attention, for example). And ds told me there was some sort of appeals process that did involve humans though he never used it and apparently it was harder to use than the retest. But since everything was recorded, presumably you wouldn't request that unless you were really comfortable with someone seeing what happened. Obviously not foolproof, but once implemented, doesn't require more money or human labor.

[regentrude]

25 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I find it extra depressing that a bunch of people who value the personalization and tailored nature of education in homeschooling are so rabidly questioning its feasibility in higher ed. Real education is slow and labor intensive and expensive and it doesn't matter if that's for a kindergartener or an undergrad. And we should support looking for ways to support that and not throw our hands up and say "ain't nobody got time for that!" and leave students to fend for themselves. If that's the attitude, then no wonder kids are dead set on cheating. Because the teachers aren't paid enough to care much other than to punish them, so why should they bother.

This is profoundly unfair. 

The teachers I know are passionate about education. I choose to put my time and energy into offering all students who wish to learn the opportunity to do so. I design assignments that foster understanding, incorporate peer learning and collaboration, offer copious amounts of free academic assistance, provide my lectures live as well as online, and fully captioned.... 
However, in the end, I am required to give assessment. No amount of wishful thinking or advocating is getting me a larger testing facility, or rooms for three-hour exams. That has nothing to do with wanting to punish students. Again, as I said before: somebody make a suggestion how to assess mastery in foundational intro courses that do not lend themselves to semester projects without giving exams. And let's not conflate education with assessment.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by regentrude

[shawthorne44]

Another data point.   DH went to a high school that was very diverse in all ways: Race, Income, etc.  There was extremely extremely poor people, there was extremely rich people, including the children of a legit presidential contender.  There was all colors.   They were in a neutral zone for gang territory.    Several teachers gathered together the smart kids in their classes and told them to just let others cheat off of them.   Apparently the teachers had seen kids seriously hurt as revenge for not letting someone cheat.   One time when he'd figured out how to defend himself, he'd grabbed an extra copy of the test, filled one out completely wrong and then passed it to someone nearby.   Most of the class copied his answers completely, blatantly passing the paper around.  Then 5 minutes before the class was done, he did the other test correctly.  

ETA: When I was in high school (different one), early in the year the child of one of the school board members stole the test answer book in an AP class and photocopied it.   Returned the book before it was noticed it was missing.  Then shared copies of the test.   When it was discovered, he got one zero on a test.   It wasn't even a final, just one of many tests.  I didn't cheat but when I see things like this, I don't blame kids for getting discouraged and then doing it themselves.  
 

Edited June 1, 2022 by shawthorne44

[Farrar]

8 minutes ago, regentrude said:

This is profoundly unfair. 

The teachers I know are passionate about education. I choose to put my time and energy into offering all students who wish to learn the opportunity to do so. I design assignments that foster understanding, incorporate peer learning and collaboration, offer copious amounts of free academic assistance, provide my lectures live as well as online, and fully captioned.... 
However, in the end, I am required to give assessment. No amount of wishful thinking or advocating is getting me a larger testing facility, or rooms for three-hour exams. That has nothing to do with wanting to punish students. Again, as I said before: somebody make a suggestion how to assess mastery in foundational intro courses that do not lend themselves to semester projects without giving exams. And let's not conflate education with assessment.

 

 

Education and assessment are intricately linked. I can't believe anyone would argue otherwise. I would argue that some of the comments in this thread have been profoundly unfair to students and to the core goals of education.

Professors are put into impossible positions. But I don't think the solution is to push for the status quo.

Some disciplines, particularly at some levels, do not lend themselves to assessment through objective answer questions at all. So some professors are stuck with exams or projects or papers that will take longer to assess. 

It seems that the question increasingly becomes whether the labor should go toward stricter and stricter methods to prevent cheating on a narrow approach to testing or whether the labor should go toward spending longer on assessment. I would argue that because assessment and education are linked, it should be the latter.

[regentrude]

6 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Education and assessment are intricately linked. I can't believe anyone would argue otherwise. I would argue that some of the comments in this thread have been profoundly unfair to students and to the core goals of education.

Professors are put into impossible positions. But I don't think the solution is to push for the status quo.

Some disciplines, particularly at some levels, do not lend themselves to assessment through objective answer questions at all. So some professors are stuck with exams or projects or papers that will take longer to assess. 

It seems that the question increasingly becomes whether the labor should go toward stricter and stricter methods to prevent cheating on a narrow approach to testing or whether the labor should go toward spending longer on assessment. I would argue that because assessment and education are linked, it should be the latter.

The only reason assessment and education are linked is because we are required to give grades in order to "motivate" students to do the things they should be doing if they wanted to learn. 
The only reason professors grade homework is to get the students to do the homework. It does not enhance the learning any more than the discussion of the homework solution would do without a grade. The only reason professors give reading quizzes is to get students to do the reading they otherwise wouldn't do. The tremendous amount of energy that is required to be wasted on assessment is necessary because colleges admit students who lack the motivation to do the work if there isn't a carrot in the form of points. 

I think the labor should go towards offering the best opportunities to learn. 

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by regentrude

[Farrar]

Just now, regentrude said:

The only reason assessment and education are linked is because we are required to give grades in order to "motivate" students to do the things they should be doing if they wanted to learn. 
The only reason professors grade homework is to get the students to do the homework. It does not enhance the learning any more than the discussion of the homework solution would do without a grade.. The only reason professors give reading quizzes is to get students to do the reading they otherwise wouldn't. The tremendous amount of energy that is required to be wasted on assessment is necessary because colleges admit students who lack the motivation to do the work if there isn't a carrot in the form of points. 

I think the labor should go towards offering the best opportunities to learn. 

 

I strongly disagree and would argue that you cannot separate the learning from the doing from the improvement in doing and that assessment is a core part of that process. A teacher talking through material is not an education. A student being handed a book is not being handed an education. Education is inherently interacting with material, which inevitably means responding, doing, and assessing. If you're not assessing, then the student has to pull that load and assess themselves, because otherwise, there's no education happening. It's just in one ear/eye and out the other.

I agree that the labor should go towards what helps students learn. I strong believe that's more complex tasks.

Am I correct that every college level professor speaking here teaching math and science? Do you actually believe your humanities colleagues get through without reading essays? Or that they should somehow be able to?

[regentrude]

14 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I strongly disagree and would argue that you cannot separate the learning from the doing from the improvement in doing and that assessment is a core part of that process. A teacher talking through material is not an education. A student being handed a book is not being handed an education. Education is inherently interacting with material, which inevitably means responding, doing, and assessing. If you're not assessing, then the student has to pull that load and assess themselves, because otherwise, there's no education happening. It's just in one ear/eye and out the other.

I agree that the labor should go towards what helps students learn. I strong believe that's more complex tasks.

Am I correct that every college level professor speaking here teaching math and science? Do you actually believe your humanities colleagues get through without reading essays? Or that they should somehow be able to?

No, a teacher talking  or handing students  a book is not education. However, a teacher summarizing key points of the assigned reading, designing good assignments that practice precisely the skills the students are supposed to acquire and build on one another, discussing these assignments, creating opportunities for the students to actively engage with the material, being available for questions, creating walk-in learning environments available for many hours a week IS education. Giving points is not. As should any homeschooling parent know.

Yes, I teach physics. In my classes, we grade homework, presentations, collaborative worksheets, and exams (which are fully worked-out problems with partial credit and extremely time consuming to grade). Much of it is wasted time. I hate grading dozens of homework papers students copied from one another, knowing that they won't look at my feedback anyway - but if I didn't assign points to the homework, they wouldn't even bother doing that. I would much rather spend my time sitting with students helping them work the problems.

Yes, my humanities colleagues grade essays. (They also have vastly smaller classes.).
But essay assignments are not a suitable tool to assess mastery of physics or math problem solving. 

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by regentrude

[Clemsondana]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Am I correct that every college level professor speaking here teaching math and science? Do you actually believe your humanities colleagues get through without reading essays? Or that they should somehow be able to?

I know that they read essays.  I never gave/give multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank assessments.  Most of the classes in my major when I was a student didn't, either.  I ask open-ended questions, like 'Explain the process of' or 'Which have more flexibility in gene regulation, prokaryotes or eukaryotes?  Explain your answer.'.  There are lots of possible right answers.  In upper level classes, professors tended to give questions that showed or described experimental results and asked us to interpret them, or asked us to describe the likely effect of a mutation at point X in the Y pathway.  But, I'm somewhat at a loss as to what essay or project could be used to assess whether students have learned the stages of mitosis or the parts of the cell.  I can and do ask questions requiring more synthesis, but part of what they need is just to know things, much like A&P students need to just know body parts before they can explain the importance of potassium in their function.  I also grade lab reports.

But, I can't overstate how much cheating is accepted.  When I catch students, it's 50/50 whether they will be apologetic and their parents will be concerned, or whether the students will say that it's justified, the class is impossible, and their parents will deny or justify.  And at the moment I'm teaching homeschooled kids who have infinite time because they are taking untimed tests at home under the supervision of their parents, and the questions are rewordings of the homework problems, which, if done on time, have usually been corrected, as have short recall quizzes.  

I feel like there are 2 issues.  There are real concerns around reasonable accommodations - what can help students without overwhelming instructors.  But, independent of all of that, cheating is a problem.  

[Roadrunner]

The problem isn’t that most kids are wonderful students who want to learn but just can’t take exams and need help. That’s not what the blog post talked about. The problem is significant percentage of them don’t bother to pick up a book and learn and expect diplomas to be handed over to them. If they opened a book, they wouldn’t need to cheat. Again, those dreaded times exams are easy at CCs. We aren’t talking about the level of difficulty at MIT. In fact they are so easy that any well prepared kid who has studied would easily be left with plenty of time to review. My kid routinely walks out half an hour early from his exams and he is no Einstein. 
Again, please refrain from telling me about kids with disabilities. I am not talking about them and their accommodations. I am too familiar with their predicaments. I am talking about the rest of us. Taking an exam in a class you actually put effort to study is not difficult. There will be some subjects that might be beyond our intelligence (I am pretty sure no amount of studying would help me survive quantum mechanics), but most subjects for most people are fairly straightforward. Show up to class, do the work, and assessments won’t be a problem. The issue is many don’t want to work. So I want to question why they are in college at all. 

[Roadrunner]

And it’s not just in colleges. I have a kid in PS. He tells me a ton of kids were cheating during AP Human Geo exam. Was it proctored? Yes, but the proctor passed by maybe every 30 minutes or so by a kid. Apparently so many had phones and were looking up answers. It’s demoralizing at the very least. So many of you will say AP exams are terrible and stressful. Then don’t take them. It’s that simple. But don’t show up and cheat. 
 

[cintinative]

12 hours ago, KSera said:

I don’t know that I agree. I’m a fast processor myself, but I am in a family with several markedly slow processors. People in the top hundredth of 99th percentile in several areas, but single digit percentiles in processing speed. They can have excellent mastery of something and still have it take them longer than everyone else. Fortunately that doesn’t tend to be an issue once employed, because their other strengths are so strong, that they outweigh the slow processing. I’m much faster than they are when taking an academic test, but they retain and integrate the knowledge on a deeper level than I tend to and are very valuable in their field. It’s a shame for people like that to get blocked out at entry level courses due to their speed deficit, because not only is it a loss to them, but a real loss to fields that would really benefit from having them. The slow processing speed is a trait that frequently goes along with highly creative and divergent thinkers, which are a real asset to many fields and can be drivers of discovery. 

I would very much love to hear more about your people.  My youngest is the same--99th percentile in many areas but very low processing speed. If you ever have time for a spinoff thread or a PM, it would encourage me a lot to hear how they did in college and how they found careers where they could thrive.  Thanks for considering.

[KSera]

10 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

But the level of problem sets is probably such that it fits assessment. AoPS also had unlimited tries on their problems. 
We are talking CC classes here (the blog was about those students). The work is mostly remedial and extremely procedural. It’s as basic as they come. And that’s why it’s easy to cheat on them. 
Caltech doesn’t give grades first year because they want kids to take chances. I can only imagine some of those problems take hours if not days to tackle. In such environment it really doesn’t make sense to have an hour exam because exam would have to be so easy. But at CCs, it’s 2+2. You know what we have to do with my boy to give education here. The only reason he has been involved in that group is because how low level college has been. If you are cheating on such low level courses, then should you really be in a nursing school? I certainly don’t want to be stuck in a hospital with such a nurse. 

The blog was from a professor at Brooklyn College in NY. That’s a University. You clearly have an extremely negative bias against community colleges and their students. Community College doesn’t mean it’s all remedial classes. Students don’t get credit toward their degrees for remedial classes at community colleges. They certainly aren’t getting credit for 2+2. Community Colleges by me have multiple levels of calculus that transfer straight over to the best universities in our state. They have calculus based Physics, Chemistry, foreign languages. Maybe the CC by you is terrible, but that’s not an accurate representation of everywhere. From everything I’m reading, the cheating issue is just as much an issue at Universities, so this is not a CC specific problem. 

6 hours ago, Bootsie said:

One of the issues that I have run into is that accommodations are broadly granted.  A student who has, for example, migraines or GI issues which will cause them difficulties on some days but not other days are granted 1/2 or 2X accommodations on quizzes and exams.  So, on days that they are not suffering, they still get extended time, making their testing experience (and the opportunity to have time to cheat) different from other students.  

 

If the tests aren’t designed so that being tightly timed is an element of the assessment, then extra time doesn’t confer any advantage to those who don’t need it. I was always one of the first people done with a test in college and walked out early. Giving me double time wasn’t going to change that. There should be enough time so that the extra time is only needed by those who need the extra time. 

[Roadrunner]

Hmmmm, we are in community college, so no, I don’t have a negative view. I see reality. These classes are UC transferable and yet we are having to do things on our own because we know they won’t prepare us for upper level courses at UC. Linear Algebra course runs at our CC without a single proof. You tell me how that’s not 2+2. And yes, most classes are equivalent to high school and you can get credit. In fact most history courses are easier than equivalent APs at a local high and I wouldn’t necessarily think APs were truly college level. And you can most certainly get a credit for Algebra 2, a high school level course. Same with history… And a friend who teaches there is constantly being told to lower the bar to pass even more kids. 
And no, CC by me isn’t terrible. It’s no the best one in state by a long shot, but it’s fairly representative from what I gather. 
 

And don’t get me started at Chem or Bio. They are by far easier than APs. Why? Again because teachers are constantly being pressured to lower standards. Too many kids were failing. Why? Because my friend is convinced nobody reads the textbook. Apparently that’s too much to ask. 
 

And yet there are plenty of kids who get beyond 100% in their classes. Because some are there to actually learn. Most of those classes are designed so an average kid who easily succeed. 

Edited June 1, 2022 by Roadrunner

[KSera]

4 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Hmmmm, we are in community college, so no, I don’t have a negative view. I see reality. These classes are UC transferable and yet we are having to do things on our own because we know they won’t prepare us for upper level courses at UC. Linear Algebra course runs at our CC without a single proof. You tell me how that’s not 2+2. And yes, most classes are equivalent to high school and you can get credit. In fact most history courses are easier than equivalent APs at a local high and I wouldn’t necessarily think APs were truly college level. And you can most certainly get a credit for Algebra 2, a high school level course. Same with history… And a friend who teaches there is constantly being told to lower the bar to pass even more kids. 
And no, CC by me isn’t terrible. It’s no the best one in state by a long shot, but it’s fairly representative from what I gather. 
 

And don’t get me started at Chem or Bio. They are by far easier than APs. Why? Again because teachers are constantly being pressured to lower standards. Too many kids were failing. Why? Because my friend is convinced nobody reads the textbook. Apparently that’s too much to ask. 

I don’t know, maybe your cc is worse than you think. The kids I know who went to one of our local cc for either DE or a transfer degree have largely gone on to state flagships or other well regarded universities and done very well in their classes there, feeling well prepared by their cc coursework 🤷‍♀️.

I’m still not sure how you can claim not to have a negative view of community college when you have been repeatedly insistent the reason community college students prefer online classes is because they want to cheat. Despite being presented with evidence that the reason they prefer online classes is because they are juggling families and careers at the same time as school. And right here in this post above, you’re saying how poor the classes are and they don’t prepare your student. Clearly you’re having a bad community college experience.

[maize]

Is cheating a problem? Of course! Cheating has always been a problem. The most blatant cheating I ever experienced was in junior high classrooms in France; my best friend was the class nerd, we always sat together in class--except for exam days, when other students would claim the privilege of sitting by her so they could copy off of her. It was super obvious what they were doing, but never once did a teacher intervene. I'm not sure what the most effective preventative measures are, but I don't favor measures that make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone. Tight time constraints seem like such a measure to me. I'm another with slow processing speed; I had no assessed disabilities so no accommodations of any kind when I was in school. More time on exams would absolutely have made a difference and I imagine would make a difference for some significant minority of other students with undiagnosed and therefore unaccommodated difficulties.

[Roadrunner]

3 minutes ago, KSera said:

I don’t know, maybe your cc is worse than you think. The kids I know who went to one of our local cc for either DE or a transfer degree have largely gone on to state flagships or other well regarded universities and done very well in their classes there, feeling well prepared by their cc coursework 🤷‍♀️.

I’m still not sure how you can claim not to have a negative view of community college when you have been repeatedly insistent the reason community college students prefer online classes is because they want to cheat. Despite being presented with evidence that the reason they prefer online classes is because they are juggling families and careers at the same time as school. And right here in this post above, you’re saying how poor the classes are and they don’t prepare your student. Clearly you’re having a bad community college experience.

I am repeating, again. Many do based on experiences. I am sure it’s probably the same elsewhere in other colleges as it is in my son’s high school.

As far as transfer. I have been musing over this for couple of years now. Very few people take upper level math/science locally. Most kids in bio and Chem are aspiring for nursing programs. Outside of nursing, Biology and engineering transfers are most popular STEM transfers and those are some of the brightest kids we have seen. It’s not uncommon to have a class of 20 kids in upper level math and you have 5 of those consistently at above 100%, very few in the middle, and the majority at 75% or lower in terms of grades. So those kids at the top do fine and they end up mostly at SLO or lower tier UC. Much, much harder to get in as a transfer for engineering into top UCs from CC. Not unheard of course, but it isn’t happening in large numbers here.

I think most upper level math and physics here are designed for engineering in mind. I don’t think there is an expectation at our place (I am sure San Jose, SF, LA is very different) that kids will step into junior level math courses designed for majors at UCLA. Which is a shame, because we have seen kids (some my son’s friends) who could have absolutely done it but not with the type of preparation our CC provides. The reason is that the majority of class would fail if the class was any harder, so the teachers make it easier for kids to pass.  My friend says that sort of grade distribution is fairly common in his classes as well.

 We know most kids aren’t transferring to STEM by just looking at math class offerings. To satisfy college math requirement all you need now is statistics. Only STEM kids need algebra and beyond and only those in engineering/math/physics need any math in upper division. Overwhelming number of courses offered at our CC in math are stats. You get one section with 20 kids at most in upper level math and by the time the semester is halfway, five of those have dropped.  So yes, tremendous amount of pressure on teachers to just pass the kids. 

 

And as far as cheating goes, what enrages most my friend is he gets kids in his classes that sign up just so they can record the exams and quizzes. Then they retake the class so they can use those materials to cheat. You can retake those classes several times and I believe during the pandemic you could get your F removed. I mean he wants to quit it’s so demoralizing on all fronts. 

 

[KSera]

2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

To satisfy college math requirement all you need now is statistics. Only STEM kids need algebra and beyond and only those in engineering/math/physics need any math in upper division. Overwhelming number of courses offered at our CC in math are stats.

Oh, that’s very different here. Students have to place into pre-calc to take any of the classes that fill the math requirement, and only one of those is a stats class. But still, the prerequisite to even take that is to have either placed into pre-Calc or have already taken introductory and intermediate algebra at the college first (which are considered remedial classes and don’t earn credit). Most of the math classes offered are the standards:  pre-Calc, various levels of Calc, linear algebra, etc.

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

If the tests aren’t designed so that being tightly timed is an element of the assessment, then extra time doesn’t confer any advantage to those who don’t need it. I was always one of the first people done with a test in college and walked out early. Giving me double time wasn’t going to change that. There should be enough time so that the extra time is only needed by those who need the extra time. 

The problem is that when extra time is given to a student who does not need it, the possibilities for cheating begin increasing tremendously.  

[Farrar]

56 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

The problem is that when extra time is given to a student who does not need it, the possibilities for cheating begin increasing tremendously.  

Disagree. Why should having longer - assuming the same proctoring systems if appropriate or assuming it's a task that is designed to not need proctoring systems because it's collaborative, open book, etc. - be inherently more vulnerable to cheating? I don't buy it. I think there are just as many arguments for the idea that when pressed with a timed exam for kids who do better working slowly, some of them are more likely to be tempted to cheat.

For an exam that's not open book or collaborative, I would actually assume the greatest risk to more cheating would be allowing it to be asynchronous, not allowing it to be an hour instead of half an hour or something.

[regentrude]

15 minutes ago, Farrar said:

For an exam that's not open book or collaborative, I would actually assume the greatest risk to more cheating would be allowing it to be asynchronous, not allowing it to be an hour instead of half an hour or something.

Oh, absolutely. Asynchronous unproctored online exam - might as well not bother giving a test at all. But no time limit (or a very long time) effectively creates an asynchronous situation as well and students will have ample opportunity to exchange information during the test. 

(And again, different situation if remote proctoring were available for a synchronous exam. Assuming actual proctoring that's not as easy to crack as standard systems. 

Eta: for ways to cheat on an online proctored exam, see for example here: https://gradebees.com/cheat-online-tests/ Some take time. Some take forethought. But it's not hard to fool a system that's not a human in the room )

Edited June 1, 2022 by regentrude

[shawthorne44]

2 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Too many kids were failing. Why? Because my friend is convinced nobody reads the textbook. Apparently that’s too much to ask. 

When I took Chemistry, first day of class this boy sat down next to me and said "I hope this book isn't jinxed, I borrowed it from my ex-girlfriend and she failed."   He was flirting and also saying he was available.  The book cracked!    You know that noise textbooks sometimes make the *first* time you opened them.   She thought that by just going to class she should pass.  

[EKS]

5 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Asynchronous unproctored online exam - might as well not bother giving a test at all.

This is what we have in my program.  I don't cheat, and I find that preparing for and actually taking the exams to be helpful to my learning.

Other people must also not cheat (though I'm sure some of them do) since the scores generally have quite a wide range.

[Farrar]

3 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Oh, absolutely. Asynchronous unproctored online exam - might as well not bother giving a test at all. But no time limit (or a very long time) effectively creates an asynchronous situation as well and students will have ample opportunity to exchange information during the test. 

(And again, totally different situation if remote proctoring were available for a synchronous exam.)

More time isn't unlimited time though. Giving students with a proctored exam on a locked down computer that starts within a narrow window twice as long to do it as you'd expect a really fast processing student who had fully mastered the material to take isn't wild. Giving students in a classroom longer also carries very little added risk.

I'm not against some types of precautions being taken against cheating. Or even a lot of precautions, though many of them are more onerous on teachers as to be practically an extra job (like, there's only so many test banks a teacher can create). I just question what's the best way forward in this new world. And I don't think the old model serves all students anyway.

[Bootsie]

6 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Disagree. Why should having longer - assuming the same proctoring systems if appropriate or assuming it's a task that is designed to not need proctoring systems because it's collaborative, open book, etc. - be inherently more vulnerable to cheating? I don't buy it. I think there are just as many arguments for the idea that when pressed with a timed exam for kids who do better working slowly, some of them are more likely to be tempted to cheat.

For an exam that's not open book or collaborative, I would actually assume the greatest risk to more cheating would be allowing it to be asynchronous, not allowing it to be an hour instead of half an hour or something.

An open book exam does not necessarily not need proctoring.  Cheating is not limited to looking up an answer in a book when that is not allowed.  Much of the cheating I have caught has not been related at all to something being timed; common forms of cheating, such as having someone else do homework or plagiarizing a paper.  The specific way that cheating can occur in-class differs from on-line, but an example of how "more time than is necessary" can lead to cheating that I have experienced.  One student takes the exam and completes a Scantron.  Then that Scantron is discretely dropped on the floor and picked up by another student who "accidentally dropped their scantron".  Then the student has time to complete a second scantron.  

When exams are online, one student having an hour and another having an hour and one half automatically creates some of the asynchronous problems, because some students have completed the exam and can share information with those still taking the exam.  It is exacerbated by the fact that there are no time and space warps--scheduling issues mean that students who have extended time are often taking an exam at another time.  A student who has an hour exam at 10:00 am (but gets 1.5X) and an exam at 11:00 cannot begin the first exam at 10:00 get 1.5X and then begin the second exam at 11:00 with the rest of the class.  When you are the professor teaching the 11:00 class and have some of those with 1.5X accommodations who have a 10:00 class and some who have a 12:00 class--you cannot have them all starting early or all finishing after the rest of the class--which inevitably means you have some finishing the exam before other start (a common time in which info is shared).  

[Farrar]

2 minutes ago, shawthorne44 said:

When I took Chemistry, first day of class this boy sat down next to me and said "I hope this book isn't jinxed, I borrowed it from my ex-girlfriend and she failed."   He was flirting and also saying he was available.  The book cracked!    You know that noise textbooks sometimes make the *first* time you opened them.   She thought that by just going to class she should pass.  

My graduating kid shared with me that he had learned "the secret" of doing well in classes after I told him that one of his outside AP teachers had sent me a note about how impressed she was with him. "Just do all the assignments," he told me. "That's it. It doesn't even matter if you do them very well because as long as you do them, teachers are impressed and most of the time they are barely even grading them so it helps your grade a bunch." I nearly died laughing. I mean, he's RIGHT. But also, oy.

[Farrar]

1 minute ago, Bootsie said:

An open book exam does not necessarily not need proctoring.  Cheating is not limited to looking up an answer in a book when that is not allowed.  Much of the cheating I have caught has not been related at all to something being timed; common forms of cheating, such as having someone else do homework or plagiarizing a paper.  The specific way that cheating can occur in-class differs from on-line, but an example of how "more time than is necessary" can lead to cheating that I have experienced.  One student takes the exam and completes a Scantron.  Then that Scantron is discretely dropped on the floor and picked up by another student who "accidentally dropped their scantron".  Then the student has time to complete a second scantron.  

When exams are online, one student having an hour and another having an hour and one half automatically creates some of the asynchronous problems, because some students have completed the exam and can share information with those still taking the exam.  It is exacerbated by the fact that there are no time and space warps--scheduling issues mean that students who have extended time are often taking an exam at another time.  A student who has an hour exam at 10:00 am (but gets 1.5X) and an exam at 11:00 cannot begin the first exam at 10:00 get 1.5X and then begin the second exam at 11:00 with the rest of the class.  When you are the professor teaching the 11:00 class and have some of those with 1.5X accommodations who have a 10:00 class and some who have a 12:00 class--you cannot have them all starting early or all finishing after the rest of the class--which inevitably means you have some finishing the exam before other start (a common time in which info is shared).  

I understand what you're saying. And I know that open book doesn't necessarily mean not needing proctoring. That's why I put an or there. Kids who are determined - like with the scantron trick. Yeah, they're going to find ways whether we make it easier or harder or what. But the forces that push kids to cheat if they have an extra half hour vs. not... there's some kids who will use the extra time to cheat instead and kids who will cheat because they didn't have the extra time. I think that's a wash. And it helps students to have the extra time. Design better tests. Because again, assessment and education and deeply linked.

[regentrude]

3 minutes ago, Farrar said:

My graduating kid shared with me that he had learned "the secret" of doing well in classes after I told him that one of his outside AP teachers had sent me a note about how impressed she was with him. "Just do all the assignments," he told me. "That's it. It doesn't even matter if you do them very well because as long as you do them, teachers are impressed and most of the time they are barely even grading them so it helps your grade a bunch." I nearly died laughing. I mean, he's RIGHT. But also, oy.

I agree with the bolded (but not with the "barely even grading" part.) I never had a student fail my course (I can say this with certainty for the 100 person course where I was the sole instructor and saw every person's assignments and attendance) who completed all assignments and attended all classes. Because my assignments are carefully designed to teach. Conversely, every student who failed had multiple missed assignments and missed classes. 
It has nothing to do with being impressed - simply with the point structure being such that a lot of points are given for just doing the daily work and not penalizing the mistakes during the learning process.

[Bootsie]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I understand what you're saying. And I know that open book doesn't necessarily mean not needing proctoring. That's why I put an or there. Kids who are determined - like with the scantron trick. Yeah, they're going to find ways whether we make it easier or harder or what. But the forces that push kids to cheat if they have an extra half hour vs. not... there's some kids who will use the extra time to cheat instead and kids who will cheat because they didn't have the extra time. I think that's a wash. And it helps students to have the extra time. Design better tests. Because again, assessment and education and deeply linked.

In all of the years that I have been teaching, I have never had a student tell me the reason that they cheated was they didn't have enough time on a test and I have never had a reason to suspect that--although I am sure it is possible that there has been a student who has felt that way.  I have had MANY situations where students have used lots of time to send signals to others in some elaborate ways--so that they could match up that Questions #7 on their exam was Question #23 on another student's exam.  I have had them use time to go to the restroom (and either get information or use the break to get exam information out of the room).  I have had them sit and press random numbers on a calculator (I can stand and watch the keystrokes and know that 2 + 000043.34 X LOG Clear 4443.3 enter isn't related to any problem on the exam and then after an hour suddenly be marking answers on their scantron.  All of those cheating schemes take time--more time than simply answering the questions.  Those cheating schemes are preplanned, not simply wandering eyes by a student who is feeling stressed because of time.  Given how many times I have seen those type of cheating situations, I feel an ethical responsibility to minimize the possibility of those occurring--not necessarily spend a lot of time and energy trying to catch and punish a student.

[Clemsondana]

5 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I agree with the bolded (but not with the "barely even grading" part.) I never had a student fail my course (I can say this with certainty for the 100 person course where I was the sole instructor and saw every person's assignments and attendance) who completed all assignments and attended all classes. Because my assignments are carefully designed to teach. Conversely, every student who failed had multiple missed assignments and missed classes. 
It has nothing to do with being impressed - simply with the point structure being such that a lot of points are given for just doing the daily work and not penalizing the mistakes during the learning process.

I haven’t posted since I’m on a phone at a water park with some kids, but this is so true. I have never had a student earn lower than a C if they did all of the work. The assignments have a purpose, if nothing else telling students what I think is important to know but mostly asking them to think about the material. And now back to the lazy river. 

[Farrar]

37 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I agree with the bolded (but not with the "barely even grading" part.) I never had a student fail my course (I can say this with certainty for the 100 person course where I was the sole instructor and saw every person's assignments and attendance) who completed all assignments and attended all classes. Because my assignments are carefully designed to teach. Conversely, every student who failed had multiple missed assignments and missed classes. 
It has nothing to do with being impressed - simply with the point structure being such that a lot of points are given for just doing the daily work and not penalizing the mistakes during the learning process.

I used the word impressed because that's the word the specific teacher we were discussing used. Hopefully he impressed her in some other ways than just completing the assignments. That was just his somewhat juvenile, amusing to me 17 yo take knowing that his peers simply don't even do the work most of the time. In my experience, a lot of assignments don't require a lot of work either on the part of the student to do or the teacher to mark because there's not much to mark. You did it or you didn't. I certainly give many assignments like that in my courses. When they engage, they do better on later, more meaningful checks. And the point structure benefits them by essentially giving them free points just for doing the things they need to do in order to do well later. I've found that most instructors give work that is as much about getting students to engage with the material as it is about getting them to prove that they learned specific objectives.

 

[Dmmetler]

7 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

1) you can require interaction with the material that ensures learning without requiring that the demonstration of learning/interaction be timed or punitive while 

2) ensuring assessments are INCLUSIVE of a variety of learning styles and

3) the exemplar lewelma provided WASN'T from MIT, it was a public uni.

It’s so weird listening to this discussion after reentering the workforce and finding that employers are WAY ahead of y’all in terms of inclusivity. With five generations in the workforce at any given time and a tremendous shortage of available talent in most fields, you’re still looking for ways to weed out and exclude while they’re all about how to maximize output from everyone available. This feels very ‘get off my lawn’ and backward.

It’s kind of a catch-22. One reason why L’s bio class had the assigned study groups was to support each other. The reason for turning in the study guides was so that everyone participated. Except that tying it to a grade, even a fairly small percentage of the overall class (a majority of the class grade was literature reviews, exams, etc, which were individual) led MY anxious kid to decide that doing 100% of the work individually was better than risking that someone else had decided to cheat, since everyone in the group got the same grade for that component. Which worked Ok for my kid, who reads quickly and writes well (and came in with a ton of bio background), but would have been impossible for other kids. 

 

FWIW, at L’s LAC, most finals are “self proctored” and are not time limited except that they need to be completed within the finals week and in a single sitting (presumably if you have an accommodation that allows breaks, you could take them). What that means is that you set a time during finals week to take the final, go, pick up your test packet and drop off your bag and anything you don’t need for the exam with the department office, and go to a room in that building set aside to take finals. There might be a dozen kids all taking different tests for different classes at once. Once you’re done, you seal your final and drop it in the box in the office, and pick up your bag,phone, etc. if you get your test in a different format, it is ready for you. Faculty have a full week from the end of finals before grades have to be posted. It seems to work Ok for a fairly small school that was in person, but I don’t know what they did in 2020/2021 when they were virtual. 

Most 300+ classes and humanities classes haven’t had finals-it’s mostly been math and science so far. Spanish had a paper and a 1-1 oral conversation (about 15 minutes) with a professor. Performing arts have juried performances.
 

 

 

 

[regentrude]

1 minute ago, Farrar said:

 In my experience, a lot of assignments don't require a lot of work either on the part of the student to do or the teacher to mark because there's not much to mark. You did it or you didn't. 

What subject? Assignments like these don't exist in my classes. Nor do they exist in the classes I have taken. A 4 credit hour college class means 8 hours outside of class per week, the majority of which is homework, fully worked-out problems modeled on lecture examples that build problem solving skills. We don't do busy work.

[regentrude]

6 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

 at L’s LAC, most finals are “self proctored” and are not time limited except that they need to be completed within the finals week and in a single sitting (presumably if you have an accommodation that allows breaks, you could take them). What that means is that you set a time during finals week to take the final, go, pick up your test packet and drop off your bag and anything you don’t need for the exam with the department office, and go to a room in that building set aside to take finals. There might be a dozen kids all taking different tests for different classes at once.

How do students perceive the fairness of this? Class sizes aside, in a setting like this, the students scheduling their exams for Friday would have a distinct advantage over those who take theirs at the beginning of the week. By Friday, the entire class would have disseminated the exam questions via groupme and would have had a days to let somebody work out the solutions and share them. 
One thing I heard repeatedly from my students is that they value that they are all taking the exact same classroom exam and are all graded according to the exact same rubric (ensuring this uniformity makes giving and grading 500 exams a logistical feat, but the students appreciate this and are unhappy if they perceive being disadvantaged)

Edited June 1, 2022 by regentrude

[Farrar]

16 minutes ago, regentrude said:

What subject? Assignments like these don't exist in my classes. Nor do they exist in the classes I have taken. A 4 credit hour college class means 8 hours outside of class per week, the majority of which is homework, fully worked-out problems modeled on lecture examples that build problem solving skills. We don't do busy work.

I teach high school, so that's a little different. But it's really a question of what's busy work, right? The professor in this article came up with a plethora of random assignments just to get kids to engage with the material. I give assignments like that too sometimes. Reflection papers, practice work, checks of reading, participation in discussion checks... It's process oriented assignments and for many of them, I don't need to do much to check them. My kid had a college class this year - the best course he took this past year - where a huge portion of the work was just discussion posts in the forums. I do not think the professors and TA's were doing detailed readings of those the way they were of exam short answer questions. My kid got a ton out of that class. Are assignments like these busy work? For students who remember everything they read and come into a course where the content is new but the skills are basically mastered, sure, yes. And there are a few students like that. But for most students, no. Because when they don't do them, they ALSO fail the tests, don't retain information, and don't improve their long term skill sets. And when they do them, they tend to do at least okay on the tests and final project type work. This is what I mean about how the assessment (not the grades specifically, but the assessment process) and the content, the skills, and the education are all inexorably linked together and can't really be separated.

There's something else that's low key happening in this thread from a number of posters that I find frustrating, which is a disdain for students who don't just walk into a lecture and walk out having mastered the content. Students who need something more engaging than being handed a textbook. And yeah, they should freaking read the textbook. I have a giant eyeroll for the students who don't make any efforts to do the basics. But focusing more on the process with process-based assignments - either that lead up to strict, show you can do it cold exams or in lieu of them depending on the subject and content - are a legitimate way to approach education that benefits everyone more than a product based approach where only the exam matters.

[regentrude]

13 minutes ago, Farrar said:

There's something else that's low key happening in this thread from a number of posters that I find frustrating, which is a disdain for students who don't just walk into a lecture and walk out having mastered the content. Students who need something more engaging than being handed a textbook. And yeah, they should freaking read the textbook. I have a giant eyeroll for the students who don't make any efforts to do the basics. But focusing more on the process with process-based assignments - either that lead up to strict, show you can do it cold exams or in lieu of them depending on the subject and content - are a legitimate way to approach education that benefits everyone more than a product based approach where only the exam matters.

I completely agree. Absolutely nobody walks out of my physics lecture having mastered the material. They may think they do, but then they start on the homework and quickly realize that they don't really know how to work the problems. It is after working through the set of homework problems of gradually increasing complexity, using the examples and procedures provided in lecture and the help giving in the learning center, that they have a semblance of mastery. This is then further developed in the recitation where they engage with more worked problems and conceptual discussion questions. I liken it to learning to play the piano: you don't learn by watching an accomplished pianist play; you have to practice. Physics and math are no different. The exam is the recital; the review for the exam, with the additional practice materials and previous exams provided, is the practice for the recital. 

The recital is the "final product", but the learning happens along the way, and it is the teacher's job to create meaningful assignments that guide the student to success.

I am all in favor of carefully designed assignments with each assignment serving a clear pedagogical purpose. I just don't believe there need to be grades given for everything. And I'd much rather put my time and effort into creating valuable assignments that further learning than to twist myself into a pretzel to cheat-proof my exams.

Edited June 1, 2022 by regentrude

[Farrar]

4 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I am all in favor of carefully designed assignments with each assignment serving a clear pedagogical purpose. I just don't believe there need to be grades given for everything. And I'd much rather put my time and effort into creating valuable assignments that further learning than to twist myself into a pretzel to cheat-proof my exams.

Agreed. This gets to what should be graded and what shouldn't. My thinking is that if you're going to give grades, then giving them for process work is one way to make a course more process-oriented - because students don't understand the value of the process without the grade. But in some cases, it's the equivalent of giving points for just sitting down to practice your instrument. I'm okay with that approach and I don't see it as undermining the quality of education or becoming busywork or anything. I think... no one improves without practice, the students who are going to ace the metaphorical concert here are going to benefit and the students who are going to get boo'ed off the stage are also going to benefit and maybe some of them or most them will not get boo'ed after all if they're forced to practice.

[Sneezyone]

46 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Agreed. This gets to what should be graded and what shouldn't. My thinking is that if you're going to give grades, then giving them for process work is one way to make a course more process-oriented - because students don't understand the value of the process without the grade. But in some cases, it's the equivalent of giving points for just sitting down to practice your instrument. I'm okay with that approach and I don't see it as undermining the quality of education or becoming busywork or anything. I think... no one improves without practice, the students who are going to ace the metaphorical concert here are going to benefit and the students who are going to get boo'ed off the stage are also going to benefit and maybe some of them or most them will not get boo'ed after all if they're forced to practice.

In DDs math class (pandemic learning) teachers assign Ed puzzles where students watch and periodically answer questions for homework. For DD, this is time-consuming busy busy work. For others it’s grade-boosting. As long as you get over 50% on the edpuzzles (minimal attention), your grade on the unit/chapter test can be used in place of the individual Ed puzzle results. Students who learn quickly get the mandatory content exposure while students who need credit for the process can get that too. All quizzes are subject to correction BEFORE the test. Test grades are final, final.

I guess I don’t understand why higher Ed math/science teachers are so wedded to weed-out methods when they want and hope for students who are process/mastery/learning-oriented. The system is designed to achieve the results it gets. If you want different inputs/outcomes, change the system.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Sneezyone

[regentrude]

Just now, Farrar said:

Agreed. This gets to what should be graded and what shouldn't. My thinking is that if you're going to give grades, then giving them for process work is one way to make a course more process-oriented - because students don't understand the value of the process without the grade. But in some cases, it's the equivalent of giving points for just sitting down to practice your instrument. I'm okay with that approach and I don't see it as undermining the quality of education or becoming busywork or anything. I think... no one improves without practice, the students who are going to ace the metaphorical concert here are going to benefit and the students who are going to get boo'ed off the stage are also going to benefit and maybe some of them or most them will not get boo'ed after all if they're forced to practice.

I agree partly. I do not like penalizing learners for their mistakes, so I do not like being too harsh in the homework grading - OTOH, giving points for filling a page with random stuff or copied answers isn't a sensible reward structure either. I incorporate "easy" points for in-class collaborative work, a notch above an attendance grade, to encourage active engagement in class. Rewarding the process needs to be balanced carefully with rewarding the actual mastery. The weighting is more art than science, but in the end, a college grade cannot be based on effort alone; it needs to reflect the subject mastery at the end. 
The precise weighting also depends on the course. I have different expectations and criteria for my class for biology majors and for my class for physics and engineering majors, because their physics goals have to be different. I know I am getting the balance right when I consistently produce the desired grade distribution at the end that reflects the level of mastery I am expecting of each group. Historically over the past 20 years, on average, the "process" assignments during the learning process add a letter grade to the students' test performance in engineering physics.
For an inexperienced instructor, it is very difficult to find a good balance.

[Dmmetler]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

How do students perceive the fairness of this? Class sizes aside, in a setting like this, the students scheduling their exams for Friday would have a distinct advantage over those who take theirs at the beginning of the week. By Friday, the entire class would have disseminated the exam questions via groupme and would have had a days to let somebody work out the solutions and share them. 
One thing I heard repeatedly from my students is that they value that they are all taking the exact same classroom exam and are all graded according to the exact same rubric (ensuring this uniformity makes giving and grading 500 exams a logistical feat, but the students appreciate this and are unhappy if they perceive being disadvantaged)

You choose when you take your test. From what I’ve seen, a majority of students take them early so that they can leave,  vs waiting for the last minute.  And, to be blunt, many of the classes only have 10-12 kids, so multiple versions becomes easier (and when you can’t take in your phone, or even a piece of scratch paper, I’m guessing that in most cases the best you can give is exactly the information that was likely covered in review sessions). 

Edited June 1, 2022 by Dmmetler

[Roadrunner]

35 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I completely agree. Absolutely nobody walks out of my physics lecture having mastered the material. They may think they do, but then they start on the homework and quickly realize that they don't really know how to work the problems. It is after working through the set of homework problems of gradually increasing complexity, using the examples and procedures provided in lecture and the help giving in the learning center, that they have a semblance of mastery. This is then further developed in the recitation where they engage with more worked problems and conceptual discussion questions. I liken it to learning to play the piano: you don't learn by watching an accomplished pianist play; you have to practice. Physics and math are no different. The exam is the recital; the review for the exam, with the additional practice materials and previous exams provided, is the practice for the recital. 

The recital is the "final product", but the learning happens along the way, and it is the teacher's job to create meaningful assignments that guide the student to success.

I am all in favor of carefully designed assignments with each assignment serving a clear pedagogical purpose. I just don't believe there need to be grades given for everything. And I'd much rather put my time and effort into creating valuable assignments that further learning than to twist myself into a pretzel to cheat-proof my exams.

Yes, my kid worked every single homework problem ever assigned in physics. I wish we had recitations. Those don’t exist at CC. And it was pandemic time, so all we got was maybe 2 hours worth of recorded video lectures per week. Nobody could have mastered anything from that. Homework really was the only way along with very careful reading of the text. Yet as he understood most kids were expecting to pass exams from just watching those 2 hours of videos. An average grade was 62% in class. 

Edited June 1, 2022 by Roadrunner

[regentrude]

5 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

I guess I don’t understand why higher Ed math/science teachers are so wedded to weed-out methods when they want and hope students that are process/mastery/learning oriented. The system is designed to achieve the results it gets. If you want different inputs/outcomes, change the system.

I don't know any math/science instructor who is wedded to weed-out-methods. 
Giving exams does not mean it's a weed-out course. FWIW, our large enrollment intro courses have a success rate of 80%.

[Roadrunner]

Also not all teachers have TAs, so grading is a huge burden when you have many students. At least for physics, DS’s teacher collected homework but gave grades for completion only. She also posted homework key, so anybody who wanted to make sure they understood the material could check their own work. 75% of the grade was tests and final. I believe homework counted for only 5%. The rest was lab.