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:
- Changing the wording of the problem and data.
- 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.
). I think a clear cut case of something that is ok (and is already widely practiced) is to let your students know ahead of time that you will use Turnitin (or similar software) to check that they did the work and did not simply copy huge chunks of it from elsewhere. I think it is also fine to use things like Zoom to proctor an exam. The point is to be clear and completely transparent with the students ahead of the exam. Zoom proctoring, although ethically fine, is of course not without its downsides - students may already be stressed from having to suddenly switch to online courses, and having to cope with a complicated technological setup for an exam may add even more stress, eg. if they don't have good wifi at home.
