What Have Educators Learned About Distance Learning?

[berkeman]

our elder daughter is a college student that falls into the A to B camp, at least for math. Yes, motivation is low, especially when there is a pandemic going on and she has been pretty sick. But also certain subjects and class formats just don't transfer well to an online format for some students. For example, online math just isn't working for her at all.

Very sorry that she has been having to deal with health issues now -- that is likely made much more difficult with the current emphasis on devoting medical resources to the pandemic. Hopefully video doctor consultations have been available to you all.

On the math front, I wonder if it might help to try out a student version of Mathematica or some other comparable visual math processing software package. It seems like it might offer a way to help visualize some of the math that she is learning, and provide some visceral feedback about what the math means and how it is used.

For example, if she is working on differential equations, she could use Mathematica to plot the motion of objects that are subject to different constraints and the associated DEs and boundary conditions. I know that for EE type subjects, being able to see poles and zeroes in complex 3-D plots is very illuminating in studying stability and other filter-related issues, for example.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Stay as safe and healthy as you can.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Do you have the problem in question? That could be interesting.

I don't, sorry. I could come up with my own, tho.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Have at it!

 

[jasonRF]

On the math front, I wonder if it might help to try out a student version of Mathematica or some other comparable visual math processing software package. It seems like it might offer a way to help visualize some of the math that she is learning, and provide some visceral feedback about what the math means and how it is used.

What seemed to help the most was getting help from my wife and I who are both engineers (my wife earned a BS in math before a PhD in EE; I did EE all the way through). Basically, one of us would brush up on what she was learning and think about how to present it and come up with a couple of examples, then would sit down with her and a piece of paper and give her a mini lecture on the specific topic she was having trouble with. But sometimes it was as simple as looking at a theorem or example in her book and explaining it to her in English.

Her course was a flipped classroom format that had very short introduction lectures that were designed just to setup the textbook reading assignments, and then class was a small section of about 20 students that was just for working problems in groups and asking the professor questions. Even when the course was in-person she was doing worse with that approach than she had in a prior math course that was the traditional lecture style.

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, so trying to do group work or even asking the professor questions really didn't help her understand anything. To be fair, it truly is challenging to answer a student's question about the nuances of series convergence proofs using just words and no ability to write anything for the student to see. The school just didn't have the technology ready in time to make it effective, and wasn't nimble enough to change the course format to work around their particular technology limitations.

Since they didn't have much time to do the switch to online I don't really blame them, and in the grand scheme of things this is a minor issue and will probably be forgotten in short order. She learned what she needed to learn for her future, but really would have been in trouble if she didn't have parents who were able to help and working from home so were always available. In hindsight we should have found some regular lectures online for her to watch - her chemistry class was a traditional lecture-style course and it worked great online (the experimental chem course is another story).

jason

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Is there any difference or difficulties that arises with the teaching of pure mathematics during this event? I think this is the least affected area.

 

[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.