A Virtual Shift

As we enter our 6th week of virtual school, students are getting into a rhythm of waking up later, having an hour of each class, and a nice long lunch break, without assemblies to cut them short. But this raises the question, are people really learning during virtual school, and how can teachers check?

Here at PantherNation, we interviewed teachers (virtually) from across all departments at ISB and learned about how many teachers and departments are going to grade their students in this virtual environment.

The Arts

In both dance and drama, students are expected to perform on Zoom or record their performances on Photo Booth. Mrs. HD, from the Drama Department, says that through the recordings, she “can assess performance, and reflection tasks – and this is still being done on a 7-1 scale.” Dance is also very similar, with recordings, and being assessed with the same rubric as in regular classes.

For music classes, students record videos of themselves practicing and are being graded the same way as in regular school. Ms. Gricius, the High School strings teacher added that her students also participate in “music theory assignments completed on music websites”.

In visual art classes, since students are learning at home, they don’t have the same resources as they would in the art classes at ISB. A high school student elaborated “Art is one of the trickier subjects to do at home since everyone has different supplies available to them. Right now we are tasked with creating a piece of art that is significant to us using materials we have around the house. It has been fun and challenging trying to create the piece because you have to be imaginative with the resources you have.”

Tests Online

Some classes are still having summatives, but rather online, on Zoom. Students take the test with the cameras on them, and then upload the pictures or assignment to various websites. However, this brings up the honor code and the amount of cheating that can happen in these situations. Ms. Shaffer, a science teacher said that for her summative assessment in Biology II, she had students “log into Zoom with me and, while on our video class, sign a declaration of academic honesty”. Mrs. McMillan, the Dean of Academics also added that ISB expects students to “uphold academic integrity…However, we understand that there are new challenges in a virtual learning environment so we hope to develop an honor code with the student council.”

Because of the temptations to cheat many teachers are opting for projects, instead of test-like situations, to still get the summative grades needed for the end of the year. In languages, Sra. Genser said that she has also given oral quizzes, as well as “finishing some IA (Individual Oral Exams) using Zoom”. Mrs. McMillan also stated, “We are trialing some platforms for virtual test taking online.”

Mr. Stephenson, a math teacher also said that “The math department will have summative assessments that will be awarded a 7-1 in PowerSchool. We may not be giving tests as you have experienced in class on campus, but we are assessing your learning on a daily basis, all contributing to a body of evidence to determine your end of semester grade.”   

With every teacher having to adapt to different teaching styles during virtual school, it’s more than necessary that with different teaching styles, there will be different ways of testing students. For the past year, we have been learning based on each teacher’s teaching style and studying accordingly. However, with virtual school, everything we have used to do has been thrown out the window. Both teachers and students alike have to learn a new way to teach and learn, meaning that students might not be learning all that they would if we were still in regular school. Mr. Macky states “During virtual school students are taking tests in a completely different environment than what they are used to. This probably has an effect on their ability to concentrate and do their best on the tests. Once they get used to doing things this way, hopefully, they’ll get more comfortable with it and their scores will approve.” This shows that if students aren’t performing as well in virtual school, it may not be because they aren’t paying attention, but because they are distracted by things at home. Testing in these kinds of environments isn’t as reliable for students and isn’t a great indicator of how well the students are learning.

End-of-year grades 

End of year grades has been a topic between students over the past couple of weeks, as well as the exam situation. Administrators are still unsure whether or not there will be exams for 9-11 graders but are still upholding the 1-7 grading scale of end of year grades. However, Mrs. McMillan added that there might be a “pass/fail system for some of the arts semester electives, where it might be difficult to determine a grade due to the nature of the subjects and access to resources.” Other subjects, will still be using grades from summative assignments (presentations, projects, essays, tests, etc.) for determining a student’s final grade in that course.

This situation has been hectic for all of us, and who knows how much longer this will go on? But, we all need to put in as much effort during virtual school, as we would in normal school, as tests and projects weigh the same amount in our final grades.