
Epic and Oklahoma Virtual Charter Academy say their teachers can require exams to be proctored, where the student is monitored remotely through a webcam. Edgenuity features a locking browser, which restricts students from opening other tabs and programs while the learning platform is open. Technology provides some cheating protections. Now, those same methods are being adopted by traditional school districts with the tens of thousands of Oklahoma students attending school from home. Students enrolled full-time in virtual charter schools learned an equivalent of 72 days fewer in reading and 180 days fewer in math than students in brick-and-mortar schools over one academic year, according to a 2015 study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, a non-partisan research center at Stanford University. Research shows it doesn’t work very well.

Parents are expected to fill in the gaps and oversee the learning process. In virtual charter schools, teachers provide less direct instruction than in a traditional school, with the curriculum program delivering most of the lessons. Other statewide virtual charter schools are experiencing increases. Epic Charter Schools says it has 61,000 students enrolled - representing about 1 in 10 Oklahoma students. These schools don’t have classrooms and the students learn mostly from home. Virtual charter schools are experiencing a surge of enrollment, a trend underway before the pandemic. Many students aren’t getting any in-person class time, though. Dobbs teaches English to freshmen at Edmond Memorial High School. In other words, the type of assignments they can’t just Google.Įvery other desk in Elanna Dobbs classroom is labeled as unavailable, an effort to maintain social distancing among students on the days they’re in class. “Everything my kids are doing at home is a cheatable assignment, which makes that in-class time so incredibly valuable,” said Elanna Dobbs, who teaches English at Edmond Memorial High School.Įdmond is using a blended schedule, where students attend class some days and are virtual from home the rest of the week.ĭobbs, who has been teaching 19 years, said on virtual days, she relies on class discussions or assignments that task students with providing individual thoughts on what they’ve learned. Seventy percent of Oklahoma districts had a virtual option at the start of this school year, and 7.5% were exclusively online, according to a state Department of Education survey.īut when students are not inside classrooms, it becomes more difficult to ensure they are actually learning, teachers say. Many schools adopted such virtual programs in a matter of months to adapt to the ongoing public health crisis. Shared answers have become even more accessible as districts have adopted or expanded their use of popular online learning programs like Edgenuity, which delivers the same content to students across the country. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.Ĭheating has always been an issue in schools, but there is little getting in the way for students today.

This story is part of a collaboration with FRONTLINE, the PBS series, through its Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S. Schools’ large-scale shift to virtual education amid COVID-19 is challenging the system of determining what students actually know and limiting educators’ ability to ensure academic integrity. There are even tricks to fake attendance in a Zoom class - demonstrated by a teen’s viral Tik Tok video.

Students connect on social media or text groups to share answers. Smartphone apps take a photo of a question and produce the answer. In the past month, he gained 2,000 new users, including more than 100 in Oklahoma.Īnd his tool is just one of many available to savvy students.Įntire test keys and quiz answers are posted to homework help websites.

His program, developed from his home in Heber City, Utah, has been downloaded 40,000 times by students across the country. Wursten is more computer savvy than most, but his quest for shortcuts is typical. The hacks make it possible to complete a course much faster, students say. And those answers are often easily found on the web. Instead of watching a 30-minute history lesson on the Iroquois, students can cut right to the quiz. Once installed, his program can skip videos and automatically fill practice questions with answers - progressing straight to quizzes and tests.
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Cheat Codes: Students Search For Shortcuts as Virtual Schooling Expands - Oklahoma Watch CloseĬomputer programmer Gradyn Wursten still updates a project he created to hack his high school homework.Īs a sophomore, he used an old MacBook with a cracked screen and bulging battery to write the code that adds shortcuts to Edgenuity - an online education platform used by more than 3 million students.
