This will NOT end well ….
Remote learning doesn’t work well, especially for math. In previous blog posts I’ve written that cheating is rampant in online learning. Students sit at home without teacher, or adult, supervision after being told to do their homework, quiz, test, paper or project by themselves. But with their phone connected to various apps, websites and friends, they invariably seek out assistance on their work. I’m not saying it’s your child, but I would honestly guess it’s the majority of high school remote learners.
There’s a cottage industry of individuals on the internet who provide correct answers to math problems, take students’ online tests for them and even provide written papers on almost any topic. With remote learning, the number of enterprising individuals who are offering these services has grown exponentially. I was approached by more than a few parents during the spring of 2020 – the spring of COVID – to “help” their children finish some extra-credit worksheets so they could raise their grade in math (see other post). I turned down the offers, but I know these students didn’t end up doing the math themselves. Yet in the end someone else did “help” them and they received solid grades on their report cards indicating they knew the material well.
For some subjects, this won’t come back to haunt students (educationally, I’m not talking ethically – they should all haunted ethically) down the road. Classes like Biology or English or European History are self-contained courses taught over a single school year and students don’t necessarily need to remember that material for their next science (Chemistry) or history (U.S. History) course. But math …. well, math is cumulative, and therein lies the oncoming problem.
Students who received assistance with their online math during the spring of 2020 (by assistance I mean someone else basically did their work for them) didn’t learn their 2019-2020 school year math curriculum, yet still ended up with a good grade on their report card. Those students who continue to receive assistance during 2020-2021 in their remote math classes but don’t actually learn the material (yet, again, still get a good grade for the course) will have “not learned” two years of high school math. This isn’t an unmanageable problem for current seniors (simply AVOID math in college if you can) or even current high school juniors (apply EARLY to college next year and don’t submit your senior year math grade). But for current freshmen and sophomores, their math classes will be a nightmare when they return to in-person teaching.
Imagine this scenario, coming soon to a high school near you: a sophomore or junior sits in his/her pre-calculus classroom (FINALLY, kids are back in school … whenever that may be) after not understanding math during the last quarter of trigonometry in the spring of 2020 and basically clueless about the Algebra II taught during 2020-21. Yet he/she received A or B grades in both of those classes. The teacher hands out the first test of the year, to be completed at their desk, alone (obviously) … no phone, no internet, no assistance from anyone else. Just the student, their pencil and a piece of paper with 20 equations to solve. The clock is ticking.
How’d that remote learning work out for ya?