How are schools in your area handling midterm exams?
Cancelling them? Kids taking them at home? Kids taking them in school?
Some towns around us have half the student population taking exams at home and the other half taking them in school.
Some towns in our area cancelled them altogether. But, some did not.
Understanding that midterm exams usually pull students’ grades down a bit, what are your thoughts on inconsistent midterm policies among schools?
I’ve got to assume that mid-year grades reported to colleges will be generally higher for students who had midterms canceled?? Will colleges take this into account when comparing kids from different towns?
My DC’s school is currently fully remote. The midterm for several subjects this year is a project - with both an individual component, and a group element. Sounds fair and better than written exams, in my opinion.
All midterms were done synchronously before winter break and students had the option to take online or in person. Some classes required Proctorio but others didn’t.
Is Proctorio a software to prevent cheating? If so, I think that’s a good idea. I wonder how much cheating is going on with remote assessments and school systems that can’t afford (or just aren’t bothering to invest in) anti-cheating strategies.
Yep, it closes all your tabs and uses a webcam to track eyesight. Kinda creepy honestly but it does provide a better assessment lol. I do know that over my other classes that didn’t require Proctorio, there was a decent amount of cheating though.
Also I didn’t realize this was the parents forum but this is from a student’s perspective… personally I think they’ll be more lenient this year in terms of remote learning.
For our school, many of the classes went with a midterm project or take-home open book exam. I think they were worried about being unfair if half were taking at home (we have a hybrid model).
I wish for my S that midterms were canceled. His are remote and it’s been a difficult semester going back and forth remote to in person. The school has offered a few computers for students who want to take it at school.
My daughter’s school said no midterms or finals. Each quarter will simply count as 25% of the final grade. However they still have papers/projects etc in addition to regular school work. As of right now they are still 100% remote for general ed students with no hybrid start date but perhaps will start hybrid at one point this school year when covid improves in my high risk area.
My younger D said she has no quarterly/midterm exams, which are typically required for honors/AP/DE courses. Two classes have projects but the others will just be graded on normal homework, quizzes, exams, etc. (It’s usually 85% these, 15% quarterly exam).
Our district has been fully remote since mid-December. Elementary went back to a hybrid schedule this week and middle/high school will move to this in two weeks. Half of the students go in M/W, the other Tu/Th, and everyone is remote Friday.
My older D has taken exams monitored by software similar to what was discussed above. She actually used it for the first time two summers ago when taking an online class from home, so the school has been using it for a while.
Our high school has mostly been in person the whole year. They have canceled mid-terms that were to be this month. With kids in and out of quarantine, they decided it was not worth the scheduling problem and stress it would cause the kids.
Our state is requiring kids who have state exams to come in and take final exams. Our district has been remote all year and our finals are next week. Freshman have never set foot in school and now they have to show up for an exam. The school district has decided that the finals can only help a grade not hurt. Other teacher exams are being given remotely.
D21 gets senior exemption, so she gets a week off!
