When the pandemic hit and school buildings shut down, few educators were focused on grading online learning.
We had bigger fish to fry. And it wasn’t fair to our students. “How can we hold them accountable when we can’t support them in the way we used to?”
As the months went by and schools remained closed, we could no longer just fill time until things went back to normal.
As long as schools remain closed, we owe it to our students to ensure they receive the best education possible. And that means producing some evidence that learning is still happening in our classes.
Most schools began by suspending grading altogether. When grades returned, schools across the country experienced an alarming increase in failure rates. Before we saw these results, most of us were worried about the cheating that might occur during online assessment.
It seems the bigger problem is that many students aren’t even bothering to cheat. Or that online learning has simply been too disorienting, leaving students unable to succeed.
It appears that the end of widespread online learning may be in sight. Some schools have returned to in-person instruction. Others are moving to hybrid instruction. There is an argument for just pushing through until we can forget about online learning.
