With students split both online and in-person due to COVID-19, math teachers have noticed an increase in cheating and a dependency on notes. This year, students, on average, are performing significantly worse or better than they had in previous years. 

Daniel Aiello, who teaches both Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 at the high school, found that with all of the changes this year, students are either performing exceptionally well or extremely poor. “I call it an inverted bell curve. And I think if you talk to most teachers, it’s either you got a bunch of [students] doing really well [or] a bunch of [students] doing nothing…I don’t have many students performing at an average rate,” Aiello said.

Along with very dramatic grade standings, math teachers have also reported an increase in cheating. Students are either relying on resources like Mathway and Photomath to cheat, or they’re collaborating with other students on independent assignments. 

“The problem is that people think that when they’re at home, they can use Photomath and nobody notices. … And for some reason, people think I haven’t downloaded Photomath,” math teacher Christopher Sneeringer said.

Many math teachers like Sneeringer have plugged their own questions into these apps in order to know what the results are as a preemptive measure to catch cheating when it occurs. Usually, the answers that these apps show are methods that these teachers haven’t taught.  

“When I grade tests, I know what Photomath spits out, what Mathway spits out, and what I taught. I don’t give credit. I’ve nailed multiple kids multiple times for the same types of things. There are certain symbols that I don’t teach,” Aiello said. 

Kathy Hoffman, who currently teaches Algebra 1A and CP Calculus, noted that she, along with other teachers, has witnessed students cheating on Classkick. Because teachers have access to a student’s Classkick, teachers can view what that student is doing at any given time. Hoffman has witnessed several students erasing the same wrong answers and rewriting another answer simultaneously, giving the impression that students are collaborating on these assignments that are meant to be completed independently. 

With students being online and not in the classroom, it is harder for teachers to prove that students are cheating. Teachers can’t see or hear what the online students are doing, so they can only speculate if a student is cheating unless they blatantly use a method that hasn’t been taught. 

Because teachers are starting to doubt the authenticity of testing, teachers are altering previous tests to both eliminate cheating and to check the students’ ability to apply the skills being taught. These various forms include collaborative assessments or problems that ask students to explain their reasoning. 

“When you allow students to use notes, you need to question differently. Your questioning can’t be straight off the notes. It has to be a further application,” Hoffman said.

With midterms and finals canceled, several math teachers replaced what would’ve been the midterm with a cumulative review assignment. Hoffman, for instance, assigned students to complete the previous years’ midterm review packet for a grade.

Teachers are also finding more of an occurrence of cheating in honors classes as opposed to CP classes. 

“Honestly, I think [cheating is] happening more in the honors classes. There is much more competition for grades in those classes. There just is. Now I have a lot of strong kids in my CP classes, but it’s not quite as competitive,”  Aiello said. Both Sneeringer and Hoffman echoed Aiello’s statement. 

“My Algebra 1 kids — interestingly enough — they tend to not cheat as much,” Hoffman said, in comparison to her calculus class. 

Members of the student body are also aware of the cheating that is taking place. Davin Barton is in-person and is enrolled in AP Calculus BC. “A lot of kids have the availability when they’re at their house, so they figure they might as well [cheat]. So it doesn’t surprise me that stuff like this is happening more and more,” Barton said.  

Teachers are growing concerned for when the school transitions back to traditional learning where students won’t have unlimited access to calculators and notes because of cheating, the dependency on those resources, and the fact that students aren’t retaining the information as well as in years prior. 

“My concern is … retaining the information. For my students, their assessments are all open-note. And I think that’s the bigger problem since there seems to be a larger dependency on looking the answers up versus knowing them before the test,” math teacher Rachelle Impink said.

“At some point, we are going to go back to normal, and it’s one of those [situations] where, are you going to remember what you learned last year or, for my honors kids, are you going to end up in calculus next year and [not] remember anything,” Sneeringer said. 

These issues don’t specifically pertain to math. Once school returns to traditional learning, many students will most likely be struggling to meet previous standards. Debates over student integrity are also occurring in other subjects too. 

“Is that [reliance on notes] going to have a trickle effect down the road? All of this stuff is. It’s not just math, it’s science, it’s English, it’s history. It’s everything. Everything that’s happened this year is going to be a trickle effect for years,” Aiello said.