Often, it’s no more difficult than pulling up answers on a smartphone. 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. They urged the district to, among other requests, provide an option for students to learn from Norman teachers, not from “an out-of-state, for-profit venture.” “Our children deserve to have personal interactions with local teachers and classmates as part of their virtual school experience during this pandemic,” they wrote. They spoke out at board meetings, and wrote a letter to the district, calling it “troubling” that Edgenuity was their only virtual option within the district. That month, in Norman, parents railed against a plan to use Edgenuity teachers for all students enrolling in the district’s virtual program. “Now that we have witnessed it on a large scale basis, and firsthand, Virtual Learning has proven to be TERRIBLE compared to In School, or On Campus, Learning,” President Donald Trump tweeted July 10. Please reload the page and try again.Īnd yet, critics - from parents to the president - have deemed online education inadequate. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. 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. Cheat Codes: Students Search For Shortcuts as Virtual Schooling Expands - Oklahoma Watch Close

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