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<\/p>\nFor the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about a potential policy prohibiting asynchronous exams at IMSA. It is currently unclear if such a policy exists and what exactly that policy entails. The Principal\u2019s Office declined the invitation to participate in an interview with The Acronym regarding the potential policy, though they did meet with StudCo reps to discuss the matter. Some faculty and students weighed in on the situation, answering questions from The Acronym.<\/p>\n
Students have received little information about this policy, and as such have different impressions about the possibility of banning asynchronous testing. Their understanding of the reasoning behind the policy range from cutting down students\u2019 workload outside of class to preventing academic dishonesty. Rachel Selvaraj (\u201822) said \u201cHonestly, I feel like not much has been disclosed about this policy. A lot of it feels pretty secretive and overall, unclear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Math faculty member Dr. Patrick Davis said there was an original policy that completely stopped asynchronous testing, but it was revised a few days later. He stated that his \u201ccurrent understanding is that we are allowed to now resume giving asynchronous assessments, however, the Principal\u2019s Office has asked us to make sure that there\u2019s a clear reason and justification for that,\u201d such as a summative or unit assessment.<\/p>\n
Student Council also provided some insight into the situation, as they met with the Principal\u2019s Office to discuss the policy. Student Council President Eric Pan (\u201821) said \u201cBased on our meeting\u2026 there actually was no policy that was passed\u2026 Students were told by teachers through word of mouth that asynchronous testing wouldn\u2019t be allowed\u2026 From my understanding, that whole situation was a misunderstanding. The Principal\u2019s Office never created a policy stating that there was no asynchronous testing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The implementation of a policy (or at least the possibility of a policy) against asynchronous exams greatly affected some teachers, as they had to adjust their teaching plan. Dr. Davis said \u201cThe initial change in policy to stop asynchronous assessments immediately impacted my AB Calculus class\u2026 We had scheduled for an exam to be released on Friday\u2026 the policy to stop asynchronous testing was issued on Wednesday early evening\u2026 We had to reshuffle that\u2026 to the following week so that we could accomplish it synchronously. I had to cut it down and make sure it would be appropriate for a synchronous session.\u201d However, \u201cFor my understanding of the updated policy\u2026 it\u2019s probably not going to have a huge impact on the way that I want to assess now\u2026 The types of things that I would want to give asynchronously\u2026 we\u2019re going to be permitted to do again. So going forward, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to have a huge impact anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The policy raised several concerns for students. School Counselor Takeisha Rheams said that she \u201cheard from several students\u2026 they\u2019re stressed over academics and having a lot of sadness\u2026 over all of the work that they were having to do at home.\u201d Further, she stated \u201cI feel that [the impact of asynchronous exams on students\u2019 mental health] depends on the student\u2026 I feel like maybe for some students it can be beneficial, but I can also see how it can cause more stress for other students, so I think it really just depends on the student.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following illustration summarizes the pros and cons of asynchronous and synchronous exams from the perspective of students who were interviewed for this article.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Akanksha Garg (\u201821) stated, \u201cTaking a test asynchronously did help me a lot academically and emotionally. I was able to take more time to think about each of the questions and write detailed responses and check my work when I was finished, which I don’t think I would have been able to do otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems that the discussions surrounding a policy against asynchronous exams may still be in progress. Eric Pan said that \u201cAccording to [Dr. Akwaji-Anderson] … they\u2019re working with faculty to create the best practices for teaching in an online environment, so everything is still being worked on.\u201d Dr. Davis also said that \u201cEverybody at school is looking for the best ways and the optimal ways to do things, and everybody is looking for… what would be best for the students\u2026 So the Principal\u2019s Office and us teachers are always trying to figure out what would work best for you guys.\u201d Additionally, Dr. Davis said that \u201cWe as teachers really appreciate all of your flexibility as we figure out the optimal way to do this remotely\u2026 It is a learning process for us as much as it is a learning process for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this moment\u2026 the best thing that Student Council can do\u2026 is just take as much student input as possible and make sure that the Principal\u2019s Office has the information to make decisions that are beneficial for the student body,\u201d said Eric Pan. If you have any concerns or questions regarding asynchronous exams, please direct them to Student Council\u2019s Universal Submission Box<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about a potential policy prohibiting asynchronous exams at IMSA. It is currently…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":564,"featured_media":28083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1019],"tags":[3435,3353],"coauthors":[3341],"class_list":["post-28081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-imsanews","tag-asynchronous-testing","tag-remote-learning"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28081"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28167,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28081\/revisions\/28167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28081"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}