International Response to Digital Learning
Junho Son
Why Digital Learning
With the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, the number of confirmed cases spiked in many parts of the world including Korea. As a highly contagious disease-with the average patient infecting 5.8 other patients-many existing medical facilities were quickly overwhelmed. Albeit having a relatively low fatality rate of 2-3%, the increasing influx of patients overburdens medical facilities. Proper quarantine becomes harder and more people get infected, repeating the negative feedback loop. This led to a global movement to flatten out the curve by a practice known as social distancing. Compared to other methods of disease control such as closing off borders and setting up hard quarantine zones, the primary goal of social distancing is not necessarily to contain the virus completely, but to slow down the number of new cases. Slowing down the spread of COVID-19 by decreasing contact through social distancing allows hospitals to focus more on existing patients and therefore decreasing the fatality rate. Despite these efforts, children and teenagers still remain vulnerable to this novel disease. Protecting these students from COVID-19 starts from containing hazardous areas such as schools, a hub where many students gather, that might be the next epicenter of the spread.
Digital Learning In South Korea
As of April 5th, 2020, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classified COVID-19 as severe, marking a new wave of actions to aggressively contain COVID-19. An example of this was the South Korean Minister of Education’s request to temporarily close all public schools until March 2nd. However, with the rapid spread of COVID-19 since, this date was delayed until April 6th and postponed until further notice on March 31st. To make up for lost school days, the Korean government implemented a digital learning framework emphasizing: task-based, interaction-based, and lecture-based learning. Starting from April 9 with senior high school students and middle school students, Korean public schools will start their 2020-2021 school year through digital learning, followed by the rest. However, the lack of a codified standard for digital learning and a high dependence on the teacher’s individual discretion created a generally negative response overall. With approximately 85% of all high school students considering the current digital learning framework as ineffective, the long term success of this program still lies as a mystery.
AP Exams
Collegeboard, the American not-for-profit organization that creates and administers the SAT/AP exams, had a similar response to COVID-19. Although they cancelled all SAT examinations that take place during March, May, and June, they made it clear the AP exams will not be delayed. From their live online review lectures in Youtube to continuous updates about the exam, Collegeboard stated that the exams will proceed in its original schedule but with a shortened curriculum. Setting aside the few courses that don't require an AP exam such as AP Computer Science Principles, all exams will be administered online. It will take place online from May 11th to May 22nd as planned. All multiple choice sections of the exams will be cancelled and it’ll be replaced with one or two free response questions depending on the course. All exams will be 45 minutes and it will be designed in a way that prevents cheating by nature.
The Time Zone Dilemma
As one of the many mechanisms to prevent cheating in this exam, all exams will be taken simultaneously. Depending on the course it will take place either 12:00 p.m. EST, 2:00 p.m. EST, or 4:00 p.m. EST. Although this prevents cheating through the use of different time zones, it creates an unfair disadvantage to those living in the Asian region. Students in Asia often find themselves scheduled to take an exam at 1,3, or even 5AM. Many criticize such scheduling as discrimination against Asian , yet Collegeboard has no plans for a makeup exam as of right now. Whether they will create new measures to accompany these students from their timezone disadvantage still remains a mystery.
Test Security
To ensure equal access to the exams, Collegeboard will allow the AP exams to be taken in any device capable of connecting to the internet, including your laptop, phone, and even an iPad. Such an environment creates an atmosphere extremely easy to cheat, either by using outside notes or searching with Google. To prevent this, the Collegeboard originally announced they will utilize webcams and online proctors to actively guard one from cheating. However in early April, they announced the test will be completely open book and measures such as lockdown browsers, IP address tracking, and plagiarism detection would be utilized. However many criticize the unguarded nature of online testing and question its reliability. As a student taking the AP World History; Modern exam, I personally think the greatest, and only valid security measure is the pressure with time and the security of the question itself. Unlike a normal exam, there’s really not much the Collegeboard can do to proctor the test taking process, no matter how hard they try to track our digital footprint. For tests with a correct answer like the AP Calculus exams, I wonder what, if any, measures the Collegeboard has in place from someone simply obtaining all the answers from an outside source. The nature of a free response question definitely makes it harder to cheat than multiple choice style questions, but I think the ultimate goal of these security features are to prevent us from trying through psychological fear, rather than actually preventing cheating. The concept of digital exams has its limit and I personally look forward to Collegeboard’s approach to this as this year’s AP exams will set the standard for online standardized testing for the coming years.
Shortened Curriculums
To compensate for the school closure in most of the world, Collegeboard excluded certain parts of the exam so that it will only test content covered in school before the crisis. An example of this is the shortened curriculums of AP World History: Modern. Starting from the break of AP World History into AP World History: Ancient and AP World History: Modern, the curriculum was essentially cut in half. Now with the COVID-19 crisis, the AP World History Modern course will only cover the years between 1200 and 1900, a sharp contrast from the 10,000 years worth of world history from last year.
Works Cited
"The COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease May Be Twice ... - Forbes." 8 Apr. 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2020/04/07/the-covid19-coronavirus-disease-may-be-twice-as-contagious-as-we-thought/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
"온라인 개학 첫날 어땠는지 비머가 영상으로 모아봄 ... - YouTube." 9 Apr. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnEFR0XmH58. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
"'어이없는' 온라인 개학, “인강 8시간 시청했다” 댓글게시판에 ...." 10 Apr. 2020, http://www.bigtanews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=5381. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
"Educators - College Board." 10 Apr. 2020, https://apcoronavirusupdates.collegeboard.org/educators. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.