Since the start of the semester, Tufts students have faced a profoundly different college experience from years prior. Rules implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19 require Tufts students to attend classes and socialize in ways that are remote or socially distanced. Now, halfway through the semester, students are facing another aspect of college life changed by the pandemic: midterms.
Unable to administer exams in person, as they might have in previous semesters, professors must choose from a variety of alternatives — each of which creates a distinct experience for their students. These range from assigning open-book, take-home exams, often without strict time limits, to making students take timed exams under the supervision of a virtual proctor.
Jill Weinberg, assistant professor of sociology, chose the latter option for her Sociology of Law class. For their midterm, her students had to use the online proctoring software ProctorU. ProctorU places students under the supervision of a human proctor who watches through their webcams. This allowed her to administer a timed closed-note exam, as she would have before the pandemic.
“I wanted to replicate the same types of assessments as I would if I were in person,” Weinberg said.
On the students’ end, however, there are meaningful differences between virtual proctoring and in-person exams.
Destiny Strange, a first-year, described experiencing this in her Spanish class, where exams are proctored over Zoom.
“It really increases my testing anxiety,” Strange said. “I get really nervous so I look around a lot … and I don’t want [the professor] to think I’m looking at something.”
ProctorU offers a similar experience for students as an exam over Zoom, but it differs in that students take tests with a proctor from the service.
Ayomikun Adeyanju, a first-year, has taken exams through both formats. Adeyanju commented on their differences after taking an exam on ProctorU for her Principles of Economics class.
“I don’t see what was wrong with [Zoom], so having strangers proctor the exam is kind of weird,” Adeyanju said.
Technology also creates problems, particularly for students who are new to the software. Weinberg described having students whose registration became difficult when they tried to use a personal email rather than their Tufts account, as well as students who were automatically assigned an inconvenient time slot because they forgot to sign up for an appointment. Still, she remained optimistic that these errors were a function of the software’s newness to many students.
“When you’re dealing with a new technological tool, whether it’s a cell phone, ProctorU, etcetera, there are things that you don’t anticipate,” Weinberg said.
Even for students who don’t face technological problems, taking exams online creates a fear of making mistakes that wouldn’t be an issue with an in-person exam. Naomi Meininger, a first-year, has taken exams on Zoom for her Spanish class.
“I am afraid that I will accidentally click a new window when I’m trying to go back to zoom … and be marked for cheating,” Meininger wrote in an email to the Daily.
Without an in-person exam room, students are also on their own in the search for somewhere to take the exam. This is particularly challenging for students living on campus.
“I think that it’s always easy for people to say, ‘Oh, go take the exam somewhere else, don’t take in in your room.’ But that’s without considering that a lot of the spaces are already filled up, like at the library, Barnum and the SEC,” Strange said. “All of those spaces get filled up really fast, so a lot of the time the only space that you do have is your bedroom.”
A professor’s choice of format for an exam involves more than just its logistical implications, however. Weinberg said her choice to assign exams on ProctorU, balanced with other assignments, was to improve learning outcomes for her students.
“I still have a pedagogical strategy of having different assessments that speak to the variety of learning styles,” Weinberg said. “Sometimes, having an assessment where it’s more under time constraints is better. Conversely, I understand that there are some students who don’t work well under stricter time constraints.”
The choice of some professors to assign less supervised exams, meanwhile, also carries implications for quality of education. Strange felt this with her chemistry class, where the exams are “open book and open internet.”
“It’s very much a double-edged sword because you can come in unprepared with the idea that you’re going to look it all up, but you only get one hour, so you’re not going to finish if you look up every question,” Strange said.
Meininger’s calculus class also has open-note exams, but she saw this as an opportunity to shift the focus of what students need to be prepared for.
“I like it because the test was more conceptual than typical math tests,” she said. “By having access to my notes, I am able to double check the basics so I can apply the information to harder topics.”
On both sides of the Zoom screen, students and professors see managing academics in this environment as a challenging experience and understand others who are struggling in the transition.
“Testing is hard for everyone, especially during a pandemic,” Strange said. “But it’s really tough for teachers to make sure that we’re learning.”
Weinberg, meanwhile, expressed an openness to listening to her students, and potentially planning her spring teaching with their feedback in mind.
“This is new for a lot of faculty, but it’s also our obligation to hear what the students are experiencing on the ground,” she said.
Weinberg was also clear in her view that lessons from this semester would continue to be relevant ahead, for students and professors.
“A lot of our classes may be online again in the spring. Hopefully not in the fall, but we should anticipate the worst,” Weinberg said. “[ProctorU] is a tool that, if not in my class, students are going to potentially see in other classes … it may be something we’re going to have to live with for a while.”
