High School to cancel midterms

Teachers: Large exam too stressful in pandemic

GREENWICH — For many, the COVID-19 pandemic has been measured in cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

For Lori Mulligan, a Greenwich High School math teacher, the normal metrics apply. But she’s also gauging the impact of the pandemic through educational minutes lost that, cumulatively, have led to a significant amount of missed class time.

With the cohorting/hybrid model at the high school, each student is physically present in class only twice a week. And when teaching remote students, the system of uploading and downloading assignments, and of printing or copying down tests or worksheets, can shave more minutes off each period.

That loss of instructional time has created a stressful academic environment for students and caused Mulligan and other teachers across the country to recalibrate and rethink how they teach. In terms of testing, the result has been making things shorter, and “whittling down,” as Mulligan called it, examinations to only the most important points.

“We’re condensing,” Mulligan said. “What are the key things I want to make sure they walked away and understood. ... Everything is shorter.”

In the past, long- form summative assessments, such as midterms and finals, were useful tools for a teacher to gauge a student’s mastery of a semester’s worth of information. But in a pandemic, such examinations seem unfair to some and potentially an unnecessary added source of stress in an already stressful time.

That’s one reason why Mulligan, and many other Greenwich High teachers were in favor of the district’s decision to cancel midterms this year.

In an email to teachers, students and families last month, Principal Ralph Mayo stressed the importance of midterms and finals in normal circumstances, but he announced that at least midterms will be nixed this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“For this year, though, with COVID-19 challenges, restrictions and stresses, we propose canceling exams and using the time to continue classes and perhaps also provide some community building, SEL (social emotional learning) activities, and relief,” Mayo said. The district declined multiple requests for additional comment.

There is a contingent of teachers who, because of the educational limitations under the pandemic, were especially eager to get some kind of indication as to how their students were faring. But Carol Sutton, president of the Greenwich Education Association, the union representing the district’s teachers, said most are sympathetic to the students and don’t want to exacerbate the challenges.

“The vast majority of teachers understand the need for flexibility around the January exam period,” Sutton said. “They are embracing new ways to assess students within the constraints of the hybrid and remote model. ... Many recognize that delivering such high-stakes tests under pandemic conditions would be problematic. Under the best conditions, exam time is added stress for students.”

Greenwich is not the only district that has canceled midterms this school year. Officials from Ridgefield and Milford public schools also recently announced they would cancel the exams.

The cancellation is part of a larger shift in evaluating students to which teachers have had to adapt. Mulligan said she is leaning more on grades from homework and more informal assessments, rather than large tests that account for a significant portion of students’ final grades. Midterms in many classes, she said, are worth 10 percent in a year-long course.

And, to aid students, she and many of her colleagues have begun to allow open-note exams.

“More important than student memorizing the quadratic formula, is really how can they take information and be able to put it into a format that will help them for some future exercise,” Mulligan said.

Teachers are looking for innovative new ways to assess their students instead of midterms, Mulligan said, and are still awaiting guidance from the district on how that might best be done.

It’s a necessary adjustment, but not one she relishes.

“I am a proponent of having a summative assessment and also having a content grade instead of a course grade, where you can see where the mastery is for a student that doesn’t include homework,” Mulligan said. “It gives you a pulse point, which is really important when you’re trying to understand how your student is doing and how other students in that course are doing.

“But I feel like right now things are not in a normal stress range and midterm elevate that instantaneously. Is that the thing we should be doing right now in a pandemic? Numbers are on the rise. The kids are all wondering if we’re going to be there the next day. All these things are running through their heads and, to me, it’s not fair to add that on their plate and say, ‘Hey, guess what, this is worth 10 percent of your grade.’ ”