GRAND RAPIDS — Kids are using the world wide web to get answers quickly for tests and homework, and it's a red flag that can't be ignored.
"Cheating's been a problem for a while and it's certainly getting worse with the students at home," said Ethan Fieldman. He's the CEO of Math Nation.
He says students are taking advantage of the tools around them during remote learning.
"We oftentimes think of contracting people to write papers for us as cheating, but really most cheating is actually students looking up answers to tests online, especially multiple-choice tests, said Fieldman. You can Google pretty much anything and you can find pretty much any answer to any test that comes from a commercial publisher and individual teachers tests are being uploaded as well."
Fieldman says there's several reasons why students are taking this path at home.
"If cheating is easy, students are gonna do it right. The second one is punishment if there's not much of us if it's not a severe punishment, they're going to do it. And the third one is, if they don't have access to resources to learn the material."
Fieldman believes parents can play a vital role in making sure their kids are getting the proper education, even remotely.
"So just being there as almost a proctor like you'd see in college is the best way. Now, of course that's not going to be incredibly possible for every parent right. So another thing is you can block cheating websites you can block in fact, you can block all websites, except for the website that your students should be using."
It's also important that the students have all the resources they need to have success, so they can get to some good old-fashioned studying.
"The best way to do well on a hard exam, is to actually learn the material. Well, that's the best way to do well, especially for future courses for future life is just to learn the material well and that might mean finding different teachers online to help you that may really make things click."
Fieldman also says clock management is key.
"By giving students more time on a test unfortunately that encourages cheating so teachers, and families need to make sure to shorten the testing window."
If parents are interested in a great math resource, they should check out Math Nation. It's free to use through December 31st. Click here for more information.
