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This text was initially published by Profweb under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence, before Eductive was launched.

The approach to evaluating students during the global pandemic is the topic of many faculty discussions since March 2020. Ensuring equity and fairness while handling digital logistical issues is already a hefty task. To add to the complexity, we have academic integrity concerns fueled by the difficulty to supervise evaluations combined with the relative ease of looking up information and communicating with peers during formative assessments.

Sean Hughes, a chemistry teacher from John Abbott College has used both in-person exams in 2020 and a two-stage exam scenario as approaches to address these issues. He joined SALTISE member Kevin Lenton from Vanier College and I for a discussion in late November 2020 to share some of these practices that were well-received by his students.

Contrasting approaches before and during the pandemic

In this interview, Kevin Lenton and I ask Sean about the current evaluation approach for Fall 2020 with his students as well as the approach he used in the early days of the pandemic towards the end of the winter 2020 semester.

Sean addresses some of the concerns that led to the departmental approach for the fall and talks about his appreciation for the two-stage exam approach he used during the winter 2020 semester that involves individual and group evaluation stages.