Hi Khan Academy,
My students have found a work around to actually doing the work. They copy the question into google or an AI and it does the thinking for them and gives them the answer.
Some software does not allow you to highlight text to cut and paste it. That needs to be added to all your quizzes before I can use it again with my class.
I'm sad the students have found this cheat because I love your software!
Kindra Mendall
Middle School Math Teacher
Hi, it is completely understandable, but just blocking copy and paste is not enough. Students can take pictures or even use their phone to Google answers. The way I see it, Khan Academy is for practice and completion. If you are looking for actual testing, maybe you can use other methods or the original pen and paper.
I can understand wanting to prevent your students from cheating, and I would be frustrated too.
However, if Khan Academy blocked the ability to copy and paste text, people like me who try to answer user questions would find that much more time-consuming. I'd probably quit doing it -- and I currently answer probably half of the 6th grade math questions that get answered.
~ Janice, KA user
Hi KMendall, Thank you for flagging this rather important issue! I'd imagine that disabling text selection on Khan Academy might still pave way for workarounds, as Eleni Lazaridou has shared. Copy-pasting text is however useful -- as JaniceHolz points out -- so it's not obvious what the way out is.
Of course, cheating is unacceptable, and I understand that it's really hard to get students understand that the goal is for them to learn to understand and do things by themselves and working with others -- not to optimise for the grade. A parallel problem I've noticed as a student and teacher is in expecting the student one reaches out for help to actually do the thinking for them: AI plays that role now, even if Khanmigo is built not to reveal answers.
I'd really encourage the Khan Academy team to consider this and so many other important issues teaches run into when using the platform in classrooms. I also hope there's more fora for KA-using teachers to discuss with each other -- for instance, here, or in the K4E course discussions.
But one solution that might be helpful is perhaps an option that doesn't allow for switching to another page or window -- like those paperwork forms online that will reset progress if you refresh (or if internet is spotty -- or the form itself, but that's another matter). The Forest timer app, I believe, has that option where you lose points or are warned when switching to a different screen or a blocked website.
So something like that on Khan Academy that says students lose progress if they exit the screen might incentivise honest practice. But of course that again doesn't prevent phones.
I don't think the practice exercises on Khan Academy itself should implement this but certifications for KA courses on Schoolhouse.world involve live video-recording working through a unit test or course challenge, with live explaining aloud, and that video is peer-reviewed by others for meeting a set of listed criteria. That might work for testing, and indeed remote proctored exams usually have such video-recording plus AI grading/audio.
But I understand it's so frustrating to have students resort to cheating and shortcuts when ultimately the goal is to learn, not to work around the learning to get a grade anyway. :(
Please sign in to leave a comment.