At Morton East High School remote learning had a big impact on AP scores.

According to “Overall AP scores drop in 2021 school year with online learning being the biggest factor for the dip” from www.shhsaccolade.com, some AP scores were better than they thought, and others were way lower than they thought. They believe that when kids are in a zoom meeting, there are more distractions that can take place such as phones that contributed to lower scores. Many students believe that taking the test at home was so much better. They felt like “they were being watched less” and they were much less nervous taking at home than in person. At the time many students are afraid they’re going to get a low score after not being at school for a long period of time. In a random survey of ­20 Morton East staff, ­­66.77% of staff reported that they believe AP scores will be higher this year than last year.

According to assistant principal Mr. Randall Borgardt, the percentage of total AP students with scores 3+ in 2019 (before remote) was 43%. The total AP students with scores 3+ in 2020(transition to remote) was 52%. The total AP students with scores 3+ in 2021(full remote) was 32%.

“Students do better during in person learning because they are more intrinsically motived to complete tasks. Students will complete activities in class for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. During E-Learning, many tasks were completed just to avoid consequence,” English teacher Ms. Angelica Samata said.

In addition, scores took a back seat to health and safety during the pandemic – as they should have.

“I think that it would not be a shock if test scores were lower this year, but the pandemic was a difficult time for so many people and I think in the early aftermath of any tragedy we should focus on the positives rather than the backlash of the tragedy,” English teacher Ms. Angelica Samata said.

For instance, students had many distractions throughout the day which made it hard for them to focus in small task.

“Some particular assignments, mostly project-based in style, students did better on during e-learning. I think were better able to focus on the task and creation of the project, whereas normally in life distractions and other factors would make the completion of the project difficult. However, day to day instruction and small tasks I think seemed students struggled with because I think being in front of a computer for that long can be tedious,” English teacher Ms. Angelica Samata said.

For example, teachers started to realize the big impact remote learning did once they saw the test results.

“For the 2019 test (the last full year of in-person instruction) 35% of my students scored 3 or better on the AP exam, while during remote learning in 2021, only 13% scored a 3 or higher on the AP exam,” English Teacher Mr. Jeremy Robinson said.

To add on, teachers want to help and get scores back up.

“I never try to predict scores, but I would think that the scores would be more like 2019 scores than 2021,” English teacher Mr. Jeremy Robinson said.

To sum it up, remote learning was a big hit on AP scores.

“Students in my classes did much better in person than during remote learning,” English teacher Mr. Jeremy Robinson said.