August 2024
Use it to monitor whether students are:
August 2024
The brand-new Academic Integrity Report counts instances of academic integrity violations per student, per day, with drill-down to courses and attempts. Reported violations include plagiarism, use of artificial intelligence, and our Speed Radar. This report is available for customers with the Academic Integrity add-on license.
June 2024
Imagine Edgenuity is now taking proactive steps to block userscripts. When a script is detected, students are automatically logged out and the action is noted in the Recent Actions Log as “UserScript Detected – Logged Out.” This information is now available on the Recent Actions Log, with data beginning April 22.
May 2024
Imagine Edgenuity is now taking proactive steps to block user scripts. When a script is detected, students are automatically logged out and the action is noted in the Recent Actions Log as “UserScript Detected — Logged Out.”
This change also blocks any browser extensions that write to our system. Students with blocked browser extensions must uninstall them to continue using the program. If you have a student who uses a necessary extension that is being blocked, please contact our support team so we can enable that extension for your student.
February, 2024
Automatic plagiarism and AI detection is now available in Imagine EdgeEX for both short writing and essay activities for any customer with the Academic Integrity Add-On.
May 31, 2022 8:00 am
The top 5 electives by enrollment in Imagine Edgenuity this year reveal what students really want – life-applicable skills to prepare for their future.
With lessons like dorm cooking, changing your oil, and saving money while grocery shopping on the syllabus, “Adulting 101” teachers can rest assured that students won’t be asking the ever-frustrating question, “When will I use this in life?” Aimed at teaching life skills like budgeting and maintaining physical fitness after high school, “adulting” classes have recently taken off. Skills such as preparing taxes and learning how insurance works are largely viewed as outside of the academic sphere, but, for that precise reason, young adults are entering the “real” world needing to Google things like “W-2” and “deductible.” While these classes are often hosted at local libraries and attended by recent to not-so-recent high school graduates, a Kentucky high school has proven that there is not only a need but a desire for the class before graduation as well.
Looking at the highest enrolled Imagine Edgenuity electives for the 2021-22 school year, it is clear that practicality is in demand.
When given the option, students choose to learn how to take care of themselves – from their physical health to their finances. Depending on post-graduation plans, that calculus class may or may not be vital, but the most popular electives promise skills that everyone will be able to use.
Only 23.2% of adults aged 18 and over met physical activity guidelines in a recent study. After exploring fitness topics such as safe exercise and injury prevention, nutrition and weight management, consumer product evaluation, and stress management, Lifetime Fitness students leave the course equipped with the skills they need for a lifetime of fitness – including an exercise program designed to meet their individual goals.
More than 25% of recent high school graduates wished that their high school had prepared them with study skills for college. Students who took the Academic Success course don’t have that same wish. Offering a comprehensive analysis of different types of motivation, study habits, and learning styles, this course encourages high school and middle school students to take control of their learning by exploring varying strategies for success.
“Nearly a third of young adults in a recent study were found to be ‘financially precarious’ because they had poor financial literacy and lacked money management skills and income stability.” Personal Finance students are well on their way to financial literacy after learning more about economics and becoming more confident in setting and researching financial goals. They learn how to open bank accounts, invest money, apply for loans and insurance, explore careers, manage business finances, make decisions about major purchases, and more.
A recent study found that less than 38 percent of adult participants consumed a healthy diet. Largely, this isn’t due to a lack of desire, but a lack of resources and understanding. Upon completing Foundation of Personal Wellness where they explore a combination of health and fitness concepts as well as all aspects of wellness, students are equipped with the knowledge it takes to plan a healthy lifestyle.
86% of teens are interested in investing, but 45% say they don’t feel confident in doing so. That interest explains why students were eager to enroll in Financial Math this year. The course features relevant, project-based learning activities covering stimulating topics such as personal financial planning, budgeting and wise spending, banking, paying taxes, the importance of insurance, long-term investing, buying a house, and more.
Skipping the “flashy” or “fun” electives that we might expect them to choose reveals what students really want to learn: practical, life-applicable skills. These selections help students build a foundation of useful knowledge so that, when they get out into the real world, they won’t be registering for their local “Adulting 101” course.
Ally Jones is a California credentialed educator who specialized in teaching English language learners at the secondary level. Outside of education, she is passionate about fitness, literature, and taking care of the planet for her son’s generation.
April 5, 2022 8:00 am
The cost of higher education has many students (and their parents) looking for ways to lower that tuition bill. Give them a roadmap to earning an entire year’s worth of college credit before high school graduation.
The cost of higher education has many students (and their parents) looking for ways to lower that tuition bill. Many are turning to dual credit, where they can earn college credit while also fulfilling high school graduation requirements. And while taking one dual credit course is great, you can give your students a roadmap to earning an entire year’s worth of college credit.
With a little planning and guidance, your students can save thousands on their degree by earning a year’s worth of college credit in high school.
High school students have a lot going on and not a lot of experience with time management. Often, they need a little help planning their week, and even more so their year. That’s why Imagine Learning partners with TEL (Teaching and Education for Life) and their +1 Program: to make it easy for you to guide students through their dual credit journey to earning a full year’s worth of college credit. The +1 Program from TEL Education lays out a clear path that’s easy for your team to manage and easy for your students to understand.
The +1 Program includes 30 credit hours spread out over four or five terms, depending on what works best for the student’s schedule. They can start as early as their sophomore year, and can include summer terms as well. For every credit that transfers into their degree program, students can save hundreds of dollars.
TEL partners with more than 10 regionally accredited colleges and universities that support a +1 Program so your school can decide which higher education institution best fits your needs. It might be the one closest to you or it might be the one that aligns most closely with your values.
Once you choose the credit-granting partner and when you’d like your students to start the program, you have an easy-to-navigate roadmap for your students. This roadmap outlines which courses to take each term. The suggested sequence includes courses that students are likely to encounter in their first year of college and meet high school requirements as well.
Check out our general +1 Program sequence guide. The courses and sequence may change depending on the credit-granting partner you choose.
At TEL, students are encouraged to start with College Readiness no matter what their educational goals are. College Readiness helps students learn the necessary study skills and learning strategies to build confidence that they will be successful in college-level learning. Students will also take courses in English, history, science, and the humanities.
Look for ways the suggested course sequences line up with your state’s graduation requirements, including which requirements can be covered by the +1 Program and which courses will need to be taken outside of the program. The sequence is designed so students have room each term for electives they are interested in as well as other courses they need in order to graduate.
While TEL put a lot of time and thought into the sequence guide, it is meant to be a guide. If you know your students would be more successful with a different schedule or if there is a course you’d like to include, the +1 Program can be flexible.
Sadly, there are no turn-by-turn directions to make sure students stay on the road to dual credit success. While the course sequence is easy to follow, students will need guidance to ensure they meet all their high school requirements while also completing the +1 Program.
In your planning session with interested students, help them see any gaps they have and how the courses can fulfill requirements. Show students which courses fit best based on what they’ve already taken, and help them decide whether summer term makes sense for them. Each student will be different so make adjustments as needed for each student’s schedule.
Enrolling in dual credit is the perfect conversation starter for plans after high school. Start talking with students early about college or a certification program. Several of TEL’s partners provide incentives such as guaranteed acceptance and even scholarships for enrolling once you’ve successfully completed a dual credit course with them. They also have a transfer toolkit to help students understand the transfer process.
After helping thousands of students with online college courses, we know that support is key. That’s why TEL has layered support for any student who enrolls. But we’ve also found schools that monitor student progress were most likely to have students who were successful in the +1 Program.
Through TEL, students have access to instructors through weekly office hours and email to discuss content-related questions. We also have a team of success coaches who offer workshops, organize study groups, and meet with students 1:1 to help with study skills and time management. And of course, we have technology support through email, chat, and an extensive knowledge base that students can search.
But students really excel when faculty and staff at their school are checking in as well. Regular check-ins from your team have shown to be effective in helping students through their first experience in college-level learning. Outside of just asking how the student is doing, you can also monitor their progress for yourself. Your team will have access to different reporting roles to see how individual students are doing in the class.
Earning an entire year’s worth of college credit in high school helps your students reach their educational goals faster. Whether that’s an associate degree to launch straight into a career or enrolling into a bachelor’s program, students in the +1 Program have a head start and tangible proof that they can be successful with college-level learning. And because courses through the +1 Program are one third the cost of a four year university, they can save thousands of dollars on their degree program.
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This blog is brought to you by Carrie Watkins and was originally published on TEL’s The Bookmark. TEL Education provides its growing catalog to any Imagine Edgenuity partner school interested in offering online dual credit courses to its students. The partner school will select one of TEL’s 10 regionally accredited transcribing partners, identifying the college or university where their students would earn credit from after successfully completing the dual-credit course. Imagine Edgenuity partners also receive TEL’s multi-layered support, including our proactive Student Coaches, who help students with time management, study skills, and reach out to students who are starting to fall behind.
February 1, 2022 10:03 am
Academic integrity matters — but it isn’t easy to guarantee. Here are 3 reasons why students plagiarize and how you can address it.
I’ll admit, in a moment of desperation, I typed into the search bar, “why do students cheat?” After extensive discussions about academic integrity, I couldn’t comprehend why my students would do such a thing. The internet would have an answer, I was sure of it (it seems my students also shared in this sentiment).
While it didn’t give me the solace I was looking for, it did take me on a tour of the history of academic dishonesty.
My first search result from 2018 offers us a solution: “Why Students Cheat – and What to Do About It.”
As I scrolled further, I noticed that in 1981, a teacher bemoaned, “Research papers advertised for sale. Cadets dismissed in cheating scandals. Students hiding formulas in calculator cases” in an article called “Why Do Some Students Cheat?”
And all the way back to 1941, an article titled “Why Students Cheat” appeared in the Journal of Higher Education.
This timeline tells us a few things:
Many students are under pressure from parents or guardians to earn certain grades. Maybe the expectation is acceptance to a certain university, following a certain career path, or just a general expectation of “success.” As much as teenagers like to pretend they don’t care what their parents think, this can be a heavy burden to bear.
Whether or not familial pressure exists, some students also place expectations on themselves to perform at a high level. While we hope all our students are intrinsically motivated, perfectionism and fixation on an idealized outcome can be unhealthy, especially because students may feel they need to achieve their desired GPA by any means necessary.
While this may not be our first thought, students do feel pressure from peers as well. When a Harvard Graduate School of Education student asked why cheating happens, a student wrote, “‘Peer pressure makes students cheat. Sometimes they have a reason to cheat like feeling [like] they need to be the smartest kid in class.’”
While educators cannot remove familial pressure, we can focus on intrinsic motivation by increasing student agency and creating a collaborative environment. That way, we’re relieving pressure instead of adding to it.
Time management (or really the lack thereof) is likely the most common reason why students cheat when they didn’t intend to in the first place. For high school students, a due date a month away feels as distant as their 25th birthday. In the weeks before the assignment is due, they will have made time for everything but the work needed, so when they sit down to work on it the night before it’s due, they realize they just don’t have enough time to do it themselves.
Sometimes, a student just doesn’t feel like a required class fits into their life goals. A prodigal swimmer doesn’t see how an essay on The Great Gatsby is going to increase her odds of earning an athletic scholarship.
And often because of semester schedules and grading periods, students are faced with multiple exams, projects, and essays all due around the same time. This happened 40 years ago too: “‘It is Friday and many of the kids have three or four tests. It is certain that, since there has been too much to study for, there will be a lot of cheating going on today.’” We already know they struggle with time management, so they seek out lifelines when it all becomes too much.
Try collaborating with colleagues to spread out critical due dates for large projects within each grade level, and maybe add some direct instruction around time management skills with an SEL curriculum.
A student may feel that they don’t have the necessary skills to complete an assignment to the standards they set for themselves. They use someone else’s words instead of their own because they said it better than they could with what they view as the “lumpy, inelegant sound of their writing.”
In the case of plagiarism, it is also possible that students simply don’t quite understand the way to properly give credit for the use of someone’s intellectual property. While this was probably still the case when students were pulling information from actual, physical library books, it is especially true in this age of “reposting images, repurposing memes, and watching parody videos” where students “‘see ownership as nebulous.’”
Which brings us to technology. Though technology “has made cheating in school easier, more convenient, and harder to catch than ever before,” it is not necessarily a reason why students cheat. Clearly, students cheated 80 years ago without the help of the internet.
Knowing the reasons why students cheat helps us to empathize and avoid taking it personally. And as much as it contributes to the issue, technology also offers us a plethora of options for detection. You don’t need to re-read a student’s essay multiple times because something “sounds off” — Imagine Edgenuity’s embedded Plagiarism Checker automatically scans student work and alerts you when a match is found. Worried about students using software to move through courses more quickly (or maybe you didn’t know they could do that)? Speed Radar automatically flags students completing tasks more quickly than expected for educator review. Thanks to these resources, I have been able to stop Googling and relax a bit, knowing that I have the tools to help turn academic dishonesty into a learning opportunity.
Find sample academic integrity policies, downloadable resources, and more on Imagine Learning’s academic integrity page.
Ally Jones is a California credentialed educator who specialized in teaching English language learners at the secondary level. Outside of education, she is passionate about fitness, literature, and taking care of the planet for her son’s generation.
