Job Discussion Forums

[sandyhoney2]

Teachers, instructors, professors - all of you here - I have a question to you all regarding 'cheating'. I'd seriously like to know what you think. I know it differs from institution to institution, but I'd really appreciate any input.

Ideally, I'd like to know how you'd rank these acts of cheating, but I'll settle for what you think is the least serious of the following.


Thank you!

[justme]

I said 'letting someone copy off your paper,' but only because that's the only one I've done myself. Italian 101 exams. I took trades of, uh, party materials from a couple of hippies on the promise that they wouldn't get above a C. Everybody was happy with the arrangement.

Giving someone your essay to someone to copy is just stupid, because it's pretty easy to get caught.

The idea of plagiarism as we know it doesn't exist here, as far as I can tell. Students think I won't notice if the quality of their writing suddenly improves or deteriorates because they've copied from a student in another class. They also think I won't notice if they turn in the same essay a couple weeks later. Then I catch them. Then they look me in the face and lie. I can't tell if it's par for the course, or if I should be insulted because they really think I'm that stupid.

Because my students are so relgious, I can get away with telling them that lying and copying are a sin, and that they're 2-faced hypocrites and God knows what they did. Oh, the shame. The tears. The apologising and begging for forgiveness.

Then they turn around and try it again 2 weeks later.

I had a unit that attempted to teach what plagiarism is. I thought they understood it until I got to the discussion at the end. It gave some examples of what might be considered plagiarism:

1) A student's father is sick, and he has to go home for 2 weeks to help his family. While he's gone, his friend writes an essay for him. The student edits the essay a bit and turns it in with his name.

2) A student is writing an essay for a science class. She copies a couple of paragraphs from an encyclopedia because it explains the idea more clearly than she can.

3) 2 students are taking the same course but with different instructors. They work together on a paper, make 2 copies, and each turns it in with his own name.

4) A student is very busy with her job. She doesn't have time to write her essay, so she copies one from the Internet and turns it in with her name.

In class, every single student said NONE of these cases are plagiarism, or lying, or anything of the sort (Okay, #3 is debateable, since it wouldn't be so bad if they informed the instructors what they had done). All of them, according to the class, are pefectly justifiable given the circumstances. I asked them how they would feel if they learned the doctor doing surgery on their mothers had been one of the above students, and they found the idea shocking. They also seemed to think that doctors most certainly be above doing such things.

Last year, a student got hold of the exam's essay questions, wrote a passing five paragraph essay, put it into his phone as an SMS, and sent it out to 100 or so students. In one class, a student sneakily used his phone to photograph all the other students cheating that the teacher couldn't catch. Okay, that was a little bit funny. This year, I came into a lesson and on the board was written in Turkish 'Emlak�ı Murat: Book summaries: 15YTL. 90% or higher guaranteed' with his phone number. I told the class if they tried this I would certainly catch them and give them zero, because I had already read most of Emlak�ı Murat's essays. Next week, I got 4 of them, 2 of the same essay from different students. Even when I show them that I was given 2 identical essays in a week, they act incredulous and try to lie.

There is even some disagreement between Turkish and foreign teachers as to what constitutes cheating. There is a huge difference in how bad we think it is.

Seems to me that if they put half as much of their cheating efforts into their work, they might actually learn something. Or maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Or getting old.

It's an uphill battle, all of it.

[tekirdag]

At the *a-hem* school I worked at last year students actually photocopied other's work and handed it in under their own name. Of course, I ratted them out to the principal who, as she was telling me she would take care of it, said normal copying was acceptable but photocopying work was not.

I have seen many examples of this type of thinking in Turkey- It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there. It doesn't matter how you get the certificate as long as you get it. It doesn't matter if the box is empty as long as it is wrapped beautifully.

At that school the show was everything and they quite often yanked students out of lessons to practice for this or that dance or show or or or.... The students really didn't learn much but, hey, as long as there was a show for the Mummies to see....

I really, really, really, wanted to report that school to some authority. Those kids were getting ripped off and had no idea. But, as I was off the books, I could say nothing.

Thank gawd for my lovely, intelligent, hardworking private student or I might start stereotyping Turks again. Tsk tsk to me. Not everyone is the same, Tekirdag.

[justme]

[harry the hobbit]

Cheating is something Harry disapproves of in the strongest terms ,but ,the hobbit is frequently amazed by the ingenuity of its students who feel its their sworn duty to "help" their friends . The hobbit has reported many of his students to the relevant authorities with little satisfaction ,Harry wonders if its a cultural thing .

[sandyhoney2]

Thanks for the responses. You guys have some great examples of cheating. I especially liked tekirdag's photocopying students - the cheaters are getting lazy!!

[Baba Alex]