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choudoufu
Joined: 25 May 2010
Posts: 3325
Location: Mao-berry, PRC
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 Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:40 am Post subject: |
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you as the teacher are responsible.
so how about leading by example?
if ANY teacher comes in late, is unprepared,
copies lesson plans from the internet.......
then ALL teachers shall forfeit one month's pay.
nothing like peer pressure to raise the teaching standards. |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Having said that, if I catch people cheating by copying, the person allowing them to copy gets the same punishment as the person copying. I don't consider them to be 'an innocent' in that situation, and they generally have more to lose, so it's a stronger deterrent |
I'm not going to comment on the idea of failing every student if one is caught cheating - it seems that that notion has been very effectively rebutted already. But even this bit could be worrying, honestly.
I personally know of a couple of cases in which the 'good' student was subjected to serious coercion by the 'bad' student. Once I learned that the 'bad' student had threatened to break her co-conspirator's leg if she didn't allow her to cheat - and had in fact broken another girls' arm the month before (this was in the US southeast, in case anyone thinks I was in some benighted third world jungle - I was!!). It was a legitimate threat, and obviously the 'good' student had very fair grounds for complying with the request to cheat.
It's (hopefully) not always so extreme, but I think that the safest course of action is always to find out as much as possible about the situation before passing judgement.
Last edited by spiral78 on Mon Nov 28, 2011 2:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Whether they "can" or "should" be more responsible for their own learning is moot. We all know many/most students don't do that. |
This is not the case with the students in my teaching situations over the past decade + by any means.
It's simply 'true' that such 'truisms' based on one teachers' experience (limited by definition) aren't really 'true' worldwide. The perils of overgeneralising..... |
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MotherF
Joined: 07 Jun 2010
Posts: 1450
Location: 17�48'N 97�46'W
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| Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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| spiral78 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Having said that, if I catch people cheating by copying, the person allowing them to copy gets the same punishment as the person copying. I don't consider them to be 'an innocent' in that situation, and they generally have more to lose, so it's a stronger deterrent |
I personally know of a couple of cases in which the 'good' student was subjected to serious coercion by the 'bad' student. Once I learned that the 'bad' student had threatened to break her co-conspirator's leg if she didn't allow her to cheat - and had in fact broken another girls' arm the month before (this was in the US southeast, in case anyone thinks I was in some benighted third world jungle - I was!!). It was a legitimate threat, and obviously the 'good' student had very fair grounds for complying with the request to cheat.
It's (hopefully) not always so extreme, but I think that the safest course of action is always to find out as much as possible about the situation before passing judgement. |
I work in the same country as the OP and I this--though not in that extreme is often the case here. Mexican society works on relationships--it's who you know over what you know in terms of getting jobs, getting things done, even in terms of how the law is applied. So the if the son or daughter of an important person asks the smart kid to let them copy-you bet they are going to do it. The way Mexicans get a leg up is by someone giving them a hand. So they are quick to offer that hand, because they are counting on it being returned in the future.
I think in Mexico that is how most administrators got to where they are, so they aren't harsh on cheating (because it's nothing they didn't do themselves in their day) so the punishments of getting caught are usually light and students are almost always given a second chance to do the exam rather than failed outright. So as generations roll by, cheating has become ubiquitous.
You can crack down by being very strict and give out hard punishments, but you risk having those overturned by the admin (especially if you work at a for profit institution). You can also be very present during exams, walk around among the students, rather than sitting at the front reading. Because despite cheating being so widespread, the students still feel that they need to hide it from the authorities. |
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jaydizzle
Joined: 25 Nov 2011
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:41 am Post subject: |
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I teach Chinese students, so I had to work VERY hard at keeping them from cheating. If I punished all of them for every one instance of cheating, I would've just had to throw my hands up and go home. (If any of my teachers had ever failed me for someone else cheating, I would've been in the office post haste letting the administration know exactly how much I wouldn't be standing for it! What a ridiculous idea.)
Most of my exams are oral and extemporaneous, so there's not a lot of opportunity for out-and-out cheating, but on the rare occasion that I teach a class that requires a written exam, I have multiple tests.
Last year, I taught Western Culture, and I had 4 classes of about 50 students each. For each class, I wrote 8 exams. They were about 20 questions long. I only allowed 25 students to take the exam at a time, sat them at least one seat apart, and made sure that no student had the same exam as the student next to them. The questions either had the choices jumbled, or they asked the exact opposite question as the exam sheet next to them.
And knowing that the students would leave and immediately tell the next 25 what was on the exam, and/or tell the other 3 classes, I wrote the next group's exam with entirely different questions on different topics.
All told, I think I wrote 32 different exams for that course that year. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but it made cheating, if not impossible, at least really darn hard.
No, I wasn't reading in the front of the class either. I walked the room, and anybody who wasn't completely silent was asked to leave. (Wandering eyes didn't bother me, as I knew it was futile.) |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Most of my exams are oral and extemporaneous, so there's not a lot of opportunity for out-and-out cheating, but on the rare occasion that I teach a class that requires a written exam, I have multiple tests. |
I think this gets to the heart of the matter. Written essays and oral exams on a variety of topics are far more difficult for a teacher to create and mark - and for students to cheat on. Though we don't always have control over the types of tests that have to be administered, multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank tests are obviously the easiest to cheat - and the easiest to mark. When cheating is a problem, the most effective solution is probably to change the test type, though it's likely going to impact teachers pretty seriously as well. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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But thank God for computers - which make creating different versions so much easier.
And, once you get the rep for being hard on cheating, that alone discourages most students from even trying  .
Regards,
John |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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Thankfully I never had to create tests on a typewriter
That would have deserved extra credit!
I also like plagiarism software for essays - it works pretty well for catching
'team papers' and also plagiarism from published sources.
Sincerely,
spiral |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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Last year, I gave a writing assignment: Compare/Contrast two sports/hobbies.
One student gave me this:
"I enjoy comparing baseball and football:
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.
In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?
In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.
In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody."
Etc. My comment: " Really excellent - but I liked it better when I saw George Carlin (R.I.P.) do it. 0%."
It took me about 1 nanosecond to recognize it. But it was a great lead-in to a discussion of plagiarism and its (usually even more draconian) consequences when indulged in while taking university credit courses.
Regards,
John |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Carlin gets an A, though:-) |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Hmmmm. 'Fraid just a B+ by my criteria. Need to use the correct sporting terms, tsk tsk. Playing footie with a helmet! That's just for girls! |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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Isla Guapa
Joined: 19 Apr 2010
Posts: 1520
Location: Mexico City o sea La Gran Manzana Mexicana
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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Wow! I've never seen a girl with arm muscles like that  . |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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Very sweet, I'm sure  |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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