Job Discussion Forums

[7969]

i notice lately some posts about cheating students and how they always seem to get away with it despite our best efforts to prevent it.

well, i too came across this phenomena in guangxi two years back. so i devised a way to try prevent it. since i have large classes, if i need to give an exam i might make it multiple choice. i know the students will be peeking at each others paper, so what i did was prepare three different tests, and distribute the same test to every third student. many of them still cheated off their neighbour despite the tests being different clearly they didnt even bother to read the questions or they'd have known. a couple did pick up on it, and i could see the frustration (and laughter) in their faces.

just one way to beat the students at their own game. however, i think school admin still fudged with the marks after i was done with them. but i still felt better about what i'd done.

any other ways to overcome cheating in class?

7969

[Malsol]

[tirelesstravelerasia]

I've been sort of bumming about this for the past few days -- Chinese students would rather cheat than learn, bottom line. And I'm not just talking about exams or something meaningful, I mean pretty much all the time.

Give them an information gap - they look at each others papers (impossible to keep it from happening in groups of 30+). Try to get them to do some competitive board relays - they take cheat sheets with them or get cues from their teammates. Activities that are supposed to be fun and useful at the same time -- well, they know how to take all the joy out of teaching, that's for sure. It really gets under your skin after a bit; you spend hours preparing upbeat, informative lessons for your classes each week, and the students find ways to circumvent the learning process.

They'd rather just have lists of vocabulary words to memorize, and teachers who chalk and talk -- so they can sleep.

[7969]

well, we can make a game out of it, see if you can one up them on the cheating side of things. in my opinion, if they're going to cheat, i'm going to make it more difficult for them to do it and they might have to get more creative at it to succeed. gotta be some learning value in that too.....

[Malsol]

[KarenB]

Like 7969, I give out at least 2 copies of the exam, so students don't have the same one as their seatmates. I have fun with this because I make the exams similar enough that if the students don't read the questions carefully, they don't realize their exam is different from their seatmates (and then I get a lot of chuckles grading the cheaters' exams).

Also, it takes longer to grade, but I have my students write short answers -- i.e. I'll give them a vocabulary word, and they have to produce a correct sentence using that word. They get marked both on using the word correctly, and writing the sentence correctly. (since their neighbor has a different test, they can't copy)

I also give essay exams, and I'll pass out from 4 to 8 different topics, so, once again, it's difficult to copy. I pick topics that I know the students won't have in their books, such as "The Importance of Altruism," or "Implementing Objectivity in the Classroom." (I let them use their dictionaries to find out what the title means -- obviously not the same test as the vocab)

I also require the students to completely clear their desks of everything except a couple pens, correction fluid/tape, and one or two clean sheets of paper. (Sometimes my students take a stack of books and recreate the great wall of China -- making it hard to see what they're doing from the front of the room.)

I've found it useful to wear "quiet" shoes and stand in the back of the classroom (or sit) rather than in the front. This way you can see more of what the students are doing (if they're reaching into their desk to pull out a cheat sheet) and the students can't see where you are as easily, so you can sneak up on them and catch them in the act.

One of the biggest deterrents I have found is to give a "0" to anyone caught cheating for that particular test. You only have to do this once or twice to just about eliminate cheating. I inform students up front that the following constitutes cheating: 1) looking on neighbor's paper, 2) allowing your neighbor to look on your paper, 3) looking in the textbook, 4) looking on a "cheat sheet" or handout, 5) using their dictionary, translator, or phone unless I have given permission to do so.

I've had students come up to me (or more usually their classmates who can actually speak English) to ask for mercy when I give a "0" on an exam. "She wasn't listening, and didn't hear you tell us not to cheat before you passed out the exam." (Oh? So she thinks in normal situations it's OK to cheat????????) "I'm sorry, and I promise not to do it again if you give me a second chance." (Good, I'm glad you're sorry. Your second chance is the next exam -- study this time!).

[Spiderman Too]

I teach oral English so I give oral exams. Students are required to hold a 2 - 3 minute conversation with me based on a subject they are informed of a week or two prior. In all but a few cases, the conversation subject is based on the content of the text book.

The exams are one-on-one, outside the classroom. Students waiting in the classroom are permitted to read, sleep, do homework, whatever. Students are dismissed after the exam; they are not permitted to reenter the classroom.

Students obviously rehearse but they don't know exactly what I will ask or say, so some spontaneity on their part is necessary. If I have seen some students with notes written on their palms but, generally, they don't have the opportunity to cheat.

[kev7161]

If you can believe it, I have to fight with cheating in my FIRST GRADE classroom!! It's not easy in our little closet of a room, but we spread the desks out the best we can and I tell them to cover their answers. If there's another teacher in the room, she'll help me keep an eye on them (yes, first graders have tests: Math, spelling, and more). But we've pretty much trained them about test-cheating, it's the non-test paperwork that gets me going. "Awa, do your own work, don't look at his paper!" Sometimes we do have pairs work and group work, but during a review, for example, I like them to try it on their own.

However, thanks to my diligence they are MUCH better than the beginning of the term!

[Roger]

I have never considered multiple-choice papers to be original or useful! Whatever format my tests or exams take, I give the students a chance at producing original responses.

In writing, I distribute forms that differ from student to student; I print out forms with several options and hand-delete those that are not applicable to the student filling in that particular form.
I also demand that students produce some well-thought out English on their own; often I have them correct a Chinglish statement with the mistakes circled and annotated by me.
I actually encourage students to bring their dictionaries (preferably books!) and notes, because I feel good students learn the mechanical part of a lingo and how it works; I allow them to consult their reference books so they can concentrate on writing a good text, choosing new words if they so desire. Using a dictionary requires that the student also is expert enough to differentiate between the various word categories - adjectives and nouns, verbs and adverbs. If he or she does that alright, and uses appropriate tenses and other features of grammar, then they pass with flying colours no matter how many words they have to look up in some book!

But I do not tolerate students helping each other or using crib notes, their cell phone for external help etc.

In oral tests, I want to check on their pronunciation and intonation - has there been any progress? I will listen to one student after another reciting some text, possibly a short poem or a stanza of a poem/song; we then discuss its meaning.

[Malsol]

[7969]

[voodikon]

i've been dealing with this, or at least trying to, as well, lately. last term i gave no exams until the final exam, which some of the students did horribly on. many of my students, did, however, mention that they liked the "listening" section of their textbook, and i guessed it was because it allowed them the opportunity to check up on their listening skills.

i teach "oral english," but am given fairly free reign to interpret that as i like in the classroom. so this term i've decided to implement short quizzes, not so much for my evaluation of the students but for their own progress self-assessment. today i held my first one; i'd had trouble deciding the format of it. ideally, i would do something like spiderman too, but that would require taking the entire class time--and i see each group of students only once a week. i decided the best option would be to admister an exam orally and have them write the answers. the idea is to test their listening with a quiz that takes little class time and has minimal impact on their final grade. i tell them this as well.

last week i gave them a practice exam, which i set up as the real thing, and informed them only at the end that it was just a practice--and, for many, a warning to study. before giving the exam i warned them all about cheating, and my definition of it (looking at others' papers or talking to or otherwise communicating with others). i informed them that if they cheated, they would automatically receive a 0. despite that, in every class there were a handful of students who would do just that, and in one of the classes, i took away the papers of several students, and one girl ended up in tears. naturally i felt terrible.

this week i had the students spread their desks out, clear their desks of everything but a pen (i distributed the paper). i again gave them the warning, and they've been mostly good about it. yesterday, however, when i told them to pass up the papers, two students decided to intercept their classmates' papers and quickly copy down the answers. i gave them dirty looks and marked their papers so that i'd know who they were.

i hate having to do this. as i'm teaching college students, i have to realize that this cheating is something obviously tolerated here; otherwise, with 13 to 14 years of social programming, not so many would be attempting it. OR do they just see us foreign teachers as idiotic/blind/harmless/whatever? i'm not sure how to regard it.

many of the strategies you guys suggest don't really prevent the cheating; they allow you to determine who has cheated and who hasn't. i'm interested in discouraging it in the first place. and when i know who's cheated, how should i deal with it?

today i again debriefed a class on cheating, complete with illustrations on the board, and again, immediately after i read out the first question, one student who knew the answer smilingly held up the paper for her friend next to her to see. enraged, i snatched the paper out of her hand and drew a big X on it. i immediately regretted my hasty action because such an action on the part of a teacher (resulting in loss of face for the student) can harbor only resentment in not only the individual student, but probably the class as a whole (in the power binary set up in a chinese classroom of students vs. teacher/chinese vs. foreigner/underlings vs. authority figure, i don't think any student would defend my action). i don't think this is necessarily restricted to china, either; i certainly recall being horribly embarrassed and resentful after being reprimanded by teachers when i was a student. granted, i was in first and second grade, but if our students haven't been raised and enculturated with the expectation that says cheating is wrong, in that sense, the situations are analogous.

it did, however, take only the one student to be made an example of, and the room was suddenly hear-a-pin-drop quiet, and all eyes were on their owners' papers. but i wish i didn't have to resort to such measures for the reasons listed above. i notice, too, that when i announce my policies on cheating, that the students giggle, as if they think i'm joking.

i struggle, too, with the issues of individual vs. group work. i'm all for group work, and, especially as this is an oral english class, which in my mind is all about communication, think that the students should be working together as much as possible. it's difficult, then, to shift out of this mode and have them realize that testing time is an individual activity. it's a concept easy for US, having come from individualistic cultures, to understand, but in group-centered thinking, why shouldn't testing, likewise, be a team effort? (and aren't so many things in life after school, i.e., work, family, etc., group-oriented anyway?) but on the other hand, if i never individually evaluate students, how do i give them grades at the end?

[kev7161]

Tears have never, ever fazed me. Let 'em cry, I say, it's good for their system. Are they crying because they are ashamed of what they have done or are they crying because they made their beloved teacher angry with them or are they crying because they "lost face" and were humiliated? The latter, I'd guess.

I think it would behoove most of us here at Dave's to sit in on an exam day in a Chinese class (perhaps the Chinese English class) and observe your students' test-taking behaviors. Take some notes. Don't try to police the exam, that's not your responsibility. Afterwards, if you did observe cheating, talk to the teacher of the class and find out what he/she does about this (or will he even do anything?). If you didn't see any cheating, discuss with the teacher why he thinks this goes on in your classroom but not others. Go to your principal or someone and find out exactly what the school's policy on cheating is. If they have it on paper (in Chinese I'd imagine), have it translated and then make copies of it to give each of your students. Sit in on one of those many, many teachers meetings and (with a translator of course) offer up your problem of cheating students and get someone to answer right there, in front of all the other teachers, what you are supposed to do about this phenomenon. If you do all that and you get the idea that nobody seems to care, then you shouldn't care so much either.

In that case, make your tests open-book or have them take it as groups or pairs (not being able to ask the teacher anything but they can perhaps come up with correct answers together). This way you don't have the anger-induced headaches and you'll sleep better at night.

[nanchang]

Um, why not just walk around class and give zeros to the cheaters? That's what I and others have done. Of course, they can bribe someone at the school, but you can't prevent everything and I am not going to spend all my free time creating ways to keep them from doing something they ought not to be doing.

[7969]

not directly exam/cheating related but i have sat in on a couple of classes given by chinese english teachers. in my limited observations, they dont seem to care too much about their classes so i get the impression they probably dont care too much about the exams or cheating either. a teacher whose class i spent time with yesterday admitted to me that the students at our college will pass/graduate whether or not they show up and/or do well.

nanchang, you're right. why devise ways to prevent cheating, just grade them a 0. whatever happens after that is out of our control. i have to say that i failed about 30% of the students in one exam in my first job. i thought i was harsh until i saw another teacher failed an even higher percentage. surely the grades must have been changed as no school here would ever allow so many to fail.

7969