Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ytuque]

gave out multiple versions of a take-home midterm and 1/4 of the students cheated. The students were warned, and the nature of the course doesn't lend itself to in-class exams/assignments.

What is a reasonable penalty for cheating on an exam, and how supportive is Korean management? What about for repeat offenders who previously cheated on homework assignments?

Student surveys are a big part of the annual employee review. It is a good bet that these students will exact revenge when filling out their class surveys. It's a private uni, so management is keen on having happy students. If I do the right thing and penalize the cheaters, I could be out of a job at the end of the year.

What's the reasonable thing to do? Anybody been down this road before?

[Forward Observer]

Your job is 90% PR and 10% teaching.

Think very carefully before you hand out punishments. The smart thing to do would be to have a private discussion with each of them, letting them know how disappointed you are in them. Let it go at that.

[Milwaukiedave]

Honestly, I am going to go exactly the opposite of FO and say give them an F. Tough **** for them.

[saw6436]

The fact that you have to come on to Dave's and ask advice about Ss cheating shows just how F***ked up Korea's Universities are.

F'em. Fail the lot of them and move to have their surveys struck.

[cruisemonkey]

LOL... I'd give 25% of the class an A+ for showing enough initiative to be cunning.

[bluelake]

While I personally do not approve of students cheating, it is unfortunate that it is still tolerated in much of Korea. As to whether your institution will support you on the issue I do not know, so you might wish to consult with someone there on the matter. At my last university, they had an honor policy that the students had to agree to; unfortunately, it just kept the honest students honest. However, I didn't have many problems in my classes with it. In the times that I caught cheaters over the many years I've taught in Korean universities, I went to them directly; while I didn't fail them for the class, I let them know I could have and made them do whatever work they cheated on over again. For the most part, they were thankful at not being failed and never repeated the mistake in my class.

When I taught college back in my home state back in the US in the 80s, I had one class that was 26/28 students from Saudi Arabia (the other two were Americans). I was warned of their blatant cheating, but I had to witness it for myself. My jaw almost hit the ground for the first test; Saudi students would get up, go to another student, take his paper, copy the answers, and then sit back down. The next test, I made twenty-eight different exams and only changed small details (it was an electronics class, so there was math involved). The results were interesting: twenty-two F's and six A's. Four Saudis did all the work and the other "princes" copied. In the end, although the Saudis no longer cheated, they also didn't work hard, and so failed.

It caused a bit of a problem as their fathers received bonuses based upon their sons' grades, and an F gained them nothing. I was called into my director's office and asked why I failed them. As they were studying to become avionics technicians for Saudi Airlines, I asked her if she would like to fly on an aircraft maintained by those students; of course she said "no". However, I was still reprimanded, as they were not supposed to be failed; my punishment was I could never again teach a Saudi class

[FUBAR]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Give them an in-class examination next time and mix up the order of questions on each exam sheet. It's about the only possible way to stop uni students from cheating.

[the_beaver]

I always give them zero for the portion they cheated on and explain why. If, for example, part of a paragraph is ripped off of the internet, that paragraph gets zero. If an online assignment is copied from the internet, I give the student the link to the source and give them a zero. I rarely have any complaints.

[Rory_Calhoun27]

to paraphrase Fran Drescher in Dr Detroit, Give them all a "B." That's all they deserve anyway."

And to be REALLY cruel, make it a B-!

[Ruraljuror]

[Milwaukiedave]

[Apple Scruff]

Trusting students to objectively evaluate their instructors is utterly ridiculous. Korean students of all ages cheat, many of them without any knowledge of the fact that what they're doing is wrong. Go Korea!

Fail every last one of them. Make them cry.

[tzechuk]

I am actually having the same problem.. except my private uni is more keen to have high standards vs. keeping our *customers* happy (all of them get a 50-80% scholarship).

Tomorrow I am going in and I am going to ask the cheaters to come forward privately to tell me why they did what they did. If they don't, then either they are ALL (all the students in the class) going to be retested (different paper, of course), or they are all going to get zero. Their choice. We do not tolerate cheaters.

[Blueberry]

A few things:

-Please explain how it "wouldn't be conducive" to have an in-class exam. If they take it home they WILL cheat, as will any student in the West on a take-home exam. I mean, come on. Get real.

-Secondly, who cares? Do what your bosses want you to do. It's not like you have anything vested in making sure they don't cheat. In fact, what you are doing is disrespecting the culture they have refined for 5,000 years when you do things like call them out for cheating, give them anything below a 'B,' etc... Let them find out on their own, over several generations, how this will impact their society in an increasingly globalized world, but it certainly ain't your job.