Korean Job Discussion Forums

Arthur Fonzerelli · Joined: 22 Jan 2003 Location: Suwon

For me they went ok, expect for the fact I caught several students cheating...

One student was cheating with a hugh crib sheet. I pick it up and ask, "What is this?" She acts like she can't speak English and she gives me a look of befuddlement... Twisted Evil

I catch another student looking at her handphone very intently...I walk up quickly and find she has the essay written on her handphone and is copying word for word... Twisted Evil

Well, at least I caught two of these cheaters...who knows how many more got away with it???

Overall, I got through and I'm looking forward to ending this semester quick and making a break for the Philippines for the 1 month vacation Wink

Corky · Joined: 06 Jan 2004

What did you do about it? I can never decide what to do except to mark them down. Do you fail them? What if they're a monk or a nun or if they're a mature student?

I'm giving mine next week.

dutchman · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: My backyard

I love catching cheaters. Breaks up what is normally a mundane day. I explain from the beginning that if I see anything suspicious (head turning, mouth moving ...) I assume its cheating. First time they get a warning (just to give them the benefit of the doubt), second time is minus 50% third time is an early trip home. I don't argue about it. If I see it, I call the students name (seating chart in fron t of me) and let him/her know.

I've never had any student dumb enough to cheat a third time. It's quite funny watching them reach for their neighbors eraser. They are so afraid of turning their head or saying anything. They just reach blindly until their hand hits the eraser. Very Happy

We have a couple of small quizzes before the midterm week. I'm really strict on the quizzes so they are well trained by exam time.

lawyertood · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 1:56 am Post subject:

I'm sure I don't catch them all but the ones I do get a "0" on the test and I hope they learn from it. It's sad when they argue vehemently that they haven't when it is so obvious that they have. So far I have only punished one student for helping other students--three to be exact. Warned her repeatedly to no avail. She had a perfect score on her own test. She will be shocked next week when she sees her class standing at the bottom. I figured she wanted to help her fellow students so much that she should help them all out. We have relative grading at our university so grades are determined by total points, the top 30 % get A's, the next 40 % B's, etc....
I probably should be tougher on those that obviously copy off their neighbors' tests but since I use different versions of tests they usually copy the wrong answers and don't score all that high anyway.

indytrucks · Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Location: The Shelf

Sure fire way to eliminate the cheaters (and there are LOADS of them): give oral exams.

I have the luxury of having small classes (20-30) and this semester I teach discussion. Midterm assignment: prepare a group round table to be evaluted by me. Some cribbing from the Internet (which results in a deduction of points), but on the whole some very good efforts.

indytrucks · Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Location: The Shelf

Sucker · Joined: 11 Feb 2003

I caugt three cheaters - one with a "cheat sheet" and two who exchanged papers.

Wrote their names down and I am not sure what I will do about it.

I received a huge email (in Korean) that was very appologetic from one of the boys. He beged me not to give him an F.

I kind of feel sorry for them.

This was my first round of tests at the university level and I think that I made my tests to "difficult" (ie the students had to use an amount of creativity to answer some of the questions) and I did not explain the rules against cheating for my first few exams - I just was not expecting the level of cheating that they would engage in.

I remember back in Australia, if we were caught cheating you could get kicked out of the school.

canukteacher · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul, Korea

Our midterm is oral. Very difficult for them to cheat. They know the 3 topics, and their partner is picked randomly. Always lends itself to some interesting moments. In past years I've had students take the midterm never to return. Oh well!

CT

rudyflyer · Joined: 26 Feb 2003 Location: pacing the cage

interesting situation at our place. We give a TOEFL style midterm to everybody and they all take it at the same time last Sat AM or PM and we have Korean TA's basiclly administer it. We procter other teachers sections

I saw only 1 or so incidents that resemble cheating over the 200+ students I proctored. Also the TA's check ids of everybody taking the test so thats elminated.

Best part about it was we were off last week while they took their midterms from their Korean profs

ajstew · Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Location: Korea

Couldn't have been happier with mine. My students did as I had hoped... separated themselves from eachother, basically dividing themselves up nicely into their 70% A's-B's... with 30% falling into the C-D range. It'll definitely make finding that correct percentage easier than it has been in the past, come final grade time.

As for the cheating... not this year. I hate being a stickler and asking students to separate themselves, because even though I trust many to be honest... I can't honestly expect them to not look at a neighbor to verify their answers. Thankfully I teach in huge classrooms where separating them isn't a problem.

Last year was brutal though... especially in a couple instances. It was so funny to watch a few students and where their test papers were on their desks as they wrote... practically on the edge of their desks next to their neighboring students. Pathetic.

Speaking of cheating... what really disappointed me last year, was an assignment I gave my fourth year students. I asked them to choose a movie they liked, and to write a review for it in plain English... just answering some simple questions. As the semester neared an end, I continually asked them if they were having trouble and always heard, "No". Then they pass in these papers... that were so obviously copied from the internet, that I couldn't believe it. By simply typing in the first sentence of their papers on 'yahoo', the reviews they copied would come up. Very disappointing... especially because they were seniors.

Kyrei · Joined: 22 Jan 2003

I do projects for the exams - an individual essay and a group presentation. The essay is due two weeks before the presentation so I know they are at least somewhat prepared. As for the presentation there is no way to cheat except to read from a paper while they stand in front of the class. Most of the groups prepare some kind of PowerPoint presentation of their material, which has its own set of headaches, but at least they are working for their grade.

Part of the presentation mark is on peer assessment so the other students give them a mark based on how they did during the presentation. Other students know well when someone hasn't done the work! That is my answer to cheating.

In the past I have dealt with cheating the way some others have - a big fat 0 as the grade and then one-on-one deal with the whining about it. The only problem with the system I have now is plagiarism on the essay but only on the mid-term - 0/10 for a plagiarised essay is enough for most of them to get the hint. If they apologise politely enough then I will let them re-write it with a penalty. I have also made it clear that using those infamous Internet translation services is considered plagiarising / cheating and dealt with in the same manner.

So far so good. Three semesters of it and no serious complaints. Administration even backs me up which is a surprise. Smile

Kyrei

gypsyfish · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

A few 'incidents', but my favorite was the student who, after having been told in class and at the beginning of the test, that the answer sheet had to be filled with a special computer pen, used Wite Out, the correction fluid. I just hope this genius isn't a pre-med student. (All students are even offered pens at the beginning of the test, if they have forgotten theirs.)

lawyertood · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 5:17 pm Post subject:

It's been a couple of semesters since my last one but I just had another substitute test taker. Do these kids think we are that stupid? I usually get suspicious when I don't recognize someone taking the test. Granted some of the students only show up on test day but this wasn't one of those students. I try to collect pictures of the students at the beginning of the semester. Not all submit them, however. This student hadn't so I could not compare the photo with the student taking the test. A few other things confirmed it for me, however. The test taker got the student's ID number wrong on the test and wrote her 4s differently. About an hour after the test I saw the real student eating lunch with her classmates. I haven't said anything yet but next week in class she will be in for a big surprise--this is an automatic F for the course in my opinion.

kiwiboy_nz_99 · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Location: ...Enlightenment...

I'm taking an advanced class and what I don't like is this rule that if there are over 12 students then only 40% can get above b+. Actually that part is ok, but what is weird is that the rule applies if the original role was over 12, even if people drop out and I've now got 11 students, they can't all get good grades, even if they're all exceptional.

ajstew · Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Location: Korea

Yeah Kiwiboy... that's a difficult problem to have. It's a tough situation to be in when you have an exceptional class and still have to generate the C's. The answer: Give them plenty of assignments and let them sort themselves out by the quality of their work as best as they can. It's a tough situation though.