Hearing about yet another cheating incident causes the same reaction as a running sonicator: it makes me feel like my brain membranes are about to explode.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a great article about essay mills. (yes, you need a subscription to access, so VPN thee over to the campus network!)
Many of us teaching in the sciences don't have to worry so much about paper mills as what *awesome* cheating method our students will turn to next. (and if you think you are at a school where cheating is not a problem, then by all means, invite me to your utopia. Yes, I trust my students, but I still make them sign an honor code before taking each exam. And I don't think EVERY student will cheat. I never did. Even my graphing calculator-- see below-- stayed clean.)
I like to call this segment, "how can thee cheat, let me count the ways...from youtube"
- graphing calculators. Graphing calculators should not be used in classes unless you are completely okay with students storing equations on their calculators. And constants. Doesn't matter because you supply equations and constants to them anyways? Okay...are you alright with uploading pages of text from the book?
- ipods (yay. See above for graphing calculators.)
- clear pens. This one is just sad. Pop off the top, slip in a cheat sheet, cover with hand when the prof is looking. A functional cheat sheet! (see youtube video here: best quote around 2:35 "hopefully none of my teachers see this video because that would be really awkward... I don't think any of my teachers go to youtube.")
- water bottles? (See video here to see what I mean) If anyone has actually caught a student doing this, please share. I don't worry about this one, but mostly because our desks are barely big enough for their exam books, let alone a coke bottle.
- cheat sheets??! Seriously, this tutorial has received over 90,000 hits! ...and lots of comments-- which are very fun reading if you are on, say, spring break!
But my favorite youtube cheating clip???
Have you caught a cheater in the classroom lately? With the exception of cell phones and graphing calculators, I think these clips pertain just to high schoolers. But, dear readers, if you have evidence to the contrary, do share!
11 comments:
sadly there was a rash of cheating in my required biochem class during 1st year, so we're talking all walks of grad students (~200) in a class. it wasn't caught by the profs, but someone turned them in. heresay has it that an ENTIRE freaking row of students from multiple disciplines were looking over each others papers in the stadium seating auditorium. i mean come on people, you have to learn this info for your program and comps!! you can't cheat there! it actually made me sick and explained the sudden downswing in the class average after the next exam.
Ah, yes. Recent example:
Scrap of paper with information on it was concealed in the cover of the calculator, under the laminated guide that came with the calculator. Student "surreptitiously" slid the laminated guide up to read the sheet of paper. Sadly, for the student, having a calculator cover on the desk gets my attention and I could see the sly movement from the other side of the lecture hall. (I often stand in one area of the class toward the back and watch the far side of the room.) Busted.
Many people ban all accessories, such as hats and calculator covers. I do for the final, but check them if I see them out.
The TI-83 should only be allowed if you allow formula sheets. Clearly that video author was unaware of the detailed hyper-card apps that TI provides on its web site, or the easy of loading massive collections from the web onto that calculator. I nailed people twice for that before banning it to spare more from temptation. BTW, if you reset the TI before tests, be sure you turn it off, then on, then reset it. There are programs that simulate a reset screen.
A few years ago, I made scanning ears for bluetooth or earbuds part of my pre-test routine.
Oh, and I have also seen notes for a lab exam written in black pencil on the black surface of a lab table. My rule is that students sit where I want them to when they take a test, not where they want to sit, which helps with that.
Only shitty professors write exams in which "cheat sheets" are of any use. Exams based on whether students can memorize facts are absurd. Properly written exams should be completely open-book open-note, and should test students *understanding* of material.
I had to laugh at "by all means, invite me to your utopia". I've met a number of people from Famous West Coast Tech who love to wax poetic about how nobody EVER cheats at THEIR school, because they have this HONOR code, and aren't they so GREAT for having this. Apparently the power of the honor code is such that ALL, yes, ALL, of their exams, including finals, are "take-home, non-collaborative closed-book, closed-note, timed". But they swear nobody ever cheats! Because of Teh Honor Code! Seriously - they trust the students to take the exam *home*, do it unproctored and at their leisure, and keep themselves within the time limit while staying away from books, notes, the internet, and other students?! I call bullshit on the entire damn school. (honestly, if the exams are already supposed to be closed-book, closed-note, and timed, why the hell not just have them in class? Why make it so uniformly easy for the students to cheat on every single exam?) So yes, get thee to FWCT, the land of perfect ethical Pollyannas/the best racket in town.
That's not to say take-home exams don't have their place, but it echoes what CPP said - give 'em everything they want to use, and test understanding. Some CS friends of mine in my undergrad had a take-home "exam" that more resembled a large project; it was open-book and open-notes and you had an unlimited amount of time to get it done over the course of five days. That damn exam was the hardest thing any of them ever took in undergrad, and the untimed aspect just made it worse: with no time limit the professor could make the exam insanely long, and students could devote 60, 70, 80 hours it and still do poorly. If you didn't know your shit, and know it WELL, your ass was failing. Now THAT'S a take-home exam. (although in fairness, I bet grading that beast was hell for the prof/TAs)
The clip made me laugh. The course I TA constantly has problems with people cheating. I caught this guy with a cell phone last time. He claimed to be "checking the time." I informed him that the clock was up front and he was welcome to move up to the front of the room to see it better.
Awesome quote from the essay writing article:
"She was not happy with the paper Essay Writers provided. It seemed, she says, to have been written by a non-native English speaker. "I could tell they were Asian or something just by the grammar and stuff," she says."
Oh the irony.
QASA: Gah!!!!!
Doctor Pion, wow, such stories! Your story of writing on the black lab benches actually did bring up some memories of fellow junior highers doing the same thing...totally repressed THAT memory 'til now. And graphing calculators? Hate 'em. Not allowed in my class.
Oh, my darling CPP...I knew you were going to say that. (actually, I thought you would write "bullshit. Write a fucking exam that doesn't matter if you know fucking equations.") Love ya! But how, my dear CPP (and you, too, puck!), am I to do that for a intro class? Hmm...perhaps I am a "shitty" professor after all. Oh, my.
Puck: I love it.
Amanda: Yikes. Cell phones are not permitted in my class. I put it on the syllabus, and I put it on each exam cover page. It's actually great because I *never* hear ring tones or vibrations during lecture.
Cath: Oh yes, that article is full of fun quotes. I couldn't believe the stories from actual clients!
haha, that video is great. anyone who's put a decent amount of effort into making a (legal) cheat sheet can probably recognize that they got the most out of actually studying to create the list, and didn't use it as much as they thought during the exam.
i had a math professor (she a great prof) from eastern europe (serbia?) who said she'd seen every idea out there when she was a student back home. not everyone participated, but everyone knew ... one trick she passed on was to have your smarter colleague write the answers on a slip of paper, hide it inside the barrel of a pen or mechanical pencil, and then ask that person if you could 'borrow a pen'.
Puck: I went to a west coast school famous (I think) for it's honor code. We did have a little bit of cheating, but the honor council handled those cases and the professors were well supported and encouraged in those cases. I have heard horror stories from fellow alumni who are now teaching their own classes, and how unsupportive their new schools are in cheating cases. One friend was threatened with legal action for accusing a student of cheating.
Overall, though, cheating was almost non-existent. We did have take-home exams, though they were usually open note, open book, open internet. Those sources didn't really help with those kinds of exams anyway, as CPP suggests. I do remember a few closed book timed tests, and no one in my classes cheated on those. There was a lot of peer pressure against cheating.
I guess my point is: don't knock something unless you really know. I understand it's difficult to believe a school could have little to non-existent cheating, but just because you can't imagine something doesn't mean it can't or doesn't exist.
I didn't say the crib notes that student brought to the exam would have helped him. Indeed, their naivete and lack of utility matched his own lack of clue.
But I think CPP is the one who is naive. What is to stop your student from having someone outside the room, one who has understanding of the subject matter, from communicating that understanding via a wireless mod of the TI calculator you allow (they exist) or via a bluetooth device?
My view on open notes and the like concerns the "job interview". Would you hire someone as a professor who had to pull out a Blackberry and look up ATP on the Wiki? I expect them to know F=ma *and* be able to apply it to a new situation.
I'm with CPP on this - all exams should be open notebook. This avoids the need to cheat and forces the students to realize thinking matters.
Post a Comment