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How to Catch a Cheater

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Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#91

Post by dkarl »

tomjen3 wrote: post #73
skinnymuch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is doing this preparing the students for the real world (I'm being serious and not condescending or anything)? I don't see the real world being particularly more difficult than normal high school. Example - didn't file or pay taxes on time? No problemo - just take a penalty and finish up your work late.

Because it causes them to loose (hopefully) any idea that they get anything out of being honest, except shafted.

You've got it backwards: the students who studied honestly had much better retention after two weeks than the kids who wasted time trying to cheat or game the test. It was the teacher's intention to reward honest work by giving the hard-working kids a big advantage over the cheaters, and that's exactly what he accomplished. If only life was always so fair!

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#92

Post by dkarl »

Semiapies wrote: post #90
dkarl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good AP courses are completely the opposite, and I had several in high school. We had regular reviews to make sure we refreshed and retained the material until the end of the year. The great thing about AP classes was that the teachers could really teach, and they could justify themselves by pointing to the AP test if anyone complained about the rigor of the work. The students were game, too, at least the ones who di…

When I took mine, they were exactly what they were commonly considered - cram-fests to get out of some first-year coursework and bump up your grades. I still wish I'd taken more; I could have gotten out of more dull first-year classes.

By "cramming" most people mean the kind of studying that enables you to remember information for one or two days, which would not result in good AP scores. Are you sure by "cramming" you don't just mean "intense studying?" If you and your classmates got good AP scores, then you must have understood most of the material well enough to retain it, since you would only have had time to cram a small amount before the test.

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#93

Post by Semiapies »

dkarl wrote: post #92
Semiapies wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I took mine, they were exactly what they were commonly considered - cram-fests to get out of some first-year coursework and bump up your grades. I still wish I'd taken more; I could have gotten out of more dull first-year classes.

By "cramming" most people mean the kind of studying that enables you to remember information for one or two days, which would not result in good AP scores. Are you sure by "cramming" you don't just mean "intense studying?" If you and your classmates got good AP scores, then you must have understood most of the material well enough to retain it, since you would only have had time to cram a small amount before the test…

You misunderstand. Please note that from the start, I've allowed that people do retain some knowledge from cramming-based classes. (For that matter, someone writing notes to sneak into a test probably gained some small benefit from the act of writing the notes.)

But no, there's no mistake, here. Much like other high school classes, the AP classes I took were sequences of sections followed by intense "reviews" the day prior to each test. They were the very model of how schools encourage cram-and-forget education.

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#94

Post by skinnymuch »

dkarl wrote: post #91
tomjen3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it causes them to loose (hopefully) any idea that they get anything out of being honest, except shafted.

You've got it backwards: the students who studied honestly had much better retention after two weeks than the kids who wasted time trying to cheat or game the test. It was the teacher's intention to reward honest work by giving the hard-working kids a big advantage over the cheaters, and that's exactly what he accomplished. If only life was always so fair!

Your explanation is for a fantasy-land. Studying honestly in many AP classes comes down to cramming. Here's how Semiapies summed it up in a comment in this thread:

"In high school and particularly AP, those courses are blatant cycles of 1) cram, 2) test, and 3) forget all but the core of what that section was about.

(If you want to say, "You should learn it all for the final" keep in mind nobody does, nor are final exams built around remembering everything from the whole course.)"

--

It's not like the crammers are even bad kids. A lot of them have no choice because if they didn't study that way they wouldn't have enough time to study and will end up getting worse grades.

This would mainly show people that the world screws you over and people who are part of crappy systems will go ahead and screw you over on top of the crappy system. I see little fairness in this situation.

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#95

Post by dkarl »

Semiapies wrote: post #93
dkarl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "cramming" most people mean the kind of studying that enables you to remember information for one or two days, which would not result in good AP scores. Are you sure by "cramming" you don't just mean "intense studying?" If you and your classmates got good AP scores, then you must have understood most of the material well enough to retain it, since you would only have had time to cram a small amount before the test…

You misunderstand. Please note that from the start, I've allowed that people do retain some knowledge from cramming-based classes. (For that matter, someone writing notes to sneak into a test probably gained some small benefit from the act of writing the notes.) But no, there's no mistake, here. Much like other high school classes, the AP classes I took were sequences of sections followed by intense "reviews" the day…

I really don't understand how it could be "cram-and-forget" unless the students failed the AP tests. If they did well on the AP tests -- covering an entire year's worth of material in one day -- it was more like "cram-and-remember" and it was apparently a good way to learn the material.

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#96

Post by dkarl »

skinnymuch wrote: post #94
dkarl wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got it backwards: the students who studied honestly had much better retention after two weeks than the kids who wasted time trying to cheat or game the test. It was the teacher's intention to reward honest work by giving the hard-working kids a big advantage over the cheaters, and that's exactly what he accomplished. If only life was always so fair!

Your explanation is for a fantasy-land. Studying honestly in many AP classes comes down to cramming. Here's how Semiapies summed it up in a comment in this thread: "In high school and particularly AP, those courses are blatant cycles of 1) cram, 2) test, and 3) forget all but the core of what that section was about. (If you want to say, "You should learn it all for the final" keep in mind nobody does, nor are final e…

Semiapies' description of AP classes is really bizarre and can only reflect a situation in which the teachers did not give a rat's ass about their students' AP scores. The nice thing about an AP class versus a non-AP class is that the AP test gives teachers an excuse to care whether their students are actually learning or not. Naturally that means the kids end up working a lot harder, but teachers who care at all about the scores at the end of the year (and mine did) will do everything they can to discourage cramming and other fake learning.

Kids who can't pass the class without cramming and who aren't going to retain the material shouldn't be in an AP class in the first place. They're going to run into a concrete wall at the end and waste their money (or the school's money) taking a test they aren't prepared for. Some students can handle it, and that's who the class is for. In my graduating class, there were maybe a dozen kids who got a 5 on at least one AP test, and I think there were two dozen who got a 3 on at least one AP test. That's out of a graduating class of a little over 300. (The entering class was over 400, so you can tell I didn't go to an especially good school.)

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#97

Post by jchonphoenix »

My year the puzzle was called "Giramacristo's puzzle."

And Luis ended up telling everyone he was going to give them 0's and they'd take a huge hit in their grade, but he ended up not actually factoring that into the grades.

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#98

Post by Semiapies »

dkarl wrote: post #95
Semiapies wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand. Please note that from the start, I've allowed that people do retain some knowledge from cramming-based classes. (For that matter, someone writing notes to sneak into a test probably gained some small benefit from the act of writing the notes.) But no, there's no mistake, here. Much like other high school classes, the AP classes I took were sequences of sections followed by intense "reviews" the day…

I really don't understand how it could be "cram-and-forget" unless the students failed the AP tests. If they did well on the AP tests -- covering an entire year's worth of material in one day -- it was more like "cram-and-remember" and it was apparently a good way to learn the material.

I'm not sure what your difficulty is in understanding this. They cram before the tests in the class, then they cram before the final exam (or AP exam). The "forget" is after the AP test.

This naturally made students who crammed have a tougher time in later classes in college. I wasn't one of them, but I refuse to look down on the people who were behaving exactly as the teachers were training them to behave.

Re: How to Catch a Cheater

#99

Post by rick888 »

Semiapies wrote: post #86
rick888 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So, the professor deliberately tempted people to look up something online, then amused himself by busting the people who did. Cute method, but it proves nothing other than "schmuck bait works"." The way I see it, the people that are actually doing their homework wouldn't even be tempted by it..because they are actually doing their homework. "Remember that this is homework, not a test. Yes, presumably the problem is…

Thank you - this is the most vapid thing I've seen today not written by a TSA official. Especially: "Checking your work against the correct answer and Googling the answer (and just writing it down) are two different things." And you can tell the difference based on a server log...exactly how?

"Thank you - this is the most vapid thing I've seen today not written by a TSA official."

Are you here all week? Do you always get this many laughs?

"And you can tell the difference based on a server log...exactly how?"

If you can't see that googling answers isn't cheating, I'm sorry.

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