Why I will never pursue cheating again • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#241

Post by jackpirate » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:18 AM UTC

badclient wrote: post #228

Panos wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me start by indicating some logical flaws in the timing of the events: The office hours for the class were from 12.30 to 1.30, Monday and Wednesday. The class was starting at 2pm. According to your account, I showed up at 1pm, being 30 mins "late". Then the first student came in at 1pm and came out at 1.20pm? Then it took me another 50 minutes while I was running around? So I came to talk to you at 2.10pm, when I…

I don't think being pissed at 28/108 students is a valid excuse for acting pissed at everyone. That is a major professional flaw and a post on how you plan to control your emotion may be appreciated by future students. I have had professors that had me write huge essays and then proceeded to just put a huge ass check and never really read past the first paragraph. If I plagiarized and cited my frustration with all th…

  >>  That is a major professional flaw and a post on how you plan to control your emotion may be appreciated by future students.

I think he is readily admitting this is a major flaw, and he plans on controlling his emotions in the future by not obsessing about cheating. This is probably not the ideal response, but it is very human, and you have to give him props for admitting his weaknesses.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#242

Post by paganel » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:20 AM UTC

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but what's wrong with cheating? Isn't using other people's code, as in open-source, "cheating"? Isn't Google cheating just because it created a fancy clone of FB + Twitter? Wasn't Plotinus cheating because he borrowed one of Plato's main ideas and just fancied it up a little? Wasn't all Western Medieval philosophy cheating because it was barely a commentary to Aristotle and then later to Plato and Plotinus?

I know I'm exaggerating, a little, I'm just trying to make a point. Schooling other people and forcing them not to "cheat" just for the sake of, well, schooling, doesn't have any benefits and it's nothing like what happens in real life. We're all trying to build things on the shoulders of giants.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#243

Post by jfb » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:21 AM UTC

I worked at Turnitin for a good while, and the numbers we were seeing were eye-popping. I make no attestations w/r/t this particular story, but we'd see 40% or more clearly plagiarized content at every institution we'd demo for. I was shocked, but then, I'm old and my education predates much of the Internet.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#244

Post by nyustern » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:22 AM UTC

Panos wrote: post #224

nyustern wrote: post #189

Hi Panos. I was actually a student in your class last fall semester. To alleviate any doubt you may have, the class was known as “Info Tech,” and you had two sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays (2-3:15, 3:30-4:45 pm) in KMEC. Now I have a couple of problems with your post. Firstly, you attribute your lower evaluation rating of 5.3 for last fall semester solely to your lower tolerance of cheating. However, there is som…

Let me start by indicating some logical flaws in the timing of the events: The office hours for the class were from 12.30 to 1.30, Monday and Wednesday. The class was starting at 2pm. According to your account, I showed up at 1pm, being 30 mins "late". Then the first student came in at 1pm and came out at 1.20pm? Then it took me another 50 minutes while I was running around? So I came to talk to you at 2.10pm, when I…

First off, many of the details you cited are inaccurate. However, its pointless to argue over such things. I was not aware of your health condition, but given the pattern of treatment given to me and a handful of others, I was left to assume you were acting as usual. Anyway, my post was to make you aware of a few other reasons as to why you received a low evaluation score. Blaming the students wholly is unjust and there are a plethora of other reasons as to why they may have viewed you in a bad light, as I've elucidated a few already. Thanks for your response and best of luck handling this issue in the coming terms.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#245

Post by jackpirate » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:23 AM UTC

Panos wrote: post #230

bluehat wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you should talk to the Dean. Publicly stating that you won't pursue cheaters no matter how blatant probably isn't something your school will enjoy having in the press, and it sounds like there might be a few other issues which, if documentable, could be a something your school may want to sort out. It also gives everybody a chance to explain their side.

I have the proposed solution at the end of the article. Please read that part as it is at the very heart of the point that I want to make.

One thing you don't address in the article that I would like to hear more about is how you handled cheating in previous semesters? Do you think it was just as prevalent, but you simply weren't aware because of no automated processing? Or were you teaching classes where cheaters were much less likely (such as an upper level research course)?

I think the comparison would add a lot of valuable info to the debate.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#246

Post by AndyKelley » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:27 AM UTC

Here's a radical idea:

Get rid of grades.

Let's think about the consequences of that for a minute. You still pay for college. There are still classes. There is still homework. Exams are unnecessary. Do away with prerequisites. In this system, everybody in class is there because they want to learn. It is the only motivating force.

And what do we lose? Companies might look at grades for determining how well suited a possible employee is for a job, but it seems to me that other qualifying material such as previous jobs, skills, extracurricular activities, and projects are equally important. And besides, you wouldn't want to hire someone only based on their grades, you would want to interview them first.

Anything else? It might be a worthwhile trade off.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#247

Post by jackpirate » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:32 AM UTC

jamesaguilar wrote: post #141

onan_barbarian wrote: post #19

While there's much to be said in favor of more creative assignments that aren't minor variants of last year's assignments, the author has drawn the wrong conclusion from what happened. 22 cheats out of 108 is big - and the real proportion may have been even higher, given that it seemed like he caught only either blatant cheats or conscience-stricken/less brazen cheats (the latter category from when he acted people to…

I made a different conclusion. There are several problems, but the biggest is his approach. Now, I'm not a teacher, and all those caveats. But in my imagination, my approach would be much less time-consuming. I cribbed this from my high school physics teacher. It involves little detective work and no long drawn out confessions. When cheating is detected, simply send a note to the student with the following: "I'm awar…

This has the problem of false positives, and an assumption of guilt. In my experience (at the Naval Academy, so maybe a little different), honor boards were designed solely to award punishment with no realistic chance of presenting evidence in your defense. I imagine that most schools are less strict, but still expect the professor to have talked the matter through with their students before a formal inquest.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#248

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

mentat wrote: post #223

nyustern wrote: post #189

Hi Panos. I was actually a student in your class last fall semester. To alleviate any doubt you may have, the class was known as “Info Tech,” and you had two sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays (2-3:15, 3:30-4:45 pm) in KMEC. Now I have a couple of problems with your post. Firstly, you attribute your lower evaluation rating of 5.3 for last fall semester solely to your lower tolerance of cheating. However, there is som…

"who put in the most effort and demonstrate the highest level of achievement" I've noticed a growing problem with people equating effort with achievement as the parent does. Just because one "works really hard" doesn't mean that one creates something of value. I'm not sure where this belief arose from, but it doesn't apply in school and it certainly doesn't apply in life.

[deleted]

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#249

Post by Panos » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:39 AM UTC

badclient wrote: post #228

Panos wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me start by indicating some logical flaws in the timing of the events: The office hours for the class were from 12.30 to 1.30, Monday and Wednesday. The class was starting at 2pm. According to your account, I showed up at 1pm, being 30 mins "late". Then the first student came in at 1pm and came out at 1.20pm? Then it took me another 50 minutes while I was running around? So I came to talk to you at 2.10pm, when I…

I don't think being pissed at 28/108 students is a valid excuse for acting pissed at everyone. That is a major professional flaw and a post on how you plan to control your emotion may be appreciated by future students. I have had professors that had me write huge essays and then proceeded to just put a huge ass check and never really read past the first paragraph. If I plagiarized and cited my frustration with all th…

I see your point. But consider the following: these numbers are for the students that admitted cheating. There was a significant number of other assignments for which I suspected cheating but I did not have enough evidence. So, I erred on the side of having false negatives in the accusations, rather than false positives.

Now, if you are teaching a class where you have some suspicion that half of the students have cheated, one way or another, the attitude changes. I wish I could be a cold, rational, emotionless professional, and ignore this feeling altogether. Unfortunately, I am a human. And I felt that I am teaching a class full of kids that come just for the grade, and not for learning.

And I am kind of disappointed that nyustern still demonstrates this grade-seeking attitude: He learned in the class, he appreciated my attitude in the lectures but his main complaint was that I was not approachable outside the class, and outside office hours? And that, out of all things, did not return his smiles? Hint: at 5pm, after 11 hours of work, 3 hours of lecturing, I am tired, mentally exhausted and I want to go and get some rest.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#250

Post by ary » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 5:43 AM UTC

Caballera wrote: post #200

ary wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw your comment before it was edited and calling someone to the carpet (in your case by calling him a coward) isn't the kind of name-calling that should be frowned upon here. He is a coward. He comes out and plainly says that it's in his best interest to go along with the incentive structure in front of him instead of standing up for academic integrity. Let's not let the cultural politeness here get in the way of…

I don't see how he's a coward, he's coming up with new ways to teach his students that make it so they are not able or less able to cheat. If he was a coward he would just continue to teach in a way that was still easy to cheat. He's even asking for ideas on other ways to prevent cheating.

Perhaps he's come up with some novel ways to deal with the dishonesty of his students. Time will tell.

Preventing cheating ultimately comes down to changing the incentive structures in the university system in America. Allowing students to take revenge on their professors by basing financial rewards and promotions on student evaluations is clearly wrong. The metric by which professors are rewarded should be as independent from what their students think of them as possible. Outside exams by an unbiased third party is one idea, but I'm sure there are others.

What surprised me more than anything was the lack of mention of any sort of organized protest on the part of the professors. The faculty at many colleges throughout the U.S. has protested a number of issues very successfully. You'd think there would be a more unified voice on this matter, but perhaps I'm overlooking an incentive that guides most professors to just not care.