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Why I will never pursue cheating again

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Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#271

Post by roundsquare »

iammaxa wrote: post #227
reason wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I got from his post wasn't that he deserved a better grade, but more willingness by the professor to field his questions. If other students felt this way, I really can't trust the author's claim that his low evaluation score was solely due to the fault of his students. Seems pretty unfair... The cheating, although not excusable, could very well be partially blamed on the professor.

I don't understand some of the negative responses directed to the professor (both in this case and in others; they seem to represent a popular sentiment). Why isn't blaming professors for cheaters analogous to blaming rape victims for being insufficiently vigilant against rape?

"Why isn't blaming professors for cheaters analogous to blaming rape victims for being insufficiently vigilant against rape?"

I don't think the analogy holds well. The point is that a professor is supposed to help his/her students when they have questions. If they don't do this, they increase the probability of cheating occurring. It's less of "blaming" and more "noting" that this happens. If the professor is partially ignoring this duty, he/she is partly to blame. (I'm not saying that happened here, just explaining what I think @reason's logic is).

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#272

Post by holdenc »

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…

I don't miss dealing with tenured professors.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#273

Post by calibraxis »

AndyKelley wrote: post #246

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 po…

Yes, radical teachers often refuse to grade students, because it reduces the quality of education. But many are forced to stop. Few have sufficient power to go against the institution.

(Not only do schools have their function to produce professionals who'll jump through hoops on command for a letter. But also some particularly career-oriented students may complain that this makes it harder for them to outrank other students. Students don't have that much power, but these students help the school build a case against the offending teacher.)

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#274

Post by mentat »

lyudmil wrote: post #263
jamesbritt wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US at least people are constantly saying that hard work should be rewarded, with no mention of whether the effort produces any particular value. The assumption may be that, well, no one works hard to create _no_ value, but indeed there's at least a lot of misguided hard work that people then think deserves some sort of arbitray reward.

You commit a fallacy here because your comment (as well as the one it's in reply to) assumes that work is rewarded proportionally to its value. It isn't. If you have the bargaining power to get paid more, you get paid more regardless of your contributions. The assumption you're referring to I think has to do with the question of whether it's moral to reward people for working hard (even if inefficiently). I think the…

How to you propose to measure the value of work? I'm certainly not limiting it to financial remuneration. Whatever the value is measured by, it certainly doesn't correlate to effort. Sometimes something of great value takes much effort, sometimes little, but the value cannot be predicted by the effort. Teaching people that it can is a disservice.

In what situations is it a moral necessity to reward people for hard ineffective work? I'm not excluding the possibility, I'd just like to understand what you have in mind.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#275

Post by jamesaguilar »

jackpirate wrote: post #247
jamesaguilar wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Were you actually involved in the honor board at the Naval Academy? If so, I am wondering: is the honor board really only designed to punish, or were the only cases that made it that far so egregious that guilty is the only likely verdict?

Of course, I think I would only refer students to the honor board if it was blatantly obvious they were cheating, and they opted to refuse my "warning" punishment.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#276

Post by mentat »

nostrademons wrote: post #266
mentat wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I agree in general, but remember that we're talking about an MBA program here. Just what "value" is there to be created sitting in class? The point of schooling is to develop the skills that will help you in the real world. Hard work is one of those skills; it's not outside the realm of plausibility that schools should incent it. (FWIW, cheating - when you don't get caught - is another one of them. Maybe schools shou…

Though I certainly can't speak with authority about what might constitute value in an MBA program, I would think it would be the ability to understand systems and their organization and to think creatively about solutions to complex problems. I'm probably wildly optimistic.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#277

Post by detst »

btilly wrote: post #268
badclient wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes both ways. Are you willing to listen to the many excuses for why each student may have plagiarized and potentially extend the same they-are-human-too sympathies?

I understand why the students cheat. However it is possible to be in their positions and not cheat. I don't want to have co-workers who cheat. I therefore would like to see the book thrown at them so that they learn not to cheat. If they truly had no choice about cheating, then I'd show more sympathy. But they do. By contrast we truly don't get to choose how we as humans are emotionally wired.

> By contrast we truly don't get to choose how we as humans are emotionally wired.

What a lame excuse. He still had as much of a choice in being a dick as the students had in cheating.

Even under his own account of the office-hours incident, he was very inconsiderate and doesn't seem to understand it. If you have office hours, know there will be many students showing up on this particular day, and yet you aren't prepared with food, compound that by not bothering to explain that you need to eat now, that's a dick move, without excuse and explains the evaluations. His fault, not the students.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#278

Post by jleader »

iammaxa wrote: post #227
reason wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I got from his post wasn't that he deserved a better grade, but more willingness by the professor to field his questions. If other students felt this way, I really can't trust the author's claim that his low evaluation score was solely due to the fault of his students. Seems pretty unfair... The cheating, although not excusable, could very well be partially blamed on the professor.

I don't understand some of the negative responses directed to the professor (both in this case and in others; they seem to represent a popular sentiment). Why isn't blaming professors for cheaters analogous to blaming rape victims for being insufficiently vigilant against rape?

Because professors are in a position of authority over their students, and part of their job is to evaluate the students. Thus preventing or detecting cheating (for example, by changing the structure of the assignments, or using various plagiarism-detection tools) is legitimately the professor's responsibility (though not solely theirs; the school and the department are responsible for setting policies, and handling violations after the professor detects them; and of course the individual students bear the ultimately responsibility to not cheat!)

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#279

Post by badclient »

btilly wrote: post #268
badclient wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes both ways. Are you willing to listen to the many excuses for why each student may have plagiarized and potentially extend the same they-are-human-too sympathies?

I understand why the students cheat. However it is possible to be in their positions and not cheat. I don't want to have co-workers who cheat. I therefore would like to see the book thrown at them so that they learn not to cheat. If they truly had no choice about cheating, then I'd show more sympathy. But they do. By contrast we truly don't get to choose how we as humans are emotionally wired.

Likewise, I know professors who under similar situation do not react like the professor in this discussion.

Also I don't understand why the same emotional wiring that can explain the professor's behavior cannot potentially explain the cheating student's behavior?

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#280

Post by MartinCron »

cantbecool wrote: post #73

I am surprised no one brought up the pervasive cheating within ethnic lines. From my anecdotal evidence, just graduating from a private school in Philadelphia in IT, the majority of ethnic students would simply pass assignments and essays to one another from term to term. It was extremely demoralizing seeing these students at graduation standing for the academic honors, e.g., cum laude and magna cum laude, and get ap…

I haven't seen it personally within ethnic lines, but when I as a student at the University of Washington, the files of previous assignments and tests kept by the fraternities were legendary.
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