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Why I will never pursue cheating again

behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com

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Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#371

Post by specialist »

Panos wrote: post #369
specialist wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> About the issue of a "true capitalist," yes I am a libertarian at heart. And I do believe that people respond to incentives. Libertarian, maximum personal liberty. If you were a libertarian, you wouldn't care about the cheating. Let the little bastards screw themselves. Libertarian doctrine (such as it is) says nothing about incentives. Getting worked up about the cheating, you assume society (or at least your clas…

"A clever teacher would figure out a way for students to police each other. I've seen it work to great effect. No one grades harder than a peer." I could not agree with you more. This assignment, in which students get to teach "emerging technologies" to each other, and grade each other, is the highlight of my class. The whole point that I wanted to make with this post is that cheating is something that needs to be st…

I need to apologise. I just RTFA. I really like your "future" section, the public projects, the peer reviews, the competitions. Exactly right. You are several steps ahead of me.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#372

Post by Panos »

qq66 wrote: post #300
roel_v wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I, who collaborated with a friend on one small part of the assignment," So you admit you cheated and then you turn around and say "this guy is a racist"? LOL. I guess I could make some more observations from my own experiences here, but that would make me "racist" too I guess...

Each university and individual course has its own collaboration guidelines. Collaborating with a friend on a part of the assignment could be completely kosher. Not enough information to judge.

From the syllabus and the assignment description: "Students may not work together on graded assignment unless the instructor gives express permission. Collaborating on graded assignments with students from other sections, is a violation of the Stern Honor Code. Similarly, getting help to complete the graded assignments from students that attended the class in the past is also a violation of the Stern Honor Code."

I explicitly prohibited students from working together on individual assignments. There were plenty of group projects for doing so, but for the individual assignments I wanted the students to work alone.

The student clearly violated the Stern Honor Code, and he is openly admitting that.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#373

Post by brianleb »

After reading this thread (more than once, now... it about doubled while I was asleep), I just have to say thank you to Panos. Obviously you've hit on a topic that everyone finds relevant and of merit to discuss. Unfortunately, you're encountering a lot of unconstructive negative feedback and emotional responses. In reality, I think very few of the responders truly understand what being a professor is like mentally and emotionally, and (understandably) only equate it to the three hours a week they saw their professors back in college.

You've identified a very real and very serious problem, and come up with some ways to beat it. You tried doing things the 'normal' and 'right' way (e.g. to pursue cheaters) and found the system to be a total failure in this regard. People read your title, however, and think you're giving up. They started skimming and didn't make it to the end where you explain that you aren't pursuing cheating because you are going to change your assignments to prevent it entirely. This isn't a matter of criticism - it's a matter of applause.

Simply by reading a lot of the comments here, I'm particularly bothered by people's attitudes and understanding (or lack thereof) for your situation. Your capacity thus far to proceed with calm conversation has been impressive, and I hope all the negative feedback doesn't get under your skin. I know that having thick skin is part of being a teacher (though should it, really?), but we're all human on the inside - something most people never think about the teachers they've met.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#374

Post by [deleted] »

scott_s wrote: post #363
[deleted] wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

If you look at his post carefully, you'll notice he "collaborated" with another student. He knew he broke the rules, and he was terrified he would get caught. He did not. Personally, I think students should be able to discuss such assignments with each other, but I don't think you've accurately characterized the situation.

[deleted]

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#375

Post by jamesbritt »

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…

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.

No, I nor my comment don't assume any such thing. You commit a fallacy by assuming that because I do not think people should expect work to be rewarded in proportion to how hard it is that therefore I think work is rewarded in proportion to how valuable it is. If only.

Work is perhaps more likely to be rewarded based on greater value, but one has to make the case for the reward. Most of the time claiming "It's hard" as the reason will not get you much reward.

If you have the bargaining power to get paid more, you get paid more regardless of your contributions.

No kidding; this is part of my point.

Unfortunately there are cultural tropes that keep people from learning this sooner rather than later.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#376

Post by Dylan16807 »

badclient wrote: post #294
btilly wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so a similar situation? You have known many professors who are going through reporting a fifth of their class to the deans for cheating? You know how they feel and act during that event? Really? I firmly disbelieve. I spent 9 years in a university setting, knew a lot of professors, and I personally knew exactly nobody who went through that. And from what I know of human nature, and the likely emotions that someon…

Can't help if you choose to twist my use of the word "similar" into "same". I've been through multiple stop-te-cheating lectures and each time, the professors went out of their way to appreciate the non-cheats and minimize negative impact on the innocent due to the actions of the guilty minority.

Anti-cheating lectures aren't similar. The thing that caused problems here was a mass of effort spent going against specific students. Was that also the case with your professors?

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#377

Post by Dove »

beej71 wrote: post #165
Dove wrote: post #123

I am completely aghast. This professor is considering only what path will avoid the most hassle and difficulty for himself. Any duty he might owe honest students, fellow faculty, or even society at large doesn't seem to figure into it. He seems to see no problem at all with effectively selling high grades to cheaters, so long as there's no risk or hassle involved for him . And because he gets to use a term like Nash…

Nonsense. At the end of TFA he lists the ways he is going to effectively combat the problem at the source, as opposed to the previously wasteful and costly way he tried before.

No, he doesn't argue that he's going to effectively combat the problem. He lists a few categories of assignments in which he thinks the incentive to cheat will be reduced, only one of which actually makes it harder. And he says he doesn't think he can teach everything effectively that way.

I am all for embracing structurally cheat-proof methods, but his focus is on personal efficiency first.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#378

Post by Panos »

ipince wrote: post #328
jamesaguilar wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course I would not advocate physically pushing the student out of the office. > Instead, I sent an email to the class. I just said that there were cases of plagiarism detected and whomever cheated, could come and find me. For the rest, I would report the case . . . I guess I just read this as an invitation to come and discuss the matter with you. And I understood from this that any who didn't come would be referre…

+1 on the office hours comment. In fact, I would argue that office hours is NOT the proper venue to discuss these matters anyway. From my experience, the purpose of office hours was to clear doubts and further understanding of the class material. I would've been extremely pissed off if I came to office hours with a legitimate question about the material, only to waste my time waiting on a bunch of people arguing abou…

Well, for non-office hours I can always say to the student that they cannot come in, as I have other things to do. There is a legitimate excuse not to even start the conversation.

However, during office hours, any student can come in and discuss class-related topics. I cannot prevent students from entering my office, just because I believe that they will want to discuss their cheating penalty.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#379

Post by Panos »

athst wrote: post #336

I know this is an indirect solution, but why even have papers in a business course anyway? I was a business undergrad, and after all of the lower-level BS classes, it was all about projects and discussions in class, not paper writing. Any long-form writing I had to do was in-class writing essays and stuff on exams, where you can't copy paste. I know a lot of the CS people on here look down on business education, but…

The essay was about doing a Porter's Five Forces analysis of the wireless industry, as the new 4G technologies enter the market. The WiMax question was just a "warm up" easy question, so that students that do not know what WiMax is can start learning about the concept, before doing the 5-forces analysis.

This was the reason that, initially, I did not bother penalizing the copy & paste behavior for these questions. But, unfortunately, this was just a signal of a deeper problem with the student. After going through unharmed in the first assignment, the student cheated again in the second, Excel-based assignment.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#380

Post by chopsueyar »

gizmo wrote: post #348
lolcraft wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of condescending, defensive reply enlightens no one. I mean, equating anxiety about being accused of something to actual guilt... that's thoughtcrime. Implying that the GP is so stupid that he/she couldn't distinguish racism from bad mood... that's a straight insult.

Hold on a second! The student accused the professor of racism in the post I replied to. I quote: "It got to the point where we [...] discussed it and concluded you were just racist". To accuse a professor semi-anonymously of racism is completely outrageous, so yes, I ridiculed him for that. Especially when absolutely no evidence of potential racism is provided. Careers are destroyed over baseless accusations of racis…

"One interesting observation: Almost all cheating happened within groups with cultural ties. Koreans copy from Koreans. Indians from Indians. Greeks from Greeks. Jews from Jews. Chinese from Chinese."

Is he racist? How is he able to determine ethnicity and statistically link it to cheating?

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