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My students cheated... a lot

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Re: My students cheated... a lot

#771

Post by bhargav »

DeathArrow wrote: post #620
hnarn wrote: post #525

Threads like these are always frustrating, because as usual people (programmers in this case) freely air their opinions on how schools are broken with phrases like “we need to fix the system”. As someone who studied pedagogy for years and quit due to an immense frustration with exactly this — how broken the system is — I would encourage you to entertain the thought that maybe, you as a person who is almost in all cas…

I never gave a fuck about grades. For some courses I had below average marks, for others I was the best. I studied because I wanted to genuinely understand how things work and how I can solve problems and how, beginning with one ideea I can extend it or come up with an entirely different idea. And I know I will get downvoted for saying this, but for me, programming without having a solid understanding of CS backgroun…

Sorry but I’m gonna be very blunt. I think sound pretentious as fuck.

> I studied because I wanted to genuinely understand how things work

I don’t think you do.

Genuine curiosity forged in one’s own mind. It is not something that can be bounded, repackaged as a curriculum, and sold in university. It’s like ether, it’s everywhere and can be captured by anyone, through multiple means.

University degrees for any professions are useless. Even in medicine! There are shit doctors and good doctors. Most people here would’ve run through a couple of them before picking one. I’ve been with my current doctor for 10 years now, because they are really good, empathic, and teach me rather than just pushing pills.

Software in my humble opinion works the same way. I care more about what someone does with the tools they have, rather than them being made of wood or metal or gold

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#772

Post by acjohnson55 »

At Princeton, this would have led to year suspensions for all students involved. At least when I was there 15 years ago. I know numerous people who had to take a year off. Not saying this is right. It probably is too punitive and disruptive.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#773

Post by jonathanstrange »

hnarn wrote: post #525

Threads like these are always frustrating, because as usual people (programmers in this case) freely air their opinions on how schools are broken with phrases like “we need to fix the system”. As someone who studied pedagogy for years and quit due to an immense frustration with exactly this — how broken the system is — I would encourage you to entertain the thought that maybe, you as a person who is almost in all cas…

I can't see how this addresses the main problem mentioned in the article. My take is that if a student cheats, they should be expelled from university. If you're very lenient, introduce three strikes. The first two strikes will nullify your course as if it hadn't been taken, the third will get you expelled from university. I personally think that would be too lenient, though, and believe that nobody who cheats in any way should have a place in academia. This question has nothing to do with the quality of teaching or problems with tests, etc. It's a matter of intellectual integrity.

When I first heard that students often cheat in higher education not too long ago, I was shocked. When I studied during the 90s at two good German universities, I had not ever heard of anyone who cheated in any course. A cheating student would have been a huge scandal. To be fair, I studied philosophy and general linguistics. I guess people in more practical disciplines cheated even then, e.g. economics -- more specifically, "BWL" in Germany -- always had a bad reputation. However, even in these disciplines cheating was rare. Its incomprehensible to me why lecturers and universities nowadays appear to be so lenient about it.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#774

Post by Deritiod »

hnarn wrote: post #525

Threads like these are always frustrating, because as usual people (programmers in this case) freely air their opinions on how schools are broken with phrases like “we need to fix the system”. As someone who studied pedagogy for years and quit due to an immense frustration with exactly this — how broken the system is — I would encourage you to entertain the thought that maybe, you as a person who is almost in all cas…

I assumed you would say that the programmers should start working for the school system but your final description.of problems is not difficult to solve.

The teachers are the problem.

After all I was also sitting in school for 13 years

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#775

Post by analog31 »

hnarn wrote: post #525

Threads like these are always frustrating, because as usual people (programmers in this case) freely air their opinions on how schools are broken with phrases like “we need to fix the system”. As someone who studied pedagogy for years and quit due to an immense frustration with exactly this — how broken the system is — I would encourage you to entertain the thought that maybe, you as a person who is almost in all cas…

>>> HOW do you measure knowledge?

The teachers I've known don't really care about measuring knowledge. They're looking for a reasonable way to motivate engagement with the class, that's not too disruptive of the overall flow of the course. One professor told me, "A student who has made an effort to work through the homework problems a couple times should be able to easily get a B on the exam.

Testing also acknowledges that you're competing for your students' attention, and if you give no assessments, your students will rationally focus all of their effort on the courses that do. Preparation for the test becomes a reasonable measure, not of your knowledge, but of how much effort you need to apply to a course. Since students have been taking exams for years, each student knows how to calibrate their own level of effort.

As a student, after some trial and error, I developed a pretty good routine for getting A's in the two kinds of classes I was taking: Those that were dominated by solving problems and proofs, such as math and physics, and those that were based primarily on written assignments, such as art history.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#777

Post by cycomanic »

silversmith wrote: post #428
failTide wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taking an upper level marine biology course - the tests were VERY difficult, but they were take-home, do them at your leisure. I was cool with it. But walked into a coffee shop one day and found 75% of the class sharing answers and cheating anyway.

It seems very funny to me as a programmer, that what university calls "cheating" and threatens consequences, the industry calls "consulting with your colleagues" and encourages.

Except if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired. You are not allowed to "consult" with anyone, so why should you be allowed to consult with anyone about your homework.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#778

Post by bumby »

bhargav wrote: post #771
DeathArrow wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never gave a fuck about grades. For some courses I had below average marks, for others I was the best. I studied because I wanted to genuinely understand how things work and how I can solve problems and how, beginning with one ideea I can extend it or come up with an entirely different idea. And I know I will get downvoted for saying this, but for me, programming without having a solid understanding of CS backgroun…

Sorry but I’m gonna be very blunt. I think sound pretentious as fuck. > I studied because I wanted to genuinely understand how things work I don’t think you do. Genuine curiosity forged in one’s own mind. It is not something that can be bounded, repackaged as a curriculum, and sold in university. It’s like ether, it’s everywhere and can be captured by anyone, through multiple means. University degrees for any profess…

>University degrees for any professions are useless. Even in medicine!

I think there is a fundamental distinction between the professions of medicine and law, in that they have licensing boards that are a means of ensuring a standardized minimum amount of competency. Computer science does not.

Despite the fact that many call themselves "software engineers", they are not engineers in the legal sense of the word in US, unless they also have an engineering license. The point of these licenses is, in part, to protect society in professions where they are expected to ethically serve in the public good. One of the problems with CS degrees in the past is that there is no standardized curriculum, so one CS student may have had zero semesters of calculus and another required to take 4. The standardization is what helps pull structure from the ether. That structure is compromised when people cheat.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#780

Post by whymedude »

mightybyte wrote: post #322

"A couple digressions. I have multi-dimensional empathy for my students. Is that a thing? It is. It means that I learn more from my students than they learn from me. There are more students than me, and they have so much more stuff going on than I do. Although I don’t condone cheating at all, I can recognize that students sometimes resort to cheating because of other life stuff going on. Plus, it was/is a global pand…

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