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My students cheated... a lot

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Re: My students cheated... a lot

#181

Post by betwixthewires »

jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

This write up explains a lot, and is pertinent to this particular issue.

http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html

There's also an article around here somewhere on signaling theory that I don't have on hand.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#182

Post by barrysteve »

realitysballs wrote: post #4

I hate to be a cynic here but I feel like education should be engineered in a manner that either : (A) assumes cheating will take place whenever possible and create curriculum , assignments, quizzes and exams with this in mind. (B) disincentivize cheating. This is tough to do but if someone is motivated not by a grade but by the experience or knowledge gain itself cheating is no longer of interest.

The guiding principle behind B evaporated. People don't go to university for higher universal meaning anymore. They go to get knowledge they can trade for a better living.

A goal directed attitude has taken over, as described by Erwin Chargaff.

https://mobile.twitter.com/blamlab/status/129727005174625894...

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#183

Post by fancyfish »

jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

Employers are setting GPA cutoffs and checking transcripts for some of the competitive jobs for fresh grads and interns. Not unusual to see a hard GPA cutoff of 3.7, and the employer wants a copy of your transcript sent directly from the university.

As always, when an arbitrary metric becomes a goal, it will be gamed. Especially with the path dependency nowadays where your first job sets the course of your early career. Just as your academics/leadership in high school can make or break whether you get into the prestigious universities, which will quite literally pay dividends ten or twenty years down the line.

Sometimes, the most driven students are the ones cheating because the stakes are too high. If an employer has two viable candidates, one from MIT and one from a state school, they’ll go with the MIT grad as a heuristic. Or similarly if FAANG is inundated with resumes for entry-level jobs, they’ll use school/GPA as an easy first-pass filter.

I don’t see cheating changing until the incentives are minimized. Lower GPA cutoffs + casting a wider net for the entry-level roles and setting a fair skills-based bar.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#184

Post by xpe »

I've read the entire article. The cheating was rampant. This part, however, jumped out at me:

> At my most mystified, I proceeded to release a class announcement warning students not to plagiarize the academic integrity assignment.

To cheat on the very assignment that is giving you a second chance is ... stupid and/or brazen and/or pitiful.

So, why warn the students again? This was their second chance, right?

I'm open to many reasonable definitions of justice, ethics, and fairness. However, at that point, given the context, reporting the offending students seems the most just thing to do.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#185

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

My school had an endless stream of Saudi students only there for government cash and they'd cheat nonstop.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#186

Post by xpe »

geraldwhen wrote: post #59
pvg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing is that college is voluntary You voluntarily agree to abide by the academic integrity rules. If you don't want to do that, you can voluntarily go to a different institution with different rules and standards. The goal of the place is learning not pointscoring and cheating undermines that.

The goal of college is to receive a degree to unlock job postings. I did not go to college to “learn”, and I’m not sure I know anyone who did.

I'm sorry to hear that. Care to share a bit of your story?

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#187

Post by andrewflnr »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #101

> There were 100+ students in the class > I was suffering technical difficulties while giving online lectures. > It was extremely demoralizing to teach to a class that was blatantly cheating the entire time. How demoralizing do you think it is to be paying a fair bit of money (or more likely taking on a fair bit of debt) to be just 1 of 100+ students in a poorly functioning online class? To be clear, I'm not blaming…

> not having a enough empathy for these students

Are you fucking kidding me? After the absurd lengths he went to to give them chance after chance after they kept cheating, lied to his face about it, possibly threatened each other with violence, and repeatedly plagiarized their apologies for plagiarizing? After all this, you have the gall to claim he doesn't have enough empathy? What does it take, in your view?

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#189

Post by gnicholas »

ALittleLight wrote: post #146
gnicholas wrote: post #109

What would you tell your child to do if he/she were in this class, and were aware of the massive cheating happening in the chat? Should the student report the cheating to the professor? Assuming there was a curve in the class, how do you deal with the "but everyone else is doing it" argument with regard to benefiting from the cheating (even passively, by seeing the questions/answers posted)? I have wondered about sim…

I would tell my children not to leave a digital record of cheating and that they should choose a more useful major than psychology. Lots (probably most) of people are in college for the credentials. Most of the rest are there because they feel they are supposed to be there. They do the work required for the credentials. Most of what is taught in college has little value or applicability and is quickly forgotten. Chea…

Ha, I actually know an old guy who went to a prestigious university to sit in on classes as we was phasing into retirement. He was the kind of person who didn't care that he was 3x the age of everyone else in the class, but I imagine one of the reasons adults don't attend uni classes in person is that it could be seen as weird/creepy.

Re: My students cheated... a lot

#190

Post by p1necone »

jmull wrote: post #64

I honestly don’t get widespread cheating like this… You’re paying so much money for these courses — probably a ridiculous amount, so much you may never recoup — … so at least get everything out of it you can. Otherwise, why sign up in the first place? Let me tell you: essentially no one cares what grade you got in your courses. (Sure, there are cases, but over time they quickly attenuate from “sometimes” to “never” a…

Most people who go to University for the first time aren't doing it because they /want/ to. It's just an extension of the regular primary/middle/highschool education they were doing previously, none of which was optional.

They're also probably not paying for it out of pocket - either they've taken out loans that they haven't really considered the long term impact of, or their parents are covering some/all of it.

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