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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

#231

Post by Panos »

jacques_chester wrote: post #219
Panos wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought of that as well. With this approach you hit another structural problem: activities such as solving problems etc are considered appropriate only for "recitations" (i.e., done by TA's) and not for "lectures" (the part where the professor teaches). Kind of stupid, I know. But it is really impossible to violate the mandate that my teaching should not be "wasted" on doing assignments in class etc. And yes, when…

By whom?

By the administration, which separates the credits for the courses into "recitations" and "lectures". The TA's get paid for the recitations/activities-based hours, the professors for the lectures.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#232

Post by gommm »

" Suggestions to change completely the assignments from year to year are appealing on the first sight but they cause others types of problems: It is very difficult to know in advance if an assignment is going to be too easy, too hard, or too ambiguous. Even small-scale testing with TA's and other faculty does not help. You need to "test" the new assignment by giving it to students. If it is a good one, you want to keep it. "

I've often heard that from professors in the US, but in my university in France we had a rule forbidding professors from reusing exams and things were fine... Now one thing though, exams were made so that the average is around 10 or 12 out of 20... In cases where the gaussian curve was centered too low, the teachers would decide to grade out of 22 or 24 points...

I have to say though that the idea of using public project, competitions and peer reviewed projects is a very good idea and worked well when I was a student...

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#233

Post by Shenglong »

There are a lot of comments, and most of the constructive things I've wanted to say have already been said.

Panos, I think your conclusion is the correct one - and you should stand by it. I came to a similar conclusion (different setting) about cheating, and whether it's worth it to pursue it. In more than just teaching, switching strategies is often more effective than enforcing the original strategy.

I hear you're a good lecturer - take pride in that. There aren't many, really.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#234

Post by carbonica »

gamble wrote: post #140
carbonica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I attended college, you get a year's suspension for getting caught copying a sentence without citation. Anything as egregious as this presented would've meant a class full of suspended students.

I'm sure that was the policy, but how often was it enforced? Most universities have draconian policies against cheating that are never enforced, except in the most egregious cases. It's extremely rare for any school to discipline as many people as this; when it does happen, it tends to be national news.

28 students last year (out of about 4,000) were reported. 17 were suspended, 7 got probation, 3 were found not responsible, and 1 had the allegations formally rescinded.

This is roughly consistent year-to-year.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#235

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#237

Post by carbonica »

mnutt wrote: post #218
carbonica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I attended college, you get a year's suspension for getting caught copying a sentence without citation. Anything as egregious as this presented would've meant a class full of suspended students.

That's also the equivalent of saying "a single line of source code identical to other source code is copyright infringement". Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes there are limited ways to express obvious ideas, so I don't get how such a hard-line stance helps anything.

> Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

This isn't code, these are written assignments we're discussing. English is pretty damn flexible, and nobody gets suspended for "Abraham Lincoln died in 1865." There's no point invoking degenerate cases to argue against a policy. That's just silly.

When a nontrivial sentence appears both in an essay and in one of the listed sources, the Wikipedia page, or a top Google hit for the subject, you can draw inferences. If you can argue that you just happened to write:

> However, just six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was shot and killed by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

just as it appears on Wikipedia at present, and convince your peers it's more likely than not that you did, then you won't be punished. Not unsurprisingly, such pleas typically (but not always) fail.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#238

Post by jamesbritt »

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.

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.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#239

Post by ohashi »

vacri wrote: post #131
ohashi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that you cannot see it from his perspective. He tried to catch cheaters and was punished by the school system for it. He earned less money for trying to enforce a no cheating policy. Would you work twice the amount of time for less pay? Most of us probably wouldn't. It seems like a prudent financial decision for him. The problem seems systemic, he throws his hands in the air and gives up because he canno…

He earned less money for trying to enforce a no cheating policy. No, his pay was increased by less than in previous years. He didn't actually earn less. Would you work twice the amount of time for less pay? He didn't work twice the time. 32 lecture hours is an indicator of the workload - he spends far more on the course than just contact hours. The problem seems systemic, he throws his hands in the air and gives up b…

He made less money if you consider opportunity cost. He could have made more by not pursuing the cheating. He also spent a lot more time, lowering the amount he earned divided by the amount of time spent at the job.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#240

Post by ohashi »

justin_vanw wrote: post #126
ohashi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that you cannot see it from his perspective. He tried to catch cheaters and was punished by the school system for it. He earned less money for trying to enforce a no cheating policy. Would you work twice the amount of time for less pay? Most of us probably wouldn't. It seems like a prudent financial decision for him. The problem seems systemic, he throws his hands in the air and gives up because he canno…

Since you asked, I would refuse to work anywhere that I was expected to stand aside and ignore fraud, or where I was punished for doing what everyone would agree is the right thing, in this case trying to catch and identify cheaters in compliance with the rules of the institution . I would rail against it every day and try to change the system by doing the right thing and calling out other faculty for not doing so, p…

That's nice. But you're not him. Even you recognize a high likelihood of failure. He doesn't want to fight that losing battle, I cannot blame him.
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