Against Cop Shit • Hacker News Board

Re: Against Cop Shit

#31

Post by 542458 » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #11

ses1984 wrote: post #2

I'm not sure I'm against plagiarism detection tech.

Plagiarism detection is only needed because we are using completion/grading of work to determine whether students graduate, GPAs etc. The article is arguing that we shouldn't be so dependent on the "grade of homework" metric at all, so plagiarism should be less impactful and less incentivized.

I have seen students plagiarize co-op work term reports, which at the institution that I marked at are binary pass/fail with a near 100% pass rate (barring plagiarism). The assignment isn't long, is on a subject the students already know, and you can hand in some pretty terribly written garbage and still pass. But students still try to plagiarize on it - there's a subset of the population that wants the degree, but can't/won't put in the time to do the actual work.

Re: Against Cop Shit

#32

Post by jgwil2 » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #14

Haha I just vouched it back from the grave... [EDIT:]... and now it's [flagged] again. I suspect flaggers may not have actually read TFA. It was published in February, so it doesn't specifically refer to recent public demonstrations. It's pretty clear which side the author would take...

I think HN could really benefit from some adjustment of the flagging/killing process. An article like this is going to attract lots of knee-jerk flaggers based on the title alone, but the guidelines state, "...please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." Perhaps in this case the title could have been changed under the "linkbait" criterion. It's just annoying to see things flagged within minutes of submission when clearly no one has had time to read it.

Re: Against Cop Shit

#33

Post by jml7c5 » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

This is unreasonably inflammatory (both the language, and the way it's being associated with current anger at policing) for what is an interesting but not cutthroat topic. Swearing a lot is attention-grabbing (see the success of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck", and the pile of "Blank Blank Swe*r Blank" titles that followed), but it's the essayist's equivalent of clickbait.

I'm aware this is an older post, but how much discussion would this be getting if the title wasn't so provocative, or if it wasn't associated with current events?

Re: Against Cop Shit

#34

Post by wpietri » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #12

What do you do with people who cannot operate in an unstructured environment because their schooling has been completely authoritarian? It's a tough problem. You try to move away from worksheets and attendance taking because it's a university, students oftentimes have family or work responsibilities, so you hand out problems and administer exams, and it completely backfires. Up to now, everything was rigidly structur…

I wish I had a good answer for you!

I think the way the one solves this with individuals is through behaviors akin to parenting and/or therapy. And in a team context, I do a lot with collaboration, feedback loops, retrospectives, and 1:1 discussions. But in a traditional classroom setting, I don't think those can be directly applied. A teacher just doesn't have time to give all their students that level of therapy, but the individual-evaluation model breaks most of the tools that make sense in a team context.

The only hope I see is a Montessori-like approach. Having seen kids go through that, they learn a level of collaboration and mutual aid that's missing in industrial-style education. With that kind of collaboration, I can see ways to apply the tricks we use with cross-functional software teams. Of course, Montessori students also learn goal-directed behaviors that suit unstructured environments, so maybe it's all of a piece.

Re: Against Cop Shit

#35

Post by reading-at-work » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #22

majormajor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plagiarism detection tech seems like a solving-the-wrong-problem attempt to address a symptom of how we're trying to mass-produce education to save money. If we actually want people to learn, plagiarism detection isn't the problem, it's the industrial factory approach in the first place. Get rid of that, and instructors can know and talk with their students well enough to tell what they actually know and understand i…

I don't agree with this at all. Assessment is completely necessary to understand where a student is at, and plagiarism renders assessment ineffective.

I think the point of the person you're replying to is that there are other methods of assessment which would render plagiarism ineffective - such as in-person presentations and conversations. But, teachers don't have the time and resources to do that with all of their students.

Effective writing is an important skill, so I don't think in-person conversations would replace papers, but from a conversation with a student who plagiarized their paper you could probably tell that they didn't really understand what they "wrote."

Re: Against Cop Shit

#36

Post by syndacks » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #14

Haha I just vouched it back from the grave... [EDIT:]... and now it's [flagged] again. I suspect flaggers may not have actually read TFA. It was published in February, so it doesn't specifically refer to recent public demonstrations. It's pretty clear which side the author would take...

This is an extremely important topic. OP I think you are sort of shooting yourself (and the topic) in the foot with the use of "shit" -- can you not use a more descriptive word please?

Re: Against Cop Shit

#37

Post by Minor49er » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

This author categorizes plagiarism detection and rigorous learning experiences along with "any interface with actual cops". This is under the blanket presumption that all of these things "[presume] an adversarial relationship between students and teachers", which is fundamentally wrong. He is, by his own admission in the post, an inexperienced teacher. He also does not appear to be a parent. I think he should get a lot more experience and think about his position before writing a post like this again because he is advocating for a less-educated classroom.

Re: Against Cop Shit

#38

Post by notkaiho » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

notJim wrote: post #28

mjw1007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, you remove the incentive for plagiarism by making the students' reward for their work be what they learn as a result, rather than some kind of certificate.

Oh cool, so we just need to fix a massive social problem that's generated by long-running structural trends within our society and economy. Then we can stop using plagiarism detection software.

... So we shouldn't try to fix the problem?

Re: Against Cop Shit

#39

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

pkage wrote: post #8

bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote: post #3

"cop shit" what, like cancel culture? sure, let's do it.

This doesn't seem relevant to the topic at hand.

It's considerably worse than "not relevant". It's a cheap rhetorical trick, blatantly misrepresenting what someone is saying to try to turn that person's statement against a position that the person supports. It's usually done in the form of a drive-by one-line comment. And it deserves to be downvoted to oblivion every time it happens, regardless of your position on the topic, just because the technique is so blatantly dishonest.

Re: Against Cop Shit

#40

Post by 542458 » Tue, Jun 16, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #29

austenallred wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with this at all. Assessment is completely necessary to understand where a student is at, and plagiarism renders assessment ineffective.

In the past we solved that by the instructor discussing the material with the students; it would quickly become apparent who knew something and who didn't. Unfortunately classes have become too big for that.

That injects a ton of bias into your marking though. Under that method, shy students and students with poor verbal skills (for example, ESL) don't stand a chance. I have seen excellent work come out of students that you could barely talk about the material, but could produce excellent assignments (this is in a domain where plagiarism would be very easy to detect, so I'm very confident it's actually their work).