The Fall of Academics at Harvard

Post by mathattack » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 12:46 AM UTC

The amazing thing to me are the comments. There is little disagreement on the existence of rampant cheating, and more about how and why.

Quotes from the comments:

"Harry Lewis can also be part of the problem. He is, along with Bob Scalise and Tom Stemberg, one of the three biggest cheerleaders on campus in favor of lowering academic standards to produce a championship basketball team."

"Not only are "less than As" at Harvard occasionally seen as a sign that the student isn't smart or isn't working hard, but actual As aren't recognized or appreciated that much because they've been set as the status quo. This means that no matter what the grade, students here can feel the need to keep pushing themselves and striving for that elusive recognition and appreciation."

"Here's my thought on why cheating is so widespread here: I think that the motivation is simple, and is rooted in the fact that before coming here, we were among the very best at our high school. Then, when we got here, most of us still wanted to be among the best, to still get all A's while being a leader in extracurriculars, and so on. However, courses here are probably much harder than what we dealt with in high school."

It was also strange seeing Mankiw under the bus. Like or dislike his politics, he is a prolific blogger which generally suggests being in touch. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/

Again from the comments: "Harry Lewis is correct in stating that students cheat more in classes where they themselves feel "cheated" by the professor. It is baffling and inexcusable that Harvard continues to let Mankiw "teach" Ec 10 which affords him a credential he does not deserve. Talk about lying on your resume."

Post by starky » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 7:38 AM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #14

Homework is how one prepares for tests. Long form take home assignments should be designed with collaboration in mind. Students explaining their understanding of a topic to each other is one of the most powerful ways for them to learn. I am fond of the saying that one doesn't truly understand a topic until one has explained it to another. In class tests should be long, brutal, and test student's ability to come to th…

I fully agree, and I had professors at my school that also believed in this. Educational institutions need to modernize their teaching methods to ensure that students are actually committed to their education and have disincentive to cheat.

The fact is that we live in a world where people almost always work in a connected fashion and you have to expect that the students are going to work together and the course should be designed around this. Team based learning is a fantastic tool for teaching, and by designing assessments properly you can make it practically impossible for cheating to occur, both due to open ended nature of the problems and because your fellow students that you are working with keep you from being dishonest.

I had one course where you worked in a group of about 6, and the assignments were all design problems where you needed to optimize your solutions, which always meant working closely with your teammates to make everything work together. You learn so much more when you have to explain and understand what everyone's MATLAB code does. It was in your best interest to make sure you knew everything inside and out because there was going to be something like that problem on the exam and they were so long that you had to know exactly what you were doing or else you weren't going to finish (but were always short enough to finish). I can without a doubt say this was one of the best courses I took during school, and the course I remember the most about 2.5 years later.

Re: The Fall of Academics at Harvard

Re: The Fall of Academics at Harvard