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Why I will never pursue cheating again

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Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#91

Post by endgame »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #55
kahawe wrote: post #15

I don't know what it is with you US Americans and "cheating"... but it seems to be a very touchy subject in your culture, almost like violating someone's honors. I never understood that.

It is violating honor, the honor of the institution and everyone who is sacrificing their time and treasure to advance your education. The rules governing cheating are even sometimes called "Honor Codes". Finally, from a Christian perspective, putting your name on work you did not complete is a form of lying and is immoral.

I really hope that the downvotes aren't from people who dislike this poster's Christian perspective.

I suspect that the HN majority is atheist, but it's still no excuse.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#92

Post by endgame »

atarian wrote: post #33
kahawe wrote: post #15

I don't know what it is with you US Americans and "cheating"... but it seems to be a very touchy subject in your culture, almost like violating someone's honors. I never understood that.

As a student I pay thousands of dollars to earn a degree from a respectable institution. When students cheat and get away with it like in the OP's article, it dilutes the value of my degree.

Not only that, it can also wreck the classes. If the response to rampant cheating is "oh, the course was too hard", then the standards to which students are held will fall.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#94

Post by wisty »

justin_vanw wrote: post #83

This professor is a huge part of the problem. He's a tenured professor saying "caring about cheating is counter productive", which to me says "I would rather have an easy life where I don't have to work hard than to protect the reputation of the institution I work for and ensure that students that graduate have learned something along the way". He complains he had to work almost 44 hours (2 hours * 22 cheaters) and r…

A math majors can just copy the homework. 90% of it is mechanical, and 10% requires a "twist". You can copy the "twist", and the rest is easy. Or copy it all (in a slightly different format), and just claim that it's the same because it's ... well, the same. Unless you both make a mistake. But it's even easier than copying essays.

Still, the exam will be a problem. But if lots of students cheat, the lecturers will start making exams easier, because so many students struggle. And in Australia, there's a big belief amongst the education policy mandarins that exams are useless because they don't teach anything.

Still, most Math majors know their degree is useless if they don't learn anything, and they chose a brutally hard course with no set career path just to learn, so why bother cheating? But Engineering majors is another story.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#95

Post by SoftwareMaven »

rkalla wrote: post #17

Fascinating read... sort of rings bells in my head along the lines of DRM/piracy cold war. Reading the article and see the greater and greater extents the students were going through to cheat and the arms-race occurring between the teacher and the students, he leads you to his ultimate conclusion: the game has to change. You can see the writing on the wall as you read through. Written "brain dump" style assignments,…

Notice how popular the "Why go to college?!" conversation is now adays?

I can assure you that conversation (in the context you mean) is not happening all over, but rather limited to a small subset of Internet echo chambers.

My kids still get the same rhetoric from all directions. Unfortunately, that rhetoric doesn't include a cost/value justification. Education is an investment and a means to an end, but most people don't see it that way.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#96

Post by hrabago »

justin_vanw wrote: post #83

This professor is a huge part of the problem. He's a tenured professor saying "caring about cheating is counter productive", which to me says "I would rather have an easy life where I don't have to work hard than to protect the reputation of the institution I work for and ensure that students that graduate have learned something along the way". He complains he had to work almost 44 hours (2 hours * 22 cheaters) and r…

I don't know where in the article there was mention of the number of hours he worked in a week.

I've conducted several training sessions in the course of my career, and I can tell you that the time consumed by the actual class/training is a very small portion of the time spent by the one giving it. Preparation time can be 5-20 times as long, depending on the complexity. Now it is true that professors would reuse past materials, however, there is also time going through submissions of attendees, understanding them, and determining a fair grade. I'm not familiar with the US university system, except for what I see in movies/tv programs, so the professor likely had help.

That said, 44 hours spent on overhead that also degrades the experience of everyone involved, and as a result can interfere with the actual learning experience, is indeed worth finding alternative approaches for.

Instituting a system that by its nature is difficult to cheat is a much better approach.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#97

Post by justin_vanw »

wisty wrote: post #94
justin_vanw wrote: post #83

This professor is a huge part of the problem. He's a tenured professor saying "caring about cheating is counter productive", which to me says "I would rather have an easy life where I don't have to work hard than to protect the reputation of the institution I work for and ensure that students that graduate have learned something along the way". He complains he had to work almost 44 hours (2 hours * 22 cheaters) and r…

A math majors can just copy the homework. 90% of it is mechanical, and 10% requires a "twist". You can copy the "twist", and the rest is easy. Or copy it all (in a slightly different format), and just claim that it's the same because it's ... well, the same. Unless you both make a mistake. But it's even easier than copying essays. Still, the exam will be a problem. But if lots of students cheat, the lecturers will st…

I don't believe that 90% of majors copy homework. I can say I never saw any cheating at all on 400 level math homework at my university. I graded assignments for Number Theory for several semesters, and I can say I didn't see any cheating there either.

Generally the homework is just meant to give you a good bit of practice, there is no way to pass the class without passing the exams.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#98

Post by techiferous »

justin_vanw wrote: post #83

This professor is a huge part of the problem. He's a tenured professor saying "caring about cheating is counter productive", which to me says "I would rather have an easy life where I don't have to work hard than to protect the reputation of the institution I work for and ensure that students that graduate have learned something along the way". He complains he had to work almost 44 hours (2 hours * 22 cheaters) and r…

"What a lazy coward."

Ouch! This professor is caught between students who don't want to learn and an administration who does not know how to properly measure teacher performance. Give the guy a break; he's in a tough situation.

By the way, insults and personal attacks are not welcome here at Hacker News.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#99

Post by Dove »

wisty wrote: post #94
justin_vanw wrote: post #83

This professor is a huge part of the problem. He's a tenured professor saying "caring about cheating is counter productive", which to me says "I would rather have an easy life where I don't have to work hard than to protect the reputation of the institution I work for and ensure that students that graduate have learned something along the way". He complains he had to work almost 44 hours (2 hours * 22 cheaters) and r…

A math majors can just copy the homework. 90% of it is mechanical, and 10% requires a "twist". You can copy the "twist", and the rest is easy. Or copy it all (in a slightly different format), and just claim that it's the same because it's ... well, the same. Unless you both make a mistake. But it's even easier than copying essays. Still, the exam will be a problem. But if lots of students cheat, the lecturers will st…

A math majors can just copy the homework. 90% of it is mechanical, and 10% requires a "twist".

That may be true in the lower level courses, but around 400 level, the work switches over entirely from calculations to proofs. Proofs are as widely varied and difficult to copy as essays, and are much harder to edit without screwing up unless you really understand them.

Re: Why I will never pursue cheating again

#100

Post by stonemetal »

brudgers wrote: post #32

Once the author decides that the academic standard allows copying and pasting, it ceases to become cheating - and he has joined those for whom the term "academic honesty" has lost all meaning. Seriously, when 44 hours over the course of a semester is too much work to uphold a minimum standard, the issue is not confined to students and the author has no moral high ground because they have abandoned the tough part of t…

What I don't get is why he spent all that time on it. Catch someone cheating turn them in, no need for the in office histrionics, or long winded lectures about how to site sources.
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