technilogical break thrus in cheating
Seems in today's world technological sheating is more exciting then simple doing the work
from button hole cameras to wrist scanners students appear to spend more time than if they jsut applied their brains
Hi Bill,
You got that right. The effort to learn would be so much easier than the effort to try and outsmart the instructor through cheating.
Gary
Bill,
This is an interesting topic to discuss. A few classes ago, I had an experience where a student chose to cheat on a mid-term exam using an electronic copy of my exam. This student was failing in every category, except the 100% that he got on his mid-term.
What I chose to do was to allow him to believe that he had got away with cheating, but I adminstered my final exam with pen/paper and NO PCs or monitors were allowed to be on at all.
The student that cheated on the midterm planned on being able to cheat for the final, and so he figured that he did not need to study.
His plan did not work out so well :)
Inoovations in technology have made it so much easier for our students to cheat. It is not longer about having a cheat sheet or writing on the palm of your hand. Today, the use of text messaging is being used as a way of cheating in the classroom. Ease of texting is incereasing as the years pass. Most of us can blast a simple sentence text wihin a few seconds. Our younger students are texting savats.
Hi Matthew,
Good point about cheating. Students seem to always be on the cutting edge of new methods to get out of work or secure answers that are not their own. At least it keeps our job interesting in our attempt to stay ahead of them.
I am always sadden when I catch a student cheating because it means that he/she is not ethical and lacks a professional attitude. If they will cheat in class they will cheat in the workplace and this makes them an employment risk. Also, from that point forward I do not have any respect for them and I want to earn and give respect to my students.
Gary
What's a wrist scanner, and how have students used it to cheat? Fascinating.
I am not sure that I can imagine anything more useless than a student with a 4.0 GPA that cheated their way through the entire course. Dont these cheaters realize that they are going to have no idea how to actually USE their education??
Hi Matt,
Thank you for your comments on this topic. I have no idea how these people will survive when they are asked to actually do something or use their knowledge since they don't have any knowledge. I would be scared to death if I was one of them because I would constantly worry that someone would find out that even if I have a 4.0 GPA I don't know anything about my field. What a sad situation to be in.
Gary
My tests are done in pen and paper. Cell Phones are not to be out, in use or even visible during the test. You as the instructor must be aware of the technology and keep a close eye during the test. I do have a question though, .... what is a wrist scanner?
When math is required this seems to be a bit harder to control, from students having complex calculators that can record information to students only having access to phone calculators.
If the standard is set from the beginning, I think that requiring simple calculators for general math problems is just.
