This spring term I had two nearly identical academic integrity cases. Two sets of partners turned in nearly identical lab reports, with attempts to hide it by changing fonts and other cosmetics. My default penalty for such situations is a zero for both parties. However, in each case, it turned out that one student had let their partner have access to their report with good intentions, and the partner stole the work, claiming it as their own.
Showing posts with label cheating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheating. Show all posts
Intellectual Property
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
Matthew 10:16
Occasionally I have the opportunity to teach students about the value of protecting one’s intellectual property. Today I handled two cases of academic integrity issues where one lab partner cut their partner’s work from wholesale cloth.
Who Helped You?
Today while walking to class, I passed a student sitting outside. As I walked by, he was looking over a paper that had been graded and returned to him. In red ink, it said, “95 Who helped you?”
As I was in a hurry, I didn’t stop or turn around to see his face, so my musings are just speculation. However, this was a profound situation. The grader’s comment can be taken at least two ways.
1) The positive way—who has helped you to improve? Who inspired you? Who helped obtain the information? The grader is saying “way to go!” “Good job!” and so on.
2) The negative way—From whom did you cheat? Who did this for you? With whom did you commit collusion? The grader is saying, “you aren’t good enough to do this well.” “Not only are you a bad student, but you’re a dishonest one.”
Either interpretation tells a significant story. What story does your feedback tell your students?
SDG
Confession
I blew it today.
I am currently participating in a special program through our University Extension service. They have partnered with a foreign chemical company. This company identifies talented high school students in its native country and hires them upon graduation. The students are sent to one of several partner schools in the US such as mine for 18 months of intensive English, study skills and introduction to basic technical courses (physics, calculus, and, oh, yeah, chemistry). Upon completion of the program, they enter various American universities for their undergrad degree in engineering before going back to work for the company.
I got these students in January to give them a very remedial introduction to freshman level chemistry. Some of these folks have had 3 years of high school chemistry already, but they learned it in their native tongue and by their native school system, which is very stringently rote learning. So learning a complex subject like chemistry in a new language with the critical thinking methods we use here can be a real challenge, hence the program.
When they started with me, they had been here a full year already, and are tired.
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