Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Educational Issue

I read the article "Students say using tech to cheat isn't cheating" by Meris Stansbury. This article brought up a lot of issues that had me worried all year while teaching. I have caught countless students cheating in various ways. Most often, when students are caught cheating, they do not get embarrassed or really even care. If I had ever been caught cheating by a teacher, I would have been so embarrassed and scared to death that the teacher would call home to my parents. Now it seems that students do not see that cheating is a big deal. If I have students do a research paper of some sort, I have to google most of the essays because many of them end up being plagerized, even though I teach them about plagerism. In the article it says, "just over half of students polled (52 percent) admitted to some form of cheating involving the internet." It is amazing to me that over half of our students have cheated using the internet. This leads me to think about what we should do as teachers to prevent this and to help students see the dangers and drawbacks of cheating. I think it is important for all teachers to stress the honor code and to teach students about plagerism. I think many students do not think that using the internet is cheating and we need to find a way to teach them that it is.
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9 comments:

  1. robotleggsJune 23, 2009 at 1:03 PM

    although I'm not a teacher, I can completely relate to what you said about cheating. I can't believe how many students plagiarize even though the consequences (especially at the college level) are so severe. I would have reacted the same way if I had cheated and been caught - scared to death! I think that as educators, we have to think about WHY students cheat. it obviously isn't enough that we're telling them that it's wrong to cheat or what might happen if they do. I think that students cheat/plagiarize for a number of reasons: lack of skill, lack of interest in the assignment, inability to see why the assignment is important, etc. therefore, we not only need to teach students why it is important to do their own work, but also make sure we are teaching the skills needed to complete assignments and give the opportunity for choice in topics for assignments as well as the methods allowed for presenting their knowledge (i.e., paper, project, presentation, etc) that is tailored to their interests.

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  2. ElizabethJune 23, 2009 at 5:38 PM

    Excellent point, Emily.
    You said everything I wanted to say! :)

    I do have one question for you, Beth. Do your students know that you are going to check online for snippets of their essays? Maybe if students know the risk involved in their decision to plagiarize (along with all of Emily's points), you might see a decrease in the behavior.

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  3. melanie harrisJune 24, 2009 at 7:03 AM

    This is a major challenge when it comes to researching on the internet. I have discussed it with collegues often because we have a hard time explaining plagarism to our second grade students. Before doing a project we spend two computer periods researching and then putting what they have found into their own words.

    Elizabeth's idea about telling them ahead of time that you will be checking is a great idea. If you give them a rubric ahead of time putting things into your own words may even be part of the points??

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  4. bethb2June 24, 2009 at 12:37 PM

    I do tell them that I will be looking online. I tell them it takes up a lot of my time, and if they get caught they will not be able to redo the assignment and they will receive a zero. This is something on the syllabus that I discuss with them the first day of school too. I honestly think they believe I will not spend the time looking for each of my 130 students' essays online because their other teachers do not do it. Throughout the whole year, this happens but they still do not believe I will spend my free time researching to make sure they do not plagiarize. I agree and think giving them a rubric ahead of time is always the best thing to do. I find this to be very helpful as a student and as a teacher.

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  5. UnknownJune 25, 2009 at 11:28 AM

    I agree completely. I had students create a poetry notebook last year which basically just consisted of several different types of poems they were to create after we spent time going over the format. The end product was a collection of poem. When I got to the end of one student's book after reading six or seven poems I come to a free verse that is written about love using elegant words and things she really would have no idea about at that age. I googled the title and poof! there was the poem. I called home and her parents seemed a bit confused as to why I was making a big deal about it!

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  6. Jennifer PinckneyJune 25, 2009 at 2:16 PM

    Beth-
    I just posted about the same thing on my blog. It is astounding how many students use technology to cheat and don't even think it is cheating. While we have a no cell phones policy at our school I catch students texting each other during class the answers. In addition, I am a math teacher and I have noticed students sharing a calculator because on the graphing calcs they can, in essence, "text" each other the answers. I am a huge proponent of the use of technology in the classroom, but how to we teach students to use it appropriately and about the severity of cheating. I teach middle school and I feel like they need to be tougher on them at this level so they quickly realize the repercussions of their actions before they get to college and they don't get a slap on the hand, they get kicked out.

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  7. abouchaerJune 27, 2009 at 1:01 AM

    Hi Beth,
    It is really so sad that not only students are cheating, but they think it is ok to fo so!
    I found an article that talk about cheating during the test using cellphones. The percentage is also too high, according to the article,65% are cheating using cellphoens and cellphoens cameras.

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  8. JeffJune 28, 2009 at 5:27 PM

    It is a different age now. So much of what our students think and do, along with create and listen or watch comes from online. The internet has created a whole different "can of worms" that need to be addressed in the classroom. I had an esl student turn in an assignment last week that was written better than I could write it. I had to take 20 minutes to explain to the entire class that this was unacceptable. I would rather it was written filled with grammatical mistakes than stolen from somewhere else and perfect.

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  9. Cindy OkoloJuly 8, 2009 at 12:44 PM

    But kids cheated in the days before technology, too. Remember passing notes? Remember writing answers on your notebook cover and glancing it as it poked out of your backpack? Well, perhaps you don't remember--and probably you didn't cheat. But lots of kids did prior to the widespread use of technology. I'm not justifying cheating, but pointing out that technology is perhaps not creating new opportunities for cheating, but rather, perhaps, amplifying tendencies that have always existed. And, doesn't technology make it easier to catch kids cheating? Kids have often copied information verbatim. Now we can catch them.

    So what does all this mean for us as educators? How do we teach more ethical behavior?

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