Kristine's Reading Notes 6

This weeks reading was particularly interesting to me about Academic Honesty. When reading Lang’s chapter on it, I almost feel that the idea of cheating isn’t very clear. On page 198 he quotes McCabe’s research about how 70% of students on campuses have cheated. Yes, but what denotes cheating. Would working in groups for homework assignments or online quizzes constitute as cheating? Or are they talking about a more serious form of cheating such as essay writing, dissertation work, or big exams? When dealing with homework assignments and quizzes, students are going to work together on them. Whether they want to get through it faster (two heads are better than one) or for the fact that they might actually need help with it. Most of the study groups I attended in undergrad where the tougher courses I took, such as physics and chemistry. I find nothing wrong with students working together on homework. Yes, students do get out of figuring out a couple problems because another classmate already solved it but that’s why we review knowledge on an exam. Student collaboration in a tough class is a strong thing and sometimes students just need help getting by. And this comes back to what teachers are doing in their classes. Are teachers making sure that they have enough office hours to help out students, are they approachable, are they just giving students busy work? Busy work, in my mind, is the worst homework assignment and sharing answers is easy. For discussion, I wonder Should we punish students (on assignments and minor homework) for seeking other students help?

            I think that in order of prevention, that Davis has it right. She talks about openly talking to students about what constitutes plagiarism and cheating. Showing examples, outlining the policy in the syllabus, and also talking about the ways professors can assess cheating as well as the punishment for cheating. All of these factors will help remind students of knowledge they have in the back of their minds, and also see how serious cheating can be to their academic careers. On page 356, I like the idea of when using blue books to ask students the day of to skip a couple pages in the beginning or to only write on the left or right side of the pages. I think this is a great idea because if students have already prewritten an essay or notes, it makes it harder for the to copy these ideas. I guess my main question would be, where is the line drawn between minor and serious infarctions of cheating?