Trista reading notes #6

I too was quite surprised to the extent that both authors discussed cheating and academic honesty. Lange mentions that on college campuses 70% of students have admitted to cheating (pg. 198) and that you will more than likely encounter this in your first year of teaching. The chapters by both authors discuss how students cheat and some clever ways in preventing it from happening. I was quite surprised at the length that some teachers have gone to prevent cheating. It almost seems like we are saying to the students that we are assuming they will cheat, however, according to the statistics I guess that is correct. After all of the discussion in Lange about catching cheaters, when discussing giving exams he states, “You should treat them like adults and assume that they don’t cheat” (pg. 206)… So what should we do? Assume students cheat or assume they don’t cheat?

Plagiarism websites such as turnitin.com were also mentioned by both authors. A friend of mine who is a faculty member at NDSU told me this summer that you can run papers through blackboard to check for plagiarism! This was all a new concept to me as I had never heard of such a thing. Possibly letting students know about these tools may help deter them from cheating/plagiarizing on a paper or assignment. I like Davis’ strategy of defining plagiarism and letting students know what you define as cheating. Often instructors put the academic honesty statement/link on the syllabus, but I have never had a professor who has specifically discussed how not to plagiarize. Perhaps students don’t have the skills to paraphrase what they read from an article? Or maybe I am just naïve. I liked Davis’ examples (pg. 349) on what would be considered plagiarism and what is correct.

My main interest for discussion is in how to respond to cheating and plagiarism. Davis (357-358) and Lange(208-210) mention some good strategies for plagiarism, but what are the best strategies if you happen to see a student blatantly cheating on a test? I would like to hear some class discussion on response to cheating and if anyone has had experience with this before as a new teacher.

The readings for this week were perfect as I wrote and gave my first test this week. Due to the lack of a textbook for this class and the application expected, I wrote a short answer/essay test. It was interesting to compare the methods I had used and that which Davis suggests both for preparing students and writing the exam. One interesting point I would like to hear the classes opinion on is letting students “buy” information during the exam and penalizing them for guessing (Davis 281(. These are two new strategies that I have not had used in my prior classes by instructors. Overall I found these readings very helpful and will keep Davis’ points on grading in mind when I grade 29 short/answer essay tests this weekend…