Comments about ‘Weeding out cheaters is a 'losing game,' NYU professor says’

Sadly, the attitude among college students seems to be shifting more and more toward, "I paid my tuition, therefore, I deserve at least a passing grade." When the highest of our leadership gets away with delaying obsfucation and tampered "originals," watch out for the trickle down dishonesty.

Gotta love raises based upon student evaluations. It's essentially the inmates running the asylum. Is this the kind of culture we have become?

There has been a few stories lately on the cheating scandals. Fox News and O'Reilly had a big thing on how many high school students admitted cheating--their survey showed 95% of the students polled had cheated.

However, I think it is important, as noted in this article through this professor's own personal story, rarely is it worth it to pursue disciplining the students. Teachers/professors often come under attack by parents when students get caught cheating. Often times the administrators don't back the teachers. Many teachers have had their jobs threatened, or certainly have to face a future very uncomfortable work environment, if the wrong student(s) are caught or accused of cheating. It simply isn't worth the heartache. I think most teachers and professors do what they can to design assignments and things to prevent cheating but once it occurs, rarely is it worth it to fight the fight. This might be a sad commentary but this happens.

As a high school English teacher my approach to cheating was to begin a conversation about surgery--brain surgery, oral surgery, cataract surgery, something that got their attention. I then painted the picture of a student in surgery, embellished it with a few details, had the students add details and then asked, "Don't you hope the surgeon didn't cheat as a med student. Don't you hope that he did his own assignments and didn't copy. Don't you hope that he read each assignment, entirely. Don't you hope that he understood the material and didn't need to cheat on exams, labs, projects, etc." They were quiet for a moment or two, thinking, kind of disturbed actually. Who knows what impact it had in the long run, but at least they were thinking for a few moments. Some even realized that they might be the "surgeon" someday and felt the responsibility of preparedness and honesty.

This generation of students is extremely social -- relying on social networks, the internet and other technological avenues for answers to every imaginable question. We LOVE that they know how to utilize technology better than the old folks. They have been taught how to bubble in their answers since they were in elementary school and they have learned how to rely on each other (to cheat?). They will continue in their careers to "use" each other (depending upon the career). However the surgical conversation is a good one because during surgery a surgeon and the medical team will not be able to Google the answers they need, but they are still a TEAM. Pretests, benchmark tests and post-tests are very important in education and medicine (baselines) to gauge progress. Students must understand that we are trying to prove how much they have learned and progress must be shown. Assessments should be variable (not just Scantrons); joint productive activities are viable. The objective is that students LEARN. Most students learn best by working together. Don't fight it, assess them as teams and have competitions, then record individual scores.

@Horsewoman: Who said a surgeon can't Google or call up a colleague while in surgery? We've got personal computers that can fit in our pockets... it's probably already being done.

"Fox News and O'Reilly had a big thing on how many high school students admitted cheating"

Cheating is running rampant in government, businesses, marriages, taxes, sales, media, etc. Is it a wonder why students do it too? I did not have relations with that woman--Monica Lewinski and you will not see your taxes go up one dime.

This is exactly why student evaluations are worse than useless. Remember the words of our Savior? "No man can serve two masters." The professor in this article has admitted to compromising his standards--and those of other students without their permission or knowledge--simply to get more money. Isn't there another word for that? Oh, yes. There is. It's called CHEATING! The professor has joined the ranks of the cheaters.

Bill O'Reilly just did a column about the pervasiveness of cheating, and he said that something like an astounding 95% of all high school students admitted to cheating in the past year. A free society can't maintain its advantage without an implicit assumption of honesty from the majority of its citizens, which makes Bill's statistic so troubling.

Perhaps what is even more troubling are the reports he cited of TEACHER and ADMINISTRATION cheating, done in order to boost their school's performance.

If we think we're going to pull our country out of the mess we're in, it ain't gonna happen with behavior like this. Thumbs up if you agree.

This is a decidedly different response to cheating than that employed by Professor Richard Quinn at the University of Central Florida last year. When confronted with cheating on a similar scale, he made a video lecture (you can find it on YouTube) in which he told all his students that they would ALL take the midterm exam again, the cheaters would turn themselves in and take an ethics course, or they would be expelled.

The NYU professor decided that it would be better for his pocketbook if he no longer did anything about it, which sends this profoundly lousy signal to the students: "I value money and popularity more than I value integrity."

Many local charter schools rely on parent/student surveys to determine a teacher's salary for the next year. The result? Exactly what this professor did. Forget about the ethics of teaching and just try to be popular with the parents. Depending on how Ogden implements merit pay, this scenario could be popping up throughout their district.

@BirdmanKen

Thumbs up. Our students lack good role models when it comes to honesty. America is great when its people are good. America declines when bad. When it comes to honesty and character, what's the American test score?

I agree with the poster above, many people in all walks of life "cheat" and "cheating" is not new to this generation of students or young people. But I think the survey on Fox News is interesting on this level. 95% of the students that said "ye"s are saying yes that they knew they were doing something that was wrong and/or not approved of by the teacher of professor. We can call it "creative problem solving", and guess what, many teachers and schools allow and encourage students to work together and find things from whatever resources. I don't see a problem with this if it is in the scope of the assignment. But if a teacher and professor makes strict guidelines of how things are done, or things are googled and not cited giving the original author(s) credit, this is "cheating" as I see it. It isn't "creative problem solving."

I teach High School Biology here in Salt Lake. I caught several senior students erasing other students names from previously graded papers, and writing their names in its place, and turning these in saying I somehow did not enter them into grade book.

Once I noticed what was going on, I had to get administration involved because several students would not graduate as a failure for the course is my penalty. Several Seniors are taking summer class because of their actions. There must be severe consequences, but they must be spelled out up front and agreed by both student and parent.

My neighbor is a well-credentialed teacher who used to moonlight at ITT Technical Institute in Salt Lake City. He detected plaigarism in two students' term papers and he easily found the Internet sources for the students' work. When he failed them for violating the sternly-wording cheating policy at ITT Tech, the administration asked him to change the grades or resign. I've read stories about these high-price "career" schools where one merely has to plop down the money and a degree is guaranteed.

Ultimately, I think that the students lose. For example, who would ever hire someone from a school that won't fail cheaters? It will, or should, catch up to them someday.