Two Plus Two Newer Archives  

Go Back   Two Plus Two Newer Archives > Other Topics > Student Life

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 10-10-2007, 10:43 AM
_brady_ _brady_ is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 1,707
Default Cheating on Homework

I grade papers for a sophomore/junior level engineering class. I sometimes find some suspect homeworks where the student may be cheating. Should I point this out to the professor? On one hand I feel like just letting it go because if they constantly cheat it will probably come back to bite them in the ass in the future. On the other hand the class isn't overly difficult and they really shouldn't have to cheat, they're probably just being lazy.

For what it's worth the cheating in question is using a solutions manual from an old edition of the book.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 10-10-2007, 10:49 AM
XXXNoahXXX XXXNoahXXX is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Boston
Posts: 8,159
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

If this is against the rules but you don't want to go to the prof, just go directly to the student in question. Just tell them "I just wanted to talk to you about your HW assignments. You really need to start showing your work out, because I know there are solution manuals out there and you don't want it to look like you just copied it from there. Hopefully this won't be an issue any more."

Or something like that, non-accusatory but they get the message. If it persists after warning, talk with the prof about it, maybe ask him to give a class announcement or send out an e-mail warning of consequences.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 10-10-2007, 12:35 PM
dallas14 dallas14 is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: USF
Posts: 732
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

Build a bridge and get over it.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 10-10-2007, 01:22 PM
diddyeinstein diddyeinstein is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Shreveport, LA
Posts: 433
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

You might want to tell the professor. In some of my upper level physics classes we were encouraged to use any means we could find to help us. What the professor was unaware of is that often times you can just type a problem into google and find a solution to it or a similar problem that can be reworked (my speciality). AFAIK, this was okay. However, one of the students found scanned pages of the solution manual which the teacher saw and blew up about. I'm not sure what the difference was, but he ended up calling the other professor to complain. Also I think the bookmaker since this is a huge trademark violation.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 10-10-2007, 01:25 PM
I_teach_writing I_teach_writing is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 24
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

[ QUOTE ]
I grade papers for a sophomore/junior level engineering class. I sometimes find some suspect homeworks where the student may be cheating. Should I point this out to the professor? On one hand I feel like just letting it go because if they constantly cheat it will probably come back to bite them in the ass in the future. On the other hand the class isn't overly difficult and they really shouldn't have to cheat, they're probably just being lazy.

For what it's worth the cheating in question is using a solutions manual from an old edition of the book.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you are going to report it, be prepared to donate a significant amount of (unpaid) time if the professor decides to do anything official about the allegations. If the professor is designing assignments where all students have to do is look at an old edition to find the answers then:

1) the professor should expect such behavior

2) the cheating students will probably have trouble with the exams


However if the cheating is so blatant that you are certain it is cheating, then you are just wasting your time by reading and grading it, and telling the professor might cut your workload in the long run.

The easy solution? Talk to the student after class and tell him the work looked a little shady. 5:1 it will scare him straight.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 10-10-2007, 01:45 PM
skates skates is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 78
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

Tell the student, not the professor. I am a math student, and in almost all of my courses, you can find partial or complete solutions for many of the problems online. The deal is that if you tell the student he can't copy, he probably will still keep referencing the solutions, but will start to do stupid stuff like changing the variable names and changing the wording. As far as I'm concerned, this is okay, since it at least means that the student is thinking about the problem and there really is no way to prevent someone from referencing solutions. Also, to think that a sophomore/junior engineering student can always come up with alternate ways of solving something is ridiculous. Sure, there are intuitive and creative solutions for many problems out there, but most of the time the solutions you can find online are the simplest and are less involved.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 10-10-2007, 01:55 PM
_brady_ _brady_ is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 1,707
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

To clear a couple things up:

1) I do not have any interaction whatsoever with the students. I'm not a TA, just a grader. I pick up the HWs from the prof's office, grade them and return them. Even if I wanted to contact one of the student's I wouldn't know who they are.

2) I'm nearly 100% sure the professor will do nothing more than give a firm lecture to the entire class on the matter, or confront the student one on one to "scare them straight". If I thought he would try to get them kicked out of school I wouldn't even think of telling him.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 10-10-2007, 02:16 PM
notfreemoney notfreemoney is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 244
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

the old saying cheaters never prosper goes a long way with this. Simply copying the answers onto another peice of paper isnt going to get the student to understand the material. He probably wont do well in the class and let that be his punishment. Even if the professor gave them a stern talking to, hes still going to use the book- hell just be more clever about it. If hes just giving answers, tell the prof to get them to write out full answers.

Since this is just a homework, let it slide. If you proctor the exam, check out if hes cheating there. If he is, then you can bust him.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 10-10-2007, 02:25 PM
ShaneP ShaneP is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 80
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

Just another anecdote about that issue...I was a grader for a couple of classes (basically the classes were large, and I was helping the TA with the grading). In one of the classes, the TA saw that there were about 4 groups of 2-3 each where the solutions resembled each other closely. TA brought this up to the prof (and asked me to keep an eye out). The Prof talked with the students, they swore up and down that they didn't copy, etc...so nothing much was done then.

A week later, I was grading the other class' homework, and I noticed about 10 homeworks that had at least a few questions (and some the whole thing) copied directly from the solution manual. Some were pretty good copying, as someone said, changing variables a bit and stuff, but a couple had everything verbatim, including the little half sentence segues between equations. Brought this to the prof of the other class, and as we were talking, the first prof came by. Comparing students, there was a large overlap in the copiers, which really pissed the first prof off since they swore to him they didn't cheat.

What wound up happening was that depending on how much was copied, they either got a 0 on just that homework, or a 0 on that and a couple other homeworks. Actually there were a couple that were only vaguely suspicious, and those probably just got warnings. I didn't have to do anything more. I wouldn't think you'd have to do a lot more, as you're just the one who noticed the copying, and the evidence is the written homework itself, not something pertaining just to *you*. That is, you didn't notice someone looking at someone else's sheet on an exam, or someone with notes on the floor or something where you're the only source of the evidence.

And I think the two things that helped noone argue it was first, the penalty fit the cheating and second was the pattern established. A couple of copied homeworks, someone could just say they worked together (which is what they did say), but when it comes out of the manual, or they are consistantly similar, that's hard to argue.

Additionally (I know this from another class...) at my university there is a central repository for reporting cheaters. The forms have spaces for a description of what cheating occured, and what the punishment was. There was also another checkbox or two for whether the reporter wanted additional action taken. I think it was just a recommendation but I'd guess usually the recommendation is heeded when it's 'don't do anything else'. You might want to see if there's a place like this at your university, since you might be able to see if those students already have a history.

Hope this helps, and as I said, neither the cheating episodes I was a part of (one on homeworks, one copying on midterms) actually took that much time to deal with.

Shane
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 10-10-2007, 05:26 PM
forshure forshure is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: UIUC
Posts: 1,054
Default Re: Cheating on Homework

[ QUOTE ]
1) I do not have any interaction whatsoever with the students. I'm not a TA, just a grader. I pick up the HWs from the prof's office, grade them and return them. Even if I wanted to contact one of the student's I wouldn't know who they are.

[/ QUOTE ]

Their homework like doesnt have a name on it and you dont have like a student directory or something to find his email address?

[ QUOTE ]

2) I'm nearly 100% sure the professor will do nothing more than give a firm lecture to the entire class on the matter, or confront the student one on one to "scare them straight". If I thought he would try to get them kicked out of school I wouldn't even think of telling him.


[/ QUOTE ]
Tell the prof without mentioning names and like refuse to answer names if he asks and is super pissed. Although, not sure about your own policies and such, but I am pretty sure that the worst that would ever come from cheating off homework is going to be a 0 on that homework assignment.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:49 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.