I gave my students a take home exam over spring break. (This is normal where I teach) One of the questions was particulary difficult. It came down to a factor of three in the solution. That factor inexplicably appeared with no justification on many of their exams. I intend to have the students I suspect of cheating come to my office to solve the problem on the board. What would you do?
Edit: I gave them the Tuesday before spring break until the Thursday after. I didn’t want it to be right before or right after.
When I say normal I mean giving take home exams.
If the curriculum format teaches students to be test takers, I’d give them extra points for working smarter.
If my job gave me work while on my vacation, I’d be talking to the labor board if they didn’t pay me at my consultation rates.
See edit please
Your edit isn’t winning anybody over.
First of all, school or uni?
As many others have said, don’t give a take home exam during a break, however ‘normal’ it is considered in your community.
Second, have clear guidelines on what is allowed and what is cheating. We never had take-home exams in school, and in uni every take-home exam was open book, open internet and open discussion. In the absence of any statement to the contrary, your students would also be justified in assuming so.
Asking someone to repeat the answer is fine, but it doesn’t really prove anything - they might have simply forgotten all the formulae over their break.
The best option at this point would be to cancel that question and conduct future tests during class hours, under your supervision.
Seems like people are missing the part where you said “this is normal where I teach” and just judging you for a take home exam. Anywhere I’ve been to school has an office for handling academic dishonesty. I’d consult with them, even if only to protect yourself.
That’s a terrible thing to be considered normal. Those students were on break, on vacation. I didn’t do work for my job when I was on vacation! I hate cheating, but I hate that you made them take an exam on break even more.
Edit: “Class, I see some of you did not understand the way I require work to be shown. For this reason, I will reteach my requirements. Those of you who did not understand will be given an opportunity to retake the exam.”
Do nothing, first of all any homework is open book, no buts
Second of all it comes down to not being a dick
You do realise that even if they do cheat, since its a take home you likely won’t face any negative consequence, its just a win win in general
Unless you explicitly stated in the exam that they had to show their work with their answer or fail, even if the answer was correct, then I say pass them. It’s on you to be specific as to what you want to see on the exam. Maybe they worked it out on scratch paper and didn’t turn that part in with the exam?
Of course they cheated on a take home exam. If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.
Proctor your exams if you don’t want them to be able to utilize any of the resources at their disposal. Making them do it again in front of you sounds like bullshit imo, but I am certainly not an academic.
If you ain’t
cheatingstudying & mastering the material, you ain’t trying.
There has to be evidence of their process for me to accept it as evidence of understanding/ability. I have made it clear to them that this is necessary. Their job is to convince me that they know what they’re doing. (But… I’m teaching HS Mathematics). So … I’d mark it wrong/incomplete. I’m also working on student understanding of consequences of their actions, so wouldn’t give them another opportunity on that exam. They would need to improve things on the next exam.
How do you deal with students who say “my gut says it works this way. This is an easy problem, the answer is obvious. I don’t know how to explain it to you any more simply”?
I mean, it takes 162 pages to formally prove that 1+1=2, but we got by just fine before we wrote down that proof. We just knew the answer, we couldn’t explain how. If a student is gifted, a high school level problem could be as simple to them as 1+1 is to most people. They might know and not be able to explain how. Now, in a university environment I’d expect them to learn the proof, but that’s not the point of high school maths, is it? The point of high school maths is to know how to solve the problem, not to know why the solution works.
I found the equivalent of high school maths in my country to be similarly intuitive and trivial. The kids who think that the maths they’re being taught is obvious will just memorise what the examiners want to see and regurgitate it even if they feel like it’s teaching shapes to a baby. If you are “gifted” and truly do understand it then it shouldn’t be hard to just overexplain (which is what most exam boards are looking for)
Yeah, I figured that out in high school too. I think it just irks me that different students are being graded on a different standard, subjectively speaking. The neurotypicals are being judged on their ability to learn, while the gifted kids are being judged on their ability to explain. Maybe the gifted kids wanna learn too. They’re all told their whole lives the point of school is to learn, and then they’re met with disappointing reality. We expect gifted kids to grow up so fast, and having to explain the material back to the teacher to prove they know it doesn’t help. I wish they got to spend a little longer just being kids.
If you don’e want students to work together and learn from each other don’t give home assignments. It’s not like they won’e be able to work together irl
Leave it. Life’s hard enough, just let em have the W before the real world bursts their bubbles more.
Wait, you gave them work over their spring break? What the fuck?? Let them have a damn break!
If they cheat and find an answer online, they’ve proved they can use resources available to them to find the answer and recreate it. Honestly I don’t see a practical difference between that and knowing the answer in a closed book setting.
I think getting them to show their work is appropriate and for any that can’t replicate their work explain to them the downfalls of cheating. The other comments here justifying likely haven’t ever been in an academic setting. Relying on cheating is setting yourself up for failure if you intend to continue studying at a tertiary level.
I don’t think a punishment is necessary for cheaters just a lecture. Let them know people can and have had their degrees rescinded years after the fact when their cheating was detected with newer methods.
As if cheating on a few questions is necessarily going to make them a bad academic, mister top-student
It likely will because they’re cheating and not learning. Whatever they’re shortcutting by cheating, if it’s assumed knowledge down the line, they won’t have it because they cheated instead of learning. The morality of it aside, if you rely on cheating in academia you’re just screwing yourself over, in more ways than one.
I am one of “the other comments”, I have a masters in physics, a PhD in bioengineering, postdoctoral work with respiratory diseases, have taught undergraduate and graduate level courses, and currently work in R&D for a huge biotech company. Rest assured I know the academic setting, what the students allegedly did is not only fine, it is smart and good practice IRL
I’ll take your word for it. At the institution I’m currently at and my former one this is academic misconduct as it isn’t your own work. I’m real suss on anyone claiming to have a phd while suggesting methods that essentially introduce a potential time bomb for your degree. May as well actually learn how to learn if you’re going to uni but hey that’s just my (apparently red hot) take.
I’d ask them to come in and redo the problem on paper at the same time, if many have the answer without any calculations, the moment you got the first one in your office, the others would be aware of what’s going on.
Nothing.
Having any homework for the holidays is already enough. Of course most of them would just want to have that gone ASAP.What does cheating mean in this context? What did they have access to that you wish they hadn’t? And if that’s the case, then why did you make this a take home exam?
This. It’s a case of poor assessment design on the part of @wuphysics87.
In creating assessment you need to know what you are asking them to do, how you want them to do it, what you are measuring and how. The format you choose needs to accurately reflect those things.
