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The article posits that the question of cheating isn't a matter of catching or punishing the students. It's a matter of creating engaging learning experiences

The article posits that the question of cheating isn't a matter of catching or punishing the students. It's a matter of creating engaging learning experiences and treating students as the teacher's customers. A student will only get from a class what they want to get out of it; seek a grade at any cost and you'll find a way to earn it, seek to learn at any cost and you'll come away better off (and likely with a good grade to boot.) So the way I see it, a teacher does have two options: (1) try to force students to learn by trying to make "learning" the only way to earn a better grade, or (2) try to encourage students to learn by trying to make "learning" feel like the rewarding experience it should be. Note that neither of these approaches involves catching or punishing students, nor does it involve forcing students to learn in order to achieve a better grade. If in the end you're a student who finds yourself with the same grade as someone who cheated their way through the class, so long as you got what you paid for (an education), why should you care?

poet 16y ago
Whoops, I meant to mention that. Creating an engaging learning experience is the most difficult option of all. It needs to be done, but there are steps that should be taken in the mean time in order to a more fair (but admittedly suboptimal) environment for students. A couple of things unacknowledged in your argument. First, there's the practical implications of cheaters on GPA. Cheaters get higher grades than what is possible without cheating, making the curve in a class lower than what it would be in a completely honest classroom. I'll be the first to champion someone who doesn't care about GPA, but there are concrete affects that a lower GPA has on students. Even though you got a good education, it's still something to think about. Second, there's the fact that the solution you propose is not possible in the current system. The incentive structure is all wrong (read: nonexistent) for undergraduate teaching in universities. Further, the majority of professors don't even have the requisite skills to be good teachers. Even if we did get the incentives right, the talent simply isn't there. To be honest I doubt there are enough people on board with improving undergraduate education to get it done.
qntm 16y ago
> If in the end you're a student who finds yourself with the same grade as someone who cheated their way through the class, so long as you got what you paid for (an education), why should you care? Because they're competing for the same jobs as me!!
dewittm 16y ago
The reason students that don't cheat get pissed off about what they consider to be rampant cheating is due to perceived costs. While both students did pay the same for their tuition, the cheating student payed a lot less in effort than their non-cheating peers. If both cheating and honest students end up with the same grades, the honest students feel like they paid more for the same results. I suppose this has to do with a flawed mindset about what they're paying for: they feel like they are paying for their grades and you're saying that they should be paying for their education instead. Unfortunately, like qntm said, the cheaters are competition for jobs and on paper, they look just as good as the honest students, despite paying far less for their grades. Of course, I guess that this is what rigorous interviews are for.

poet 16y ago

Whoops, I meant to mention that. Creating an engaging learning experience is the most difficult option of all. It needs to be done, but there are steps that should be taken in the mean time in order to a more fair (but admittedly suboptimal) environment for students. A couple of things unacknowledged in your argument. First, there's the practical implications of cheaters on GPA. Cheaters get higher grades than what is possible without cheating, making the curve in a class lower than what it would be in a completely honest classroom. I'll be the first to champion someone who doesn't care about GPA, but there are concrete affects that a lower GPA has on students. Even though you got a good education, it's still something to think about. Second, there's the fact that the solution you propose is not possible in the current system. The incentive structure is all wrong (read: nonexistent) for undergraduate teaching in universities. Further, the majority of professors don't even have the requisite skills to be good teachers. Even if we did get the incentives right, the talent simply isn't there. To be honest I doubt there are enough people on board with improving undergraduate education to get it done.

qntm 16y ago

> If in the end you're a student who finds yourself with the same grade as someone who cheated their way through the class, so long as you got what you paid for (an education), why should you care? Because they're competing for the same jobs as me!!

dewittm 16y ago

The reason students that don't cheat get pissed off about what they consider to be rampant cheating is due to perceived costs. While both students did pay the same for their tuition, the cheating student payed a lot less in effort than their non-cheating peers. If both cheating and honest students end up with the same grades, the honest students feel like they paid more for the same results. I suppose this has to do with a flawed mindset about what they're paying for: they feel like they are paying for their grades and you're saying that they should be paying for their education instead. Unfortunately, like qntm said, the cheaters are competition for jobs and on paper, they look just as good as the honest students, despite paying far less for their grades. Of course, I guess that this is what rigorous interviews are for.