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I see your point. But consider the following: these numbers are for the students that admitted cheating. There was a significant number of other assignments for
by Panos 15y ago
I see your point. But consider the following: these numbers are for the students that admitted cheating. There was a significant number of other assignments for which I suspected cheating but I did not have enough evidence. So, I erred on the side of having false negatives in the accusations, rather than false positives.
Now, if you are teaching a class where you have some suspicion that half of the students have cheated, one way or another, the attitude changes. I wish I could be a cold, rational, emotionless professional, and ignore this feeling altogether. Unfortunately, I am a human. And I felt that I am teaching a class full of kids that come just for the grade, and not for learning.
And I am kind of disappointed that nyustern still demonstrates this grade-seeking attitude: He learned in the class, he appreciated my attitude in the lectures but his main complaint was that I was not approachable outside the class, and outside office hours? And that, out of all things, did not return his smiles? Hint: at 5pm, after 11 hours of work, 3 hours of lecturing, I am tired, mentally exhausted and I want to go and get some rest.
- badclient 15y agoFair nuff. Though each time you point out your former student's grade seeking tendencies, you are just highlighting the disconnect between you and your students. Many of us would love the utopian dream of going to class to learn without worrying about grades, but at the end of the day, grades matter. May be a lot, even. It is why you care about folks plagiarizing. It is why your former student cares about his grades. Again, I don't think you would take kindly to a student who plagiarized complain that you are still stuck up about that one incident when the student has demonstrated he's learned a buncha stuff from your class that is as reflective of him as the plagiarizing.
- holdenc 15y agoIt's good that you've found a career that will tolerate your unapologetic selfishness, whining and indifference. All of these things will surely limit your success outside academia.
- donmanguno 15y agoThis guy's a cheater
- holdenc 15y agoI don't like most police either, but that doesn't make me a criminal. It's a matter of disliking people with bad manners. Scheduling important office hours and taking a break in the middle is bad manners. Not returning smiles is bad manners. Believe it or not, living in a world with pleasant friendly people is actually nicer than having an NYU MBA, or a high paying job. So when I see people trying to justify their unpleasantness I don't like it.
- dkersten 15y agoI felt that I am teaching a class full of kids that come just for the grade, and not for learning. From reading your blog post and your comments here, I got the impression that you cared more about your pay raise than about the students learning. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I could have misinterpreted whats been said and that you were probably a victim of circumstance, but you blame the guy for demonstrating a grade-seeking attitude while you yourself demonstrate a they're all cheaters, who are not worth my time and I don't want them to rate me lower in my evaluation money-over-doing your job attitude - I think he deserves the same benefit of a doubt as you do. Your comments here seem very whiney and bitter and you show no sign of sympathy to the students who didn't cheat. FWIW, the guy didn't sound very grade-seeking to me.
- tommi 15y agoI got a different impression from the blog post. Being a teacher does not mean you have to do charity. Everybody needs to get some food on their table. I can relate to that being rewarded less because of something you feel you were not responsible, makes you feel upset. However, I didn't get the impression that it's all he cares about. It was just one paragraph among many after all.
- dkersten 15y agoSimilarly the part where the student cared most about the grade was only one paragraph among many after all. I'm more arguing that the professor should treat his students under the same standards he wants to be treated and from the article AND his comments here (reading the article alone gave me a similar impression as what you wrote, kind of), he seems to be quick to blame the students without accepting his own shortcomings (not entirely true - he does acknowledge some and I do agree with how he intends on tackling cheating in the future: by changing the homework format to a more cheat-resistant form). I know I was a bit harsh in my comment, but I do get the sense that the prof is bitter and unapologetic for most of his own mistakes. Still, I wish him luck in the next semester. I imagine the new homework format should help alleviate a lot of the problems he had and avoid this in the future.