4 ms·

About 5 years ago, I had 3 students who worked as a team to cheat. * The ringleader placed his iPhone under his leg. * He would lean back in his chair and hol

About 5 years ago, I had 3 students who worked as a team to cheat. * The ringleader placed his iPhone under his leg. * He would lean back in his chair and hold the exam sheets up in the air. It looked a little unusual, but it (initially) seemed innocuous. * What he was really doing was pointing the sheets downward toward the camera peeking out from under his leg. * He was broadcasting the exam to God-knows-where. * He and the other two students then received answers via tiny earpieces. * In addition, the two other students would call me over to "ask clarification questions." In reality, they were trying to distract me while the ringleader broadcast the exam. * I eventually realized they were cheating (after exam 1), but I couldn't figure out how, until another student (exam 2) approached me with a note that read, "The guy to my right has his phone under his leg. Every time you circle the room, he pushes it completely under his leg so you can't see it." * At that point, however, each student was taking a slightly different exam (unbeknownst to them). The ringleader emailed me at the end of the semester and said something to the effect of: "I know I don't deserve to pass, but if you fail me, I will have to stay an extra semester." I ended up failing all three.

mehphp 5y ago
Failed? I’m surprised expulsion wasn’t on the table.
- Trollmann 5y ago
  They weren‘t caught while cheating though. So maybe hard to justify if they decided to go against expulsion with their lawyers.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  A teacher failing their students involves a lot less paperwork and formal proceedings than going through the expulsion process. Given how busy they tend to be, signing up for all of that extra work isn't an inviting proposition.
  - yarky 5y ago
    Exactly, that's one of the main issues I encountered in "academia" : you're expected to play along and ignore cheating because the goal is to have more students for as long as possible, not less.
- busyant 5y ago
  > I’m surprised expulsion wasn’t on the table. Couple of points that I omitted. First, I was teaching at a local community college. The students were from a nearby university. They were trying to avoid the equivalent classes at their own school and I assume they felt that I might be an "easy mark." I'm not sure what my options were with respect to reporting them to their own university. Second, I was an adjunct at the community college. I informed the Dean of what was going on, but I got zero support. I could tell that the Dean felt that all I was doing was bringing him a problem that had the potential to mushroom into a political nightmare (no upside, only downside for him). The unspoken message that I got was, "Just deal with this on your own and don't turn it into a federal case." I don't know if the lack of support was due to me being an adjunct or whether it was due to "We need to keep our enrollment numbers up. Don't get a reputation for being a ball-buster."
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Tuition-paying and academic integrity are inherently at odds with one another. If every student has earned their place via scholarship, you can kick them out freely to reallocate the scholarship pool toward students who haven't gotten caught cheating. For students paying their own way, the thought they'd get expelled for cheating may dis-incentivize them from applying even if they have no concrete plans to cheat.
pastaguy1 5y ago
I proctored an exam once in an auditorium. You could kind of see over the person in front of you's shoulder even though they sat every other seat or whatever. I'm pretty sure there was a group of friends sitting in a six deep echelon formation as some kind of cheating daisy chain but I could never prove it.
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  I took an exam once. Guy next to me seemed to be looking at my paper but I wasn't sure, so I stayed quiet. Later in the exam, I got stuck on a problem or made a mistake, and he tapped me on the shoulder and told me the answer. Remembering that just now made me smile. This wasn't a high stakes medical school type of thing though, just a normal classroom quiz.
mordae 5y ago
What fascinates me is that everyone always separate into just two camps: 1. Cool! Tell me more! I love these puzzle/strategy games. Both how to cheat and not get caught and how to catch the cheaters. 2. Wow, these cheaters are such a bad people. Isn't it unfair to those who don't cheat...? For once, I would love for someone to step back and ask: What the actual fuck is going on here? Some people are apparently spending up to 11 years (on top of high school) trying to get a certificate, that would help them maintain certain socioeconomic status. Other people are actively preventing them in getting the certificate in other ways than the official ones. This costs an incredible amount of money. The whole overhead is insane. Whole lot of people routinely spend several YEARS without actually receiving the certificate. College education is crippled, because it needs to prevent fraud first, teach people useful things second. Can't we do the sensible thing and lift the minimum income high enough so that only those who want to study will go to college and do so without fear of missing out?
- periheli0n 5y ago
  I think money on the scale of a lifted minimum income is not the issue here. These people want to achieve status. Minimum income wouldn't help.
- busyant 5y ago
  > Can't we do the sensible thing and lift the minimum income high enough so that only those who want to study will go to college and do so without fear of missing out? In my particular case, this was not an issue. I don't want to go into detail, but the students were from a foreign country (this is part of why it was going to be a political nightmare for the Dean). Two of the three could barely speak English (excepting the ringleader). I mention this ONLY because it was a big tipoff when reading their first exams: they all used idiomatic English phrases that were far beyond what they were capable of in casual conversation. They also used nearly identical phrasing when explaining their answers (another big tipoff). If anything, I blame their university for admitting students who were incapable of succeeding without cheating. The whole escapade left me feeling dirty. The university admits foreign students (because enrollment/$$$). And they have to know many of the TOEFL scores are either unreliable or fraudulent.

mehphp 5y ago

Failed? I’m surprised expulsion wasn’t on the table.

Trollmann 5y ago
They weren‘t caught while cheating though. So maybe hard to justify if they decided to go against expulsion with their lawyers.
jcranmer 5y ago
A teacher failing their students involves a lot less paperwork and formal proceedings than going through the expulsion process. Given how busy they tend to be, signing up for all of that extra work isn't an inviting proposition.
- yarky 5y ago
  Exactly, that's one of the main issues I encountered in "academia" : you're expected to play along and ignore cheating because the goal is to have more students for as long as possible, not less.
busyant 5y ago
> I’m surprised expulsion wasn’t on the table. Couple of points that I omitted. First, I was teaching at a local community college. The students were from a nearby university. They were trying to avoid the equivalent classes at their own school and I assume they felt that I might be an "easy mark." I'm not sure what my options were with respect to reporting them to their own university. Second, I was an adjunct at the community college. I informed the Dean of what was going on, but I got zero support. I could tell that the Dean felt that all I was doing was bringing him a problem that had the potential to mushroom into a political nightmare (no upside, only downside for him). The unspoken message that I got was, "Just deal with this on your own and don't turn it into a federal case." I don't know if the lack of support was due to me being an adjunct or whether it was due to "We need to keep our enrollment numbers up. Don't get a reputation for being a ball-buster."
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Tuition-paying and academic integrity are inherently at odds with one another. If every student has earned their place via scholarship, you can kick them out freely to reallocate the scholarship pool toward students who haven't gotten caught cheating. For students paying their own way, the thought they'd get expelled for cheating may dis-incentivize them from applying even if they have no concrete plans to cheat.

pastaguy1 5y ago

I proctored an exam once in an auditorium. You could kind of see over the person in front of you's shoulder even though they sat every other seat or whatever. I'm pretty sure there was a group of friends sitting in a six deep echelon formation as some kind of cheating daisy chain but I could never prove it.

throwaway81523 5y ago
I took an exam once. Guy next to me seemed to be looking at my paper but I wasn't sure, so I stayed quiet. Later in the exam, I got stuck on a problem or made a mistake, and he tapped me on the shoulder and told me the answer. Remembering that just now made me smile. This wasn't a high stakes medical school type of thing though, just a normal classroom quiz.

mordae 5y ago

What fascinates me is that everyone always separate into just two camps: 1. Cool! Tell me more! I love these puzzle/strategy games. Both how to cheat and not get caught and how to catch the cheaters. 2. Wow, these cheaters are such a bad people. Isn't it unfair to those who don't cheat...? For once, I would love for someone to step back and ask: What the actual fuck is going on here? Some people are apparently spending up to 11 years (on top of high school) trying to get a certificate, that would help them maintain certain socioeconomic status. Other people are actively preventing them in getting the certificate in other ways than the official ones. This costs an incredible amount of money. The whole overhead is insane. Whole lot of people routinely spend several YEARS without actually receiving the certificate. College education is crippled, because it needs to prevent fraud first, teach people useful things second. Can't we do the sensible thing and lift the minimum income high enough so that only those who want to study will go to college and do so without fear of missing out?

periheli0n 5y ago
I think money on the scale of a lifted minimum income is not the issue here. These people want to achieve status. Minimum income wouldn't help.
busyant 5y ago
> Can't we do the sensible thing and lift the minimum income high enough so that only those who want to study will go to college and do so without fear of missing out? In my particular case, this was not an issue. I don't want to go into detail, but the students were from a foreign country (this is part of why it was going to be a political nightmare for the Dean). Two of the three could barely speak English (excepting the ringleader). I mention this ONLY because it was a big tipoff when reading their first exams: they all used idiomatic English phrases that were far beyond what they were capable of in casual conversation. They also used nearly identical phrasing when explaining their answers (another big tipoff). If anything, I blame their university for admitting students who were incapable of succeeding without cheating. The whole escapade left me feeling dirty. The university admits foreign students (because enrollment/$$$). And they have to know many of the TOEFL scores are either unreliable or fraudulent.