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> There were 100+ students in the class > I was suffering technical difficulties while giving online lectures. > It was extremely demoralizing to teach to a c

> There were 100+ students in the class > I was suffering technical difficulties while giving online lectures. > It was extremely demoralizing to teach to a class that was blatantly cheating the entire time. How demoralizing do you think it is to be paying a fair bit of money (or more likely taking on a fair bit of debt) to be just 1 of 100+ students in a poorly functioning online class? To be clear, I'm not blaming the teacher here but the system has continually failed students. It's become a stupid game that you pay a lot to play because you have to. When I was younger I used to very anti-cheating, but I realized with time that was a foolish principle to hold on to. The game is rigged and there is no shame it taking short cuts. The university is trying to exploit you the student so why would you not return the favor and seek to exploit the system whenever you can? Consider the counter position: what would an incredibly passionate, engaged and hardworking student get from this situation? This experience for that type of student is scarcely better than just teaching yourself from a text book and free online lectures (in fact, all of the material for this class is free online)... only you don't get a degree doing that. My only critique of the teacher here is not having a enough empathy for these students and spending far more energy trying to catch cheaters than address the fact that these students have gotten a raw deal. Ignore the cheaters and spend those extra hours chatting one-on-one with the students that actually give a shit (if there are any left).

chris_wot 4y ago
The teacher in this case gave them plenty of opportunities for learning engagement and redemption.
paulpauper 4y ago
when businesses do it, it's called delegation, efficiency, or collaboration, but when students do it, it's called cheating. it's unfair in that sense.
- junon 4y ago
  This is a preposterous comparison of apples to oranges.
- catjam25 4y ago
  This has nothing to do with fairness. It has everything to do with integrity. You justifying these actions is part of the problem. This is the attitude that these businesses you are accusing take themselves. "Others are doing it so why shouldn't I?" It is a direct lead to societal decay.
  - stale2002 4y ago
    The justification here, is that focusing on individuals does not solve the problem, and instead only helps you feel better about yourself by how evil you think other people are. Instead of focusing on why you think other people are more evil than you are, instead people should focus on ways to actually solve the problem, instead of satisfying their internal need for moralization.
- bumby 4y ago
  I'm curious what you call it when, say a car company programs their vehicles to notice when they are on an emission test stand and will operate differently to get the best test result possible. Because regulators call it cheating and society as a whole suffers from it.
  - paulpauper 4y ago
    maybe the regulation or test is not necessary?
    - bumby 4y ago
      Except society as a whole has deemed it necessary for lots of reasons. Even strict libertarians tend to think one of the better roles of government is to regulate negative externalities.
      - paulpauper 4y ago
        has society also deemed it necessary that all undergrads must take anthropology? I was not aware that this was put to a vote.
        bumby 4y ago
        Depends. If the hiring group has said, for example, you need an ABET degree to be qualified and ABET has said an anthropology course was part of the required curriculum, then yes. In other words, groups (society and otherwise) have created standardized curriculums for a reason. You may not agree with their decision, but the reasonable response is to remove yourself from consideration, not to lie in order to get the outcome you want.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Hello! What do you think you're doing? Only me and Garth get to talk to the camera.
readme 4y ago
you're radicalized against the system the system is not rigged, going to college at all is a privilege that many don't get i can't imagine trying to justify cheating with this logic while simultaneously there are more honorable people scavenging their lunch from the trash i get it though, online school that resulted from covid is some of the worst instruction. fortunately that's coming to an end
- jagged-chisel 4y ago
  The price of tuition, the necessity of loans, large student/teacher ratios … Increase the price, decrease the cost, and also the balance of power is against the student. That looks rigged to me.
  - readme 4y ago
    it's not rigged for a simple reason: you don't have to go
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - usrn 4y ago
      You don't have to pay rent either.
    - jagged-chisel 4y ago
      Indeed. But that’s not how it’s presented to high schoolers. Parents, secondary school administrators, and post-secondary school employees are all complicit.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  I’m went to school at a time where everything was curved. In that environment, you had to fight for every GPA point and were at a disadvantage of you were a stickler for academic integrity. In a 500 person lecture, ~25 were getting a 4. It’s easy to be on a high horse at an Ivy school, where people who don’t show get gentleman’s Cs and the average GPA is like a 3.6. Obviously this situation in the article wasn’t that. But I think the professor did a good job of empathizing with the students and accepting that there are varying types of motivations.
catjam25 4y ago
> When I was younger I used to very anti-cheating, but I realized with time that was a foolish principle to hold on to. The game is rigged and there is no shame it taking short cuts. The university is trying to exploit you the student so why would you not return the favor and seek to exploit the system whenever you can? Two wrongs don't make a right. Yes the university system has its issues, especially through the COVID pandemic. But that does not justify this behavior. > Ignore the cheaters and spend those extra hours chatting one-on-one with the students that actually give a shit Actions have consequences. You can't just ignore them.
- goelbab 4y ago
  You can definitely ignore them if you think that ignoring them and putting work elsewhere is a net benefit to everyone. Not every action merits a response.
  - catjam25 4y ago
    People who cheat in university deserve consequences.
    - AngryData 4y ago
      For the amount of money most universities cost, it would be stupid and irresponsible not to cheat and risk failing a class. Struggling and failing legitimately has no upsides and only downsides, big financial downsides, along with possibly a delayed or no graduation if it cuts their funding. I would agree with your position if college was either extremely cheap or free. But as a money making endeavor it serves more as a roadblock to prosperity or in numerous other cases a potential pit of debt.
      - catjam25 4y ago
        It’s a sad reflection of our societies failures to provide higher education as a right. Either way, that doesn’t justify cheating.
      - 4y ago
electrondood 4y ago
It's clear to me from the writing that empathy was abundant. Even if you find it demoralizing, the cheating behavior was to basically half-ass the entire course and not try at all. We already have an intellectually lay and pervasive culture of "just tell me the answer."
chrisco255 4y ago
What a terrible piece of advice. If you ignore a problem like this it only gets worse for everyone. The cheaters included, who go through life with that mindset. The best teachers I had in university were very tough and very strict. They taught me to study harder. They taught me how to learn difficult material. They taught me to understand things at a deep level. They would give 10 minute pop quizzes designed to fail you if you did not know the material (no time to even look up an answer or pass to a friend) ahead of time. Fail the cheaters. It's for everyone's own good. No one grows up if you never make them.
colinmhayes 4y ago
I went to a top ten ranked cs school for what it's worth. I graduated pre-covid. Every single cs class has minimum 100 students. The department recorded classes so that they could increase attendance without getting bigger rooms. By the time I was an upperclassmen less than half the students showed up to lectures. Having 25/200 students present was common. It really was demoralizing to realize that the department didn't see a problem with many if not most students graduating without having actually spoken to a professor once, since you had to show up a couple hours early for office hours if you wanted to be seen. It's clear that the undergrads were nothing more than moneybags to my institution, so naturally students saw their education as the transaction it was. Most students were there because they figured graduating from a top school is what is required to get a FAANG job as a 21 year old.
andrewflnr 4y ago
> not having a enough empathy for these students Are you fucking kidding me? After the absurd lengths he went to to give them chance after chance after they kept cheating, lied to his face about it, possibly threatened each other with violence, and repeatedly plagiarized their apologies for plagiarizing? After all this, you have the gall to claim he doesn't have enough empathy? What does it take, in your view?
- Gtex555 4y ago
  "threats of violence"...........seriously ?? haha
quacker 4y ago
My only critique of the teacher here is not having a enough empathy for these students and spending far more energy trying to catch cheaters than address the fact that these students have gotten a raw deal. I agree, except that this teacher did have tons of empathy for the students. That's pretty clear from the lengths they went to individualize the repercussions, offer second chances, and so on. I suspect this teacher has perhaps a bit of fun catching cheaters? I'm not sure. They've written code to detect plagiarism in the past. They use a quiz/exam structure that's ripe for cheating: multiple chances for quiz retakes, long windows for exams, and question re-use between quizzes and exams. They wrote code to archive the chat log daily, identify students, and determine instances of cheating. They gave second chances, creating a new syllabus, after which cheating still occurred. Then they wrote this article. So I agree - the teacher spent a disproportionate amount of time on the cheaters, which is unfair to the honest students. Why not use cheat-resistant course material? They were able to restructure the second midterm exam this way - one question at a time, no backtracking, randomized order, and no question re-use. I suppose this is also time sink to combat cheating, but it seems more efficient than spending additional time filing reports and writing chat analysis code and so on.
citizenkeen 4y ago
There is absolutely shame in cheating, you just don’t feel any. Not the same thing.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  There's shame in not cheating. Makes you a loser tbh. Why would you not use every resource available?

chris_wot 4y ago

The teacher in this case gave them plenty of opportunities for learning engagement and redemption.

paulpauper 4y ago

when businesses do it, it's called delegation, efficiency, or collaboration, but when students do it, it's called cheating. it's unfair in that sense.

junon 4y ago
This is a preposterous comparison of apples to oranges.
catjam25 4y ago
This has nothing to do with fairness. It has everything to do with integrity. You justifying these actions is part of the problem. This is the attitude that these businesses you are accusing take themselves. "Others are doing it so why shouldn't I?" It is a direct lead to societal decay.
- stale2002 4y ago
  The justification here, is that focusing on individuals does not solve the problem, and instead only helps you feel better about yourself by how evil you think other people are. Instead of focusing on why you think other people are more evil than you are, instead people should focus on ways to actually solve the problem, instead of satisfying their internal need for moralization.
bumby 4y ago
I'm curious what you call it when, say a car company programs their vehicles to notice when they are on an emission test stand and will operate differently to get the best test result possible. Because regulators call it cheating and society as a whole suffers from it.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  maybe the regulation or test is not necessary?
  - bumby 4y ago
    Except society as a whole has deemed it necessary for lots of reasons. Even strict libertarians tend to think one of the better roles of government is to regulate negative externalities.
    - paulpauper 4y ago
      has society also deemed it necessary that all undergrads must take anthropology? I was not aware that this was put to a vote.
      - bumby 4y ago
        Depends. If the hiring group has said, for example, you need an ABET degree to be qualified and ABET has said an anthropology course was part of the required curriculum, then yes. In other words, groups (society and otherwise) have created standardized curriculums for a reason. You may not agree with their decision, but the reasonable response is to remove yourself from consideration, not to lie in order to get the outcome you want.
bitwize 4y ago
Hello! What do you think you're doing? Only me and Garth get to talk to the camera.

readme 4y ago

you're radicalized against the system the system is not rigged, going to college at all is a privilege that many don't get i can't imagine trying to justify cheating with this logic while simultaneously there are more honorable people scavenging their lunch from the trash i get it though, online school that resulted from covid is some of the worst instruction. fortunately that's coming to an end

jagged-chisel 4y ago
The price of tuition, the necessity of loans, large student/teacher ratios … Increase the price, decrease the cost, and also the balance of power is against the student. That looks rigged to me.
- readme 4y ago
  it's not rigged for a simple reason: you don't have to go
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - usrn 4y ago
    You don't have to pay rent either.
  - jagged-chisel 4y ago
    Indeed. But that’s not how it’s presented to high schoolers. Parents, secondary school administrators, and post-secondary school employees are all complicit.
Spooky23 4y ago
I’m went to school at a time where everything was curved. In that environment, you had to fight for every GPA point and were at a disadvantage of you were a stickler for academic integrity. In a 500 person lecture, ~25 were getting a 4. It’s easy to be on a high horse at an Ivy school, where people who don’t show get gentleman’s Cs and the average GPA is like a 3.6. Obviously this situation in the article wasn’t that. But I think the professor did a good job of empathizing with the students and accepting that there are varying types of motivations.

catjam25 4y ago

> When I was younger I used to very anti-cheating, but I realized with time that was a foolish principle to hold on to. The game is rigged and there is no shame it taking short cuts. The university is trying to exploit you the student so why would you not return the favor and seek to exploit the system whenever you can? Two wrongs don't make a right. Yes the university system has its issues, especially through the COVID pandemic. But that does not justify this behavior. > Ignore the cheaters and spend those extra hours chatting one-on-one with the students that actually give a shit Actions have consequences. You can't just ignore them.

goelbab 4y ago
You can definitely ignore them if you think that ignoring them and putting work elsewhere is a net benefit to everyone. Not every action merits a response.
- catjam25 4y ago
  People who cheat in university deserve consequences.
  - AngryData 4y ago
    For the amount of money most universities cost, it would be stupid and irresponsible not to cheat and risk failing a class. Struggling and failing legitimately has no upsides and only downsides, big financial downsides, along with possibly a delayed or no graduation if it cuts their funding. I would agree with your position if college was either extremely cheap or free. But as a money making endeavor it serves more as a roadblock to prosperity or in numerous other cases a potential pit of debt.
    - catjam25 4y ago
      It’s a sad reflection of our societies failures to provide higher education as a right. Either way, that doesn’t justify cheating.
    - 4y ago

electrondood 4y ago

It's clear to me from the writing that empathy was abundant. Even if you find it demoralizing, the cheating behavior was to basically half-ass the entire course and not try at all. We already have an intellectually lay and pervasive culture of "just tell me the answer."

chrisco255 4y ago

What a terrible piece of advice. If you ignore a problem like this it only gets worse for everyone. The cheaters included, who go through life with that mindset. The best teachers I had in university were very tough and very strict. They taught me to study harder. They taught me how to learn difficult material. They taught me to understand things at a deep level. They would give 10 minute pop quizzes designed to fail you if you did not know the material (no time to even look up an answer or pass to a friend) ahead of time. Fail the cheaters. It's for everyone's own good. No one grows up if you never make them.

colinmhayes 4y ago

I went to a top ten ranked cs school for what it's worth. I graduated pre-covid. Every single cs class has minimum 100 students. The department recorded classes so that they could increase attendance without getting bigger rooms. By the time I was an upperclassmen less than half the students showed up to lectures. Having 25/200 students present was common. It really was demoralizing to realize that the department didn't see a problem with many if not most students graduating without having actually spoken to a professor once, since you had to show up a couple hours early for office hours if you wanted to be seen. It's clear that the undergrads were nothing more than moneybags to my institution, so naturally students saw their education as the transaction it was. Most students were there because they figured graduating from a top school is what is required to get a FAANG job as a 21 year old.

andrewflnr 4y ago

> not having a enough empathy for these students Are you fucking kidding me? After the absurd lengths he went to to give them chance after chance after they kept cheating, lied to his face about it, possibly threatened each other with violence, and repeatedly plagiarized their apologies for plagiarizing? After all this, you have the gall to claim he doesn't have enough empathy? What does it take, in your view?

Gtex555 4y ago
"threats of violence"...........seriously ?? haha

quacker 4y ago

My only critique of the teacher here is not having a enough empathy for these students and spending far more energy trying to catch cheaters than address the fact that these students have gotten a raw deal. I agree, except that this teacher did have tons of empathy for the students. That's pretty clear from the lengths they went to individualize the repercussions, offer second chances, and so on. I suspect this teacher has perhaps a bit of fun catching cheaters? I'm not sure. They've written code to detect plagiarism in the past. They use a quiz/exam structure that's ripe for cheating: multiple chances for quiz retakes, long windows for exams, and question re-use between quizzes and exams. They wrote code to archive the chat log daily, identify students, and determine instances of cheating. They gave second chances, creating a new syllabus, after which cheating still occurred. Then they wrote this article. So I agree - the teacher spent a disproportionate amount of time on the cheaters, which is unfair to the honest students. Why not use cheat-resistant course material? They were able to restructure the second midterm exam this way - one question at a time, no backtracking, randomized order, and no question re-use. I suppose this is also time sink to combat cheating, but it seems more efficient than spending additional time filing reports and writing chat analysis code and so on.

citizenkeen 4y ago

There is absolutely shame in cheating, you just don’t feel any. Not the same thing.

colinmhayes 4y ago
There's shame in not cheating. Makes you a loser tbh. Why would you not use every resource available?