Cheating Students (Update: Critique Requested)

[darktubbly]

Grrrrr.

First thing's first; I'm a teaching assistant (technically, a teacher since I'm the one who lectures) for an intro to MS Office class at a university level. While I was helping one student with something, my supervisor caught two students cheating on a quiz. The class has an exam coming up Monday afternoon...any serious suggestions as to what I should do with these two would be much appreciated. I'd like to beat them senseless, but they've got some policy against that in the TA handbook.

Edit....

Okay, last thing. Any critiques to this post I'm about to put up on my announcements page?:

During this afternoon's quiz, two students were caught exchanging answers. The undergrad handbook refers to this act as something called 'cheating' which carries penalties including expulsion and unforgivable F's.

Granted, Word isn't the most intuitive program to learn, but cheating on a Word quiz -- a multiple choice one at that -- steals the stupidity award from an unmentioned state's voting skills. A half-trained chimpanzee on his/her worst day has more common sense than these two students who I will deal with in cooperation with the Office of Judicial Programs.

Office XP isn't rocket science. Even if one does not understand the material and refuses to come for help, one can still achieve respectable grades by memorization alone. The bottom line is that cheating is dishonorable to oneself, not to mention extremely disrespectful to one's peers. It's not worth the trouble I will guarantee to make for you if you do it.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Perhaps you should have told us you were a TA before the end of your post.

That been said, I have no suggestions for you. Have a nice day.

 

[Kelvrick]

I'd let the exam go on as planned, give them 0's on the quiz they got caught on.

Get one of your buddies to sit next to them during the exam and keep an eye on them.

 

[Gravity]

I would recommend a stern talking to and threaten to call their parents.

 

[Shockwave]

I had a real slick way of cheating. Those calculators with the removeable protective face? The ones you can slide onto the back? I'd write a cheat sheat and put it on the inside of the back of the case. Then during the exam I could just slide the back cover up a couple inches and there were my notes

So, keep an eye out for those sneaky kids with calculators with notes in them

 

[minendo]

Report them to the Dean of Students.

 

[kitkit201]

give them zeros for the exam, and on the next exam, have assigned seating based off of their last names, and have them show their IDs (let them know the day before the exam) to bring their IDs... that will trip up any cheats..

former TA

 

[MangoTBG]

You think that's slick? Lol. That's Middleschool-ish.

I say sodomize them. But, hey! That's just my opinion.

 

[StageLeft]

Split the grade of the lowest one, with an additional 10% penalty. Actually just give a zero for both.

 

[darktubbly]

Originally posted by: kitkit201
give them zeros for the exam, and on the next exam, have assigned seating based off of their last names, and have them show their IDs (let them know the day before the exam) to bring their IDs... that will trip up any cheats..

former TA

That is an excellent idea. Much thanks!

 

[TranceNation]

why would you cheat on a class like ms office ? lol

 

[darktubbly]

Originally posted by: TranceNation
why would you cheat on a class like ms office ? lol

I don't know. My head just hurts after I heard about it. We've been training chimps to memorize more complex things for decades.

 

[rocadelpunk]

if you want to be fair, give them 0's and a good warning.

if you want to follow the rules most likely you will have to report them to your professor/the university and depending on the place will either be expelled or put on academic probation.

 

Originally posted by: rocadelpunk
if you want to be fair, give them 0's and a good warning.

if you want to follow the rules most likely you will have to report them to your professor/the university and depending on the place will either be expelled or put on academic probation.

At the U of M, they just send the cheaters down to Columbus.

 

[rocadelpunk]

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: rocadelpunk
if you want to be fair, give them 0's and a good warning.

if you want to follow the rules most likely you will have to report them to your professor/the university and depending on the place will either be expelled or put on academic probation.

At the U of M, they just send the cheaters down to Columbus.

you asshat : ). How are you , haven't seen you reply to one of my posts in forever :0.


Actually, I read an article that holbrook was going to raise the standards up to northwestern level pretty soon. Which is going to take out about half the campus if not more.

 

[datdamkid]

Originally posted by: Kelvrick
I'd let the exam go on as planned, give them 0's on the quiz they got caught on.

Get one of your buddies to sit next to them during the exam and keep an eye on them.

I agree

 

[EngenZerO]

just give them 0's on the quiz

 

[Soccer55]

I am also a TA and if this were to happen to me, I would give the student a zero and tell them that cheating on ANY academic work is a very serious offense in college that, if reported, could land them a meeting with judicial affairs and possibly an expulsion. Then tell said person that if you catch them cheating again, you will report it to your supervisor and take whatever steps are necessary after that. I would also make sure that this student's cheating is documented somehow, maybe through photocopies of the copier's quiz and the quiz that he/she copied off of.

Actually, a similar situation occured in my department a few days ago. The instructor (one of my fellow TAs) gave a quiz to his statistics class and he made 2 different versions of the quiz. Well, it turns out that one of his students decided to cheat and copied answers from the kid in the next row. The problem is that the kid in the next row had the other version, so the data sets were completely different thus producing answers that were way off. Needless to say it was very apparent that this student was cheating. The instructor asked a bunch of other TAs what he should do about the situation and ended up doing what I suggested above.

-Tom

 

[Ketteringo]

Blackmail...

 

[EMPshockwave82]

Give them both 0's on the quiz - or give them both 50 % off of their quiz grade and make a note that you know they were cheating on their quizes so when you hand it back to them they will see it, then after class have them both come up and talk to you and tell them if they are cought again that they will be reported

they will either get crafty and make it harder to tell or not cheat in the class again

 

[darktubbly]

Soccer55, thanks for the reply; I think I'm going to give them 0's and a stern lashin..warning. I've been perusing the student handbook for my options and one of them is an "Unforgiveable F," which essentially brands them as asshats for their academic career. However, that probably won't hold up for cheating on a quiz, not to mention it's a bit of overkill.

 

[Skiguy411]

Also make sure to watch the ankles. I used to write notes on my ankle and so during the test I would cross my legs and pull up my jeans just a bit. Worked pretty good.

Edit: of course I only did this for latin. Its the one class I knew I would never use in life again, but still ended up with a C in it. Man I sucked in that class.

 

[EyeMWing]

While you're at it, express your extreme distaste to the entire class. Tell them EXACTLY what you think about people that cheat in that class - they're total failures in life and have an incredibly short attention span and have to cheat at things that a trained ape can do.

 

[eakers]

there should be a course of action outlined in the university's academic polices regarding plagerism and cheating.

usually you turn it over to the dean and then they take it from there.

 

[Soccer55]

Originally posted by: darktubbly
Soccer55, thanks for the reply; I think I'm going to give them 0's and a stern lashin..warning. I've been perusing the student handbook for my options and one of them is an "Unforgiveable F," which essentially brands them as asshats for their academic career. However, that probably won't hold up for cheating on a quiz, not to mention it's a bit of overkill.

You're right, for a quiz it's probably overkill and not worth the hassle to report it. Giving them 0's on the quiz and a warning sounds like a fair punishment. However, if it happened again (whether it be on a quiz or exam), there is no doubt that I would report it to my supervisor and seek advice on where to go from there.

-Tom