A Chat of Cheaters

What do you call someone who cheats? A cheat or a cheater, depending on when and where you learned English. I learned it as ‘cheat’, but for this post I use the more informal ‘cheater’ that’s more familiar in the U.S.

 

What do you call a group of cheaters? A cluster of cheaters? Like a gaggle of geese? Or a congress of cheaters? Baboons! Or better yet, a conspiracy of cheaters? Ravens!

 

In today’s social media age, I’d like to suggest a chat of cheaters. Why? Because if you’re an educator, you should read Matt Crump’s saga of a massive cheating incident in his class and what he did to resolve it. It’s a tale with twists and turns that takes a while to resolve, but well worth the read. Read it now here! The rest of this blog post can wait.

 

Okay, now that you’ve at least skimmed it, here are my brief thoughts below.

 

First, I’m glad that I didn’t have to deal with any such incidents in my remote year. I knew that in at least one of my classes composed of only first-year students, there was a chat group. I wasn’t part of it, but from what I understand it was mostly get-to-know-you socialization which I think was a good thing. My classes were also structured such that while it was possible to cheat, it wouldn’t do you much good if you didn’t know the material anyway, or it made practically no difference to the grade. So, in some minor questionable instances, I left it alone.

 

Second, I’m amazed at the heroic effort made by the instructor to try and treat each student fairly while documenting every incident carefully. I don’t think I would have the patience to fill out the paperwork for each individual student, nor take the time to write code to sort and analyze the data. All I can say is… wow! Nor would I have come up with an alternative syllabus to give the students quite the second chance. I don’t think I would have the patience to write a long blog post or short story with appropriately amusing gifs in different sections.

 

Third, I learned a little bit about students today. Perhaps not so different from many years ago when I began teaching. And perhaps not so different from when I was a student. I had a theoretical notion of what group-chat cheating might look like; I had considered the possibility it might occur in my first remote semester but seeing the train of texts gave me a glimpse of reality. It was an inefficient conspiracy at best, sprinkled with plenty of confusion. I’m not surprised at the range of student responses, from contrition to outright lying. I was surprised that not a single student tattled in a class of that size. I was mildly amused at how students continued to cheating especially when it was obvious the instructor was on to them in the second midterm.

 

Fourth, I liked the setup of the alternate syllabus. Essentially, one can implement such an expanded suite of ‘how to earn points’ at the beginning of the semester that allows students to earn a distinction by doing the work and learning the material in a variety of ways. Some of those alternate assignments sound cool – especially if designed to draw students into the material. It made me think about the rigidity of my own syllabus and ways I could effect a similar expansion. It made me think about my laziness in not wanting to set up such assignments and have to grade them. I’m chastened.

 

Fifth, I was glad to see the redemptive part of the story at the end. The time and effort that the instructor put in paid off, I think. This could have been a terrible train-wreck for the students, instructor, and the institution. I could imagine headlines in the higher education media. I’m surprised this story hasn’t quite gone viral yet. The only reason I knew about it was because a former student (who graduated a number of years back) forwarded it to me last week.

 

And finally, having data skillz is useful! Not just for students, but especially for instructors.