Not a very cosmic topic, but I thought someone might have some feedback of some sort:
I was grading chemistry tests, and it became apparent that one boy had somehow shoehorned in correct answers without doing the correct work. I then scrutinized his two back-row buddies’s tests and found all three of them had this problem.
For you geekier types: It was pretty blatant stuff, like converting grams to moles, getting the molar mass as the answer! and putting that over the volume to magically get the correct molarity. Another one wrote the conversion math for grams to moles, and that alone magically created a correct molarity answer.
I passed back the tests and gave them referrals to the counselor who only quit being the chem teacher this year. She had their tests. They came back with really beaten down expressions and sealed envelopes. They get a letter home and an F (0%, I think) on the test.
I don’t know what else could be done, but somehow I just don’t like it. I guess I just don’t like the conflict. This one was even more obvious, though, than the girl who got a perfect score on an earth science test but the next morning couldn’t correctly answer even half of a random sample.
She probably got up on the wrong side of the bed. You should have sent her to the office, also. Don’t feel bad, it is part of your job and the only fair thing to those who didn’t cheat.
I don’t believe I’m saying this, but are you totally sure they cheated?
Anecdote ( I know, it’s not the singular of data) - in high school, one of my friends and I tutored my sister in physics. After one of her tests, we were stopped by her physics teacher, because of some of her answers. They were right. The work was there. But it was kind of bizarre - and not quite what he had been expecting to see on the page.
She had had trouble understanding how to apply one of the concepts (she got the concept). The teacher had shown the class how to go from straight from A to D. But she couldn’t apply it that way, and had to do the intermediate steps from A to B to C to D in order to make it work. And so that’s what we had gone over with her. And then on her test, there was all of this stuff that wasn’t really necessary and at first glance looked wrong, but that’s how she got the answer. And it really was legit.
OTOH, they could be lying, cheating twits who deserved exactly what they got.
I would say trust your instincts. Teachers are not stupid. You’ve had these kids in your class all year, and you know them. You know whether or not they’re capable.
Good luck, and hopefully the Wrath of Parental Units won’t be too bad.
“My Johnny didn’t cheat. He studied really hard for that exam. I saw him. It was the other boys who cheated. They deserve the F, but not my Johnny.”
And if your principal is spineless, like mine, he will agree. And he’ll agree when Joey’s parents call with the same story, and he’ll agree again when Jeremy’s parents call furious because “Jeremy doesn’t cheat.”
Parents get into that protective mode nowadays, where my dad would have just killed me for cheating, no questions asked.
When I taught at the Saudi Naval Academy, my guys would go to jail (for the weekend) for cheating. There are no air conditioners in Saudi military stockades.
No, they cheated. I know, because usually all my math was a screw-up, a whole mess. In my case, I didn’t need B or C, I went straight to D and even ahead to H. So, if any of them is like that, I’d think it would be rather apparent and they would have complained properly instead of sulking their heads in shame. Let me say that again: “sulking their heads in shame”. Ahhh… torture.
Eh. I’m sure its school policy to flunk cheaters but I don’t see the big deal in it myself. Taking credit for something you didn’t do is the norm in the real world.
I am incredibly grateful to the teacher in high school who caught me cheating and called me on it. I got a 0 on the assignment (as did the friend off of whom I cheated). When I went to her and told her that I had cheated and he had not been aware, she gave him his score. I was ashamed (and still am), but I’m glad I learned my lesson when the consequences were not dire, and I never did it again. I hesitate to consider what might have happened if my teacher had been less vigilant and I had gone on to cheat at a higher level.
You did the right thing. It’s up to these kids to learn the right lesson from it.
Perhaps, but that doesn’t make it right, nor is it without consequences. I’ve seen at least three people lose their jobs for taking credit for work they didn’t do.
Reminds me of a funny story. A friend of mine was on the judicial panel for the honor court here, and they had this guy who copied from a friend who left his file on the computer after he logged out. The cheater got a double-weighted F on his transcripts and suspension for two semesters. This is the harshest punishment short of expulsion the honor court can give, and do you want to know what the real bitch was?
It was an extra credit assignment.
.
Pretty harsh for something like that, if you ask me, but then you compare it to UVA’s honor system, where the only penalty is expulsion, and we don’t seem so bad.
MHO is give them a chance to appeal your grade. If they really did not cheat they should be able to solve a similar test question in a isolated but unpressured environment (I would not stand over them and make them explain what they were doing).
And you can be sure there are more where that came from. They never seem to learn, do they?
Lying, cheating, and stealing are rampant, but that still doesn’t make any of these actions okay.
So, if any of them is like that, I’d think it would be rather apparent and they would have complained properly instead of sulking their heads in shame. Let me say that again: “sulking their heads in shame”. Ahhh… torture.