Monstre, pose as a “rentable” coder on that site, respond to his request, write bad code, charge him for it, fail him.
In a class I was teaching as a graduate student (my own section, my own syllabus, my own textbook choices, etc) one summer, one particular student became very problematic.
First, he missed the first week and a half of classes (in summer semester, the class met four days a week) because he thought the course met during the second half of the summer, not the first half. When I tell him he missed two homework assignments (there are 10 over the course of the semester out of this workbook), I said I’d give him 48 hours to complete them. His response: “Do they take a lot of time? I’m having dinner with my girlfriend’s parents tomorrow night.” He never ended up turning them in.
So, at the end of the course, I was calculating everyone’s homework grades, and he had turned in maybe 3 of the 10 homework assignments. Okay, so he was a slacker. His grade shouldn’t surprise him then. But then I got an e-mail from him asking what his current grade was at, as “at most, three of the assignments were turned in late.” I wrote him back and informed him that I only had received three assignments…that he had seven missing. I then e-mailed everyone in the class, and asked everyone to bring their homework assignment books in.
The next day after class, he freaked out, saying he needed to get at least a 2.0 in the class, and that all the “missing assignments” he had actually slipped under my office door. I told him that I have never lost an assignment in the prior two semesters of teach, let alone seven, and that he must have slipped them under some other door…and also reminded him that this was not an appropriate way to submit things to me (I have a mailbox in our departmental office). I then asked if he brought his assignment book (you have to fill in the pages, rip them out, and submit them). If he had done them, the pages would be missing from his book. But, of course, he hadn’t brought it.
Spoke with the head of our department, and she was willing to live with whatever decision I made, and also said this student “was one she was very familiar.” She then tells the student that most instructors would likely be willing to work with him to make up the missed assignments. Okay, thanks for supporting me on that one.
Long story, short (too late): I gave him 72 hours to buy a new book and complete the assignment and turn them in to my mailbox. He did…and I was shocked at how little effort was put into them. For example, he went through one media usage exercise (it was an advertising class) which asked him to report numbers for “All Adults.” He misread the data, gave answers for “All Females,” then jotted a note at the top saying that he had misread the question…and didn’t go back and report the right answers. In the end, he received a 70.5%, with 70% being the drop-off for a 2.0. Some of the grading was subjective, and I could have easily gone back and graded stuff slightly different in a different mood, and he would not have gotten the grade needed to graduate (yes, he was senior). But by that point, I just wanted him off my plate and out of my life as an instructor.
*Meant to mention this in my above post…
The main reason I suspected he wasn’t being completely forthright was because I handed back homework assigments once or twice a week throughout the eight weeks of the summer class. If he repeatedly failed to have anything handed back to him (especially when students often used the homework to help study for the three exams in the class), he would have realized something was amiss, and should have said something to me…
I’d like to have more students like you. For the most part, I only get them if I have evening classes.
Oh, I actually considered that the first time I saw something on that site. But for this student, such a suggestion is a bit late, considering that this was last semester. But if you want to find out how this student’s semester turned out, see Post #156 and Post #188 of this thread.
I just can’t believe that a university wouldn’t give out blue books (“script books” in our lingo). They’re given out for every exam here. Absolutely eliminates that particular way of cheating.
Purchased in lots of tens of thousands, surely they’d be only a few cents each. Ridiculous.
In a system where I have to pay for my own photocopying? Believe it, AF.
Okay, so senior year in high school (a boarding school), we had to do an assignment called the Senior Exhibition. You read a book from a pre-approved list (e.g. King Lear, Victory, Anna Karenina, Bleak House) and write a 10+ page paper on it. Most papers end up being about 15 pages. The assignment was very clear: no secondary sources. This rule was occasionally bent if the student had a particularly cryptic text, and needed guidance. There, just as on the SDMB, cites are king.
Three members of the English Department faculty volunteer to be on the exhibition committee for each book. So, for example, if you chose King Lear, you’d have the same three teachers as everyone else who wrote about King Lear. The teachers chose which books to sit in on based on their own personal preference – usually because they had written similarly long papers in graduate school about a particular work. Maybe you already see where this is going, but hang on for the twist.
My exhibition was scheduled right after an exchange student’s (we’ll call him “S.”) exhibition. English was not his first language, nor his strong suit. Personally, I think the assignment could have been made more reasonable for him – and if he’d asked, I bet they would have dialed it back for him. But this guy was a Grade-A prick. He was racist, thought all Americans were stupid, thought anyone who was not Korean was automatically inferior in all ways, et cetera et cetera. In the same way that a plantation owner might not think hitting a slave was “hitting someone”, he generally regarded stealing from white people as his right, and cheating as a convenience that he had earned by divine right. He had never been caught, but everyone knew that he used Cliff’s Notes routinely. Our school’s Honor Committee forbade it, and his roommate senior year was our class representative on the Honor Committee. His roommate had basically told him early on “I’m not going to rat on you because that’s a dick move. But don’t give me a reason to rat you out, either – if you’re going to cheat, do it where I won’t see it.” Plausible deniability, flexible ethics… whatever you want to call it. On an all-male dorm in high school, one simply does not rat out one’s roommate. Bottom line: if the teachers didn’t catch him, he wasn’t going to get caught.
So I’m sitting in the hallway waiting for my turn to go into the exhibition room, skimming my paper for the millionth time, and he’s inside defending his paper. The door is closed, and I can’t hear a thing. Then footsteps, and he opens the door to leave, and one of the faculty members says,
“Could you come back for just a minute? You’re done defending your paper, but we need to ask you a few more questions.”
At this point the door is open and I can hear every word.
“S., we noticed there were a few places in your paper where you seem to have written something very close to something… well, a piece of criticism that we’ve already read. We were wondering if you forgot to attribute it.”
“No, I did not cheat. Every word is mine. I am not stupid!”
“Well, we don’t think you cheated either – but it’s pretty clear to us that you used a reference work besides the text. And that would be okay for your book, if you tell us what it was, or include a footnote.”
Anyone with half a brain at this point would grab firmly onto the lifeline. S., however, did not.
“I tell you, every word is mine. What do you think I stole?”
“I recognize this paragraph as the introductory paragraph to my wife’s master’s thesis. I proofread it for her several times. There is no question that this paragraph was originally written by my wife, and that you have copied it nearly word for word. Excuse me.”
This is the part where the cheater gets his comeuppance. You’ve pretty much got the best part already, but there is dessert if you want some. Read on!
At which point, more footsteps. A teacher pokes his head out the door, sees me on the floor of the hallway, and says “Ah, Jurph, we’re not going to be able to do your exhibition today. Something’s come up. How much did you hear?”
“I think I understand what’s going on. Do you need to go to the Honor Committee?”
“Yes. How’s Friday?”
“Fine.” (it wasn’t, but that’s not important.)
“Good. Go find John R., and tell him the Honor Committee needs to meet immediately, and then go down to the English wing and get my wife and tell her the H.C. is meeting in the Headmaster’s Office. Oh, and good luck on your exhibition!”
The H.C. met right away, with S. there protesting lamely. They sent him up to his room while they debated whether to expel him or just fail him for Senior English (which meant graduating, but with a low C and an Honor Violation on his transcript). They decided to send him home early and mail him his diploma, and so his roommate (John) was sent to bring him back down to hear his sentence…
…at which point John finds S. packing John’s belongings and a ream of Cliff’s Notes into S.'s suitcase (on the assumption that he’d already been expelled). The Honor Committee presides over lying, cheating, and stealing – so John went back down with S., told them what he’d found, and the H.C. immediately changed their judgment to expulsion. The Headmaster, who ordinarily takes the H.C. recommendation and deliberates until he announces his decision at an assembly the next day, supposedly gave them the okay to begin expelling him right then and there.
So, wait, S essentially tries to steal his roommate’s belongings on his way out the door? What the Hell? Why would he want his roommate’s underwear and socks?
Thanks,
The school I go to is a state school that’s pretty much designed for working adults (Metropolitan State University). It isn’t MIT-like in its rigor (hell, it ain’t the University of Minnesota!), but its convienient, cheap, and I don’t need to work too hard (which with a 40 hour a week job and two young kids is very nice). And it is an accredited four year school. Most of the professors aren’t full time professors, and I’ve had a lot of variability in their quality.
Last quarter I took Microeconomics. It was my first Econ course (and I found the topic facinating). I prepared for each course by reading the chapter before class. I sat in class. I did the homework. I completed the study guide before tests. So I put forth effort - and it WAS a lot harder than I expected “Intro to Economics” to be (a professor quality issue). I did well on my homework, got a high B on the first midterm (on a 90-80-70 sort of scale) and As on the second midterm and final. My grade for the course, A plus. By the time the prof got done adjusting so he didn’t have to fail half the students, I ended up having more points than available. And I didn’t do any of the more than ample extra credit he handed out. Enough extra credit was handed out to get you a whole letter grade.
The woman who sat next to me and the woman who set behind me (both adult learners) tell pretty much exactly the same story. But the yahoo who didn’t realize he’d bought a study guide (shrinkwrapped WITH his textbook) until someone brought something up the week before the final, who never read the lessons, who was always talking to the prof during the break about extensions for his homework, he thinks the class was too hard and he barely passed it and is convinced no one else got better than a C.
Which is why Lockseer’s story drives me nuts. Hell, I worked for an A (not, granted Ivy League levels of committment, but I read the book, took notes, studied for tests). As should not be for “worked and understood” Bs for “worked or understood” and Cs given out for having registered for the course.
My department discourages the use of extra credit. If we allow any at all, it can only count for 5% of the total semester grade, since the regular required work is what the students are supposed to complete–not a bunch of extras. I don’t know what the policy is in other departments, but I assume it’s similar.
I’m wondering now what the deal is with extra credit at other colleges and universities.
AF: I don’t have to pay for my own copies like Manatee does, but my college district would never purchase blue books for us to give out to students. Even when I worked at a university, they didn’t do that.
What we can do is collect all the blue books that the students have bought, then redistribute them. Or we can check every one of them ahead of time to see if they have blank pages. Still, this doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t come in with something they swiped off the Internet and just write it out by hand on the back of their article or in their notes. (And then their professor notices something odd about their essay–see my earlier post–and Googles it, then finds the stolen material online. So it went, and so it goes.)
I know of no official department policy here, but MY policy is that I will occasionally give a bonus problem on a test or a little extra credit opportunity on an assignment. But an extra extra credit assignment to make up for an earlier one that the student didn’t do in the first place? Fugheddaboutit. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Great story, Jurph! Thanks!
It’s not quite a cheater story–more of a bullshit-story-gone-awry tale–but anyhow, I just heard this one from a colleague:
One of her students–a young woman–was absent for two weeks, claiming that her father had died. Not long after the student returned to class, a man came to the classroom to give her an essay that she had forgotten and left at home that day. And who was this man? Yup, her father.
At that point, the professor looked at the man and said, “Lazarus, you came back!”
The student was understandably mortified.
It’s not that hard to believe, considering that there was at least one student who claimed that his grandparent (the same one) died twice during the same semester.
Regarding Viva’s death story:
I’ve gotten tired of getting lied to by my students about deaths that keep them from completing their assignments, so I’ve finally started asking them for proof: an obit, a program from the service, anything. It’s funny how many people die without any documentation whatsoever.
The best, though, was the student who tried to cover her tracks by saying that the death ocurred in Pakistan, and therefore she had no way of proving it. (Because, you know, Pakistan doesn’t have any newspapers or anything).
Not in the slightest. I think he did exactly the right thing. The clod cheated, got caught in the act, and was further stupid enough to try to lie his way out of it while his hand was still in the cookie jar, so to speak. Actions have consequences, and bad actions have bad consequences. The remaining students got a great example of that, as did the clod.
And on top of it all, the prof’s reputation for integrity in his class has been enhanced; I would imagine that no one would try cheating in his class for quite some time to come.
Precisely. If the student did not enjoy being embarrassed, he could easily have avoided it by not cheating in the first place.
Gosh, maybe I should ask for more rigid documentation for this type of excuse. Instead of a note from the family, maybe I should require a finger, along with fingerprint records, or something…
(“Whaaaaaaaat? You can just have that hand tucked into his suit pocket for the open casket viewing…”)
Thank goodness, our administration has an office confirms this type of thing, and sends a notice to each of the students’ professors.
If a grieving student comes to me, I can just send them off to the dean’s office. “Oh, my, I’m so sorry to hear that. You know, the dean’s office will document this for you and send notices to all your professors, so you don’t have to talk to them individually. I can see that you’re overwrought right now, and this will save you a lot of difficulty. Toddle along now, and don’t worry one bit. As soon as I get the notice, I’ll contact you about makeup work.”
I’m reminded of an article I read years ago by a professor who humorously warned grandparents that their lives were in danger if their grandchildren started going to college.