BFTP: Can we cheat-proof schools?

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post September 14, 2007. Some interesting responses to the original post worth reading.

"It's not the dumb kids who cheat," one Bay Area prep school student told me. "It's the kids with a 4.6 grade-point average who are under so much pressure to keep their grades up and get into the best colleges. They're the ones who are smart enough to figure out how to cheat without getting caught." from "Everybody Does It" by Regan McMahon, San Francisco Chronicle,Sept 9, 2007

It's time we made a serious effort in finding pedagogical means of ending cheating. When 90% of high school students admit to cheating, something is out of whack. And it is hard to point a finger an entire generation of kids.

I've addressed why kids might cheat and how one might plagiarize-proof research assignments. But can teachers help make tests and homework cheat-proof as well?

McMahon suggests Top 5 Ways to Curb Cheating

• Create an honor code with student input so they're invested in it
• Seriously punish cheaters according the academic integrity policy
• Create multiple versions of tests to make purloined answer keys useless
• Ban electronic devices in testing rooms
• Develop multiple modes of assessment so the grade is not determined primarily on tests

Of these, I would endorse last one. Ban electronic device? Why not ban pencils and paper that contain written cheats as well?

Here are Johnson's Top 5 Ways to Curb Cheating:

• Use performance-based assessments that require a personal application of or reaction to the topic
• Be very clear about what will be tested/assessed, eliminating "gotcha" testing
• Make every assignment a group assignment with expectations that the role of each group member be clearly defined
• Only make assignments that are actually meaningful and necessary (Alfie Kohn writes that there is little correlation between test scores and homework.)
• Make all tests open book - and open device

What's wrong with the honor code business? Nothing except it seems we are in a social values shift about cheating and about intellectual property rights if 90% of a population no longer holds an older value. (I've always said a thing not worth doing is not work doing well. The NetGen corrolary may be a thing not worth doing is not worth doing without cheating.) Given my Boomer sensitivities, I think kids who cheat are little weasels. But then the majority of US citizens, by generations usually, have also changed their views on things like slavery, women's rights, gay rights, seat belts, smoking, littering, the environment, and Michael Jackson from what they were at one time.

I'd like to bang a drum about the need for a society that places less emphasis on test scores, that has a better means of choosing kids for colleges, and that values non-testable attributes of people. But you wouldn't want to listen and it wouldn't do much good. So what, I think we should consider, is within the individual teacher's sphere of influence?

Anyway, read the article in the Chronicle and tell me how you would curb the cheating epidemic... 

Oh, I expect to get beat up on this entry. Have at it.

Comments

[Mike Kaechele]

I agree with your points especially the 1st and last. I teach in a PBL school and the projects show who understands the standards and who doesn't. On the rare occasion that I give a test, it is open internet and collaborative with their group. You know the way real historians work. I actually had students learning during the test and a couple of them told me how much they liked it and hoped we would do it again. When is the last time you heard that?

I still have to teach kids not to copy and paste stuff from the internet, but I blame that on eight years of traditional schooling. For years they have "copied and pasted" from the textbook and received A's so why should the internet be any different. #doublestandard

[Tammy Burns]

I agree with your points totally. It is a matter in this day and time that we be trickier and sneakier than our students and if that includes getting them to enjoy leanring, then --- WOW! Isn't that what we want to do as educators? We need to educate our students to work smarter not harder (and a lot of them work really hard at cheating). They need to utilize their resources. At our school this year, we are really pushing 21st Century Learning and the 21st Century Classroom. As you know, it is all about real-world application. If a student goes onto be a CEO of a company, they are not going to take an individualized test to decide how they should lead their company. The CEO is going to rely on his/her teams to come to decisions, present their findings, and then work as a larger team to decide where to steer their company in the future.

Unfortunately, this is going to be a struggle for some teachers, but hopefully little-by-little, we will be able to turn them around.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the affirmation. This concept seems so foreign to so many teachers that I usually get in trouble when I suggest it.

I'm OK with copying and pasting - just so long as you cite your source and add value! This is why all assignments need to be personal.

Doug

Thanks, Tammy. The one-right-answer mentality that objective tests encourage is counter productive in an economy that runs on ingenuity, creativity and innovation. I wish all kids were given the chance to have a teacher like YOU!

Doug

[Bill Storm]

Ha! Your assessment ideas are exactly how I used to work, and I never worried about cheating. Open book & open notes, often open neighbors, and tested material was thoroughly public beforehand. And I was hated by students when it came time for summary assessments. Why? Because I made them write, and it was science class. For those students with actual writing challenges, I made accommodations. My grading wasn't instant turn-around (I was semi-infamous in that regard), but I came away believing I had assessed them fairly and accurately, and the kids knew it too.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Bill,

And I bet your kids learned real science, not just enough factoids to pass a test and then forget.

I wish my kids had had you as a teacher. Hey, I want you as MY teacher!

Thought about you today as I was thinking about social networking guidelines. Still remember a good post full of warnings!

Doug

[Curt Rees]

I think students are more tempted to "cheat" when the tasks they are asked to do are not interesting, or just plain pointless and boring. If we ask students to memorize irrelevant information, then that seems like motivation to find the short cut for providing the answers the teacher wants. Why waste brain power on something that will have no positive impact on the "real lives" of students? Your Top 5 list makes a lot of sense to me. Let kids do real and interesting work, and let them do it together, and let them use tools that they will also use when away from school.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Curt,

I've always said that a job not worth doing is not worth doing well. And I think kid's know this intuitively.

Doug