High Tech Cheating

 The New York Times today is carrying an article about high - tech cheating at the university and college level. These institutions are having to try all sorts of things to get kids to stop cheating on their exams, from cutting internet access points to requiring them to turn in their cell phones:

"To take a final exam last week, Alyssa Soares, a third-year law student at U.C.L.A., had to switch on software that cut her laptop's Internet access, wireless capability and even the ability to read her own saved files. Her computer, effectively, became a glorified typewriter. Ms. Soares, 28, said she did not mind. "This is making sure everyone is on a level playing field," she said."

Possibly showing my age, I have to admit that I laughed at this quote from a student who was required to (shockingly) write his exams on paper:

"My handwriting is so bad," he said. "Whenever I find myself having to write in a bluebook, I find my hand cramps up more, and I can't write as quickly."

While these older kids may certainly be more resourceful then younger kids, I can't imagine that this same stuff doesn't happen at the middle and high school level.

Given the abundance of, and falling prices for things like cell phones with text messaging and camera abilities, iPods that can carry notes and other gadgets like these, we need to examine what assessment looks like and our philosophies behind it. If, after completing an entire course of study, our assessments are structured in ways that allows for simple types of cheating we need to wonder about what we are teaching.

"Several professors said they tried to write exams on which it was hard to cheat, posing questions that outside resources would not help answer."

Of course, we should never forget the most important issue: 

"Several professors said the most important thing was to teach students not to cheat in the first place."

Check out the entire article. 

 

technorati tags: education, cheating, testing

Comments

[Bob Hill]

I have written elsewhere, commenting on the same problems experienced by Oxford University, that the answer to cheating is to alter the assessment.

The question in the exam remains the same. However, the student answer must contain all the URLs of the sites used in the exam with the appropriate search terms. The pieces lifted from these sites should be copied and pasted and then the student should evaluate each piece and draw conclusions from all the evidence they have accumulated and put in their answer. All of this is done in a live real time exam setting. Marks are awarded for all the elements, the searching, the picking of evidence, the evaluation and the conclusion.

After all, this is how most of us answer questions in real life at work.

Incidentally, anyone using this material without acknowledging my copyright, shall be guilty of plagiarism!