I gave my students a take home exam over spring break. (This is normal where I teach) One of the questions was particulary difficult. It came down to a factor of three in the solution. That factor inexplicably appeared with no justification on many of their exams. I intend to have the students I suspect of cheating come to my office to solve the problem on the board. What would you do?

Edit: I gave them the Tuesday before spring break until the Thursday after. I didn’t want it to be right before or right after.

When I say normal I mean giving take home exams.

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    9 months ago

    I gave my students a take home exam over spring break. (This is normal where I teach)

    If this is normal, that just means a lot teachers have no respect for personal time.

    One of the questions was particulary difficult. It came down to a factor of three in the solution. That factor inexplicably appeared with no justification on many of their exams.

    So? Are you saying a lot of them cooperated on it? Did they copy work from a separate source? Where is the problem?

    You assigned graded work during a vacation, which I would assume means you can use any material you have access too, including teamwork and the entire internet. Does it not?

    I intend to have the students I suspect of cheating come to my office to solve the problem on the board.

    And if they fail, what does this prove? That they can’t reproduce an answer constructed over (potentially) many days of work with references on hand, in a few minutes of high-stress with their teacher breathing down their neck?

    What would you do?

    Not send graded work home with students if you don’t expect them to cooperate. Procter an exam if you want them to use only their brains.

    In fact, you should procter an exam during your vacation, because they didn’t get one either.

    • nocturne@sopuli.xyz
      0·
      9 months ago

      I would stop giving work over vacation.

      Edit: meant this to be a direct reply to op, but this works too.

    • deezbutts@lemm.ee
      0·
      9 months ago

      Most take-home exams specifically state whether you’re allowed to use other sources or cooperate. If not, many course syllabi or even campus codes of conduct have onerous defaults.

      Instead of ragging on op for adhering to practices they may have had no hand in mandating, we should try to help them.

      Having been on both sides of such academic misconduct, if your hands are tied in terms of the assignment parameters, I think reissuing solo retests is fine. This is likely a chronic issue though, and I’d be curious to know if you have any options in next steps should anyone fail.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        9 months ago

        Instead of ragging on op for adhering to practices they may have had no hand in mandating, we should try to help them.

        I am. I’m telling them this is a stupid way to test students and not to do it. I doubt their institute mandates take home exams, so never doing them again is a great solution to prevent this from ever happening again.

        I also think solo retests are fine, hence the suggestion of proctoring an exam. Because that’s what they should do in the first place, if they want to test the students knowledge.

        And if the students fail the exam, they fail the exam.

        I’ll go one further and ask what the advantages of a take-home even are? What’s the use case for them that isn’t “less work for the teacher at the cost of quality”?