Comments on 'Five Ways to Stop Cheating'

Reader Sam's got issues with my recent advice on ways to stop cheating:

I disagree with many of your statements. What's to prevent a student from posting a plagiarized rough draft on his/her blog (or one written by someone else). Also, not giving tests is not feasible, in the sense that less people are able to cheat on tests than on homework (or other forms of evaluation where they're not supervised)

Thanks for the comments, Sam; here are some practical classroom techniques that might alleviate some of your concerns.

First: on the issue of plagiarizing a rough draft. I have my kids do the majority of their prep work (collecting and evaluating sources, etc) and do the writing of the majority of their rough edits during class. That way, I can roam around and chat with them about their work as they are doing it. This personalized approach goes a long way towards fostering mutual respect. And as I've said before -- particularly with regards to graded blogging -- the kids by-and-large find cheating on blogs to be way lame. It's a matter of finding a balance between tone, attitude, and personal responsibility for one's work.

In terms of your second concern, about the non-feasibility of not giving tests, please suffer this brief anecdote; I understand that personal tales aren't always the best way to demonstrate a point, but I offer this one nonetheless.

Last year I decided to can our AP Art History curriculum (or more precisely the manner by which we approached that curriculum) and start new. I'd taught the course for a few years and although students seemed to enjoy it very much, they always earned marks well below the national average on the AP exam.

Now, the way I used to teach the course was by lecture with weekly slide ID tests -- much as I myself had learned Art History in college.

Well, as a new approach, I decided to can the tests.

Instead, I opened up our classes to more casual conversation about the material ("conversation" as a way of describing class actually came from a student and not me).

And then I replaced weekly tests with bi-weekly blogging.

And guess what?

Every student passed the AP exam and my average beat the nationals.

All without giving tests.

And did I mention to say that there are no prerequisites to get into my AP Art History class? That is, I never cut a student from the roster based on previous academic work; instead I tell them that if they are interested in Art History, then this is the place to be.

So this wasn't a class of "geniuses"; rather it was a class of kids of all academic stripes who loved art.

As for the reader's concern that "less people are able to cheat on tests than on homework (or other forms of evaluation where they're not supervised)", well I'd just have to say that not giving tests forces you to give assignments and approach material in ways that are more open and less "cheatable".

After all: building a quality and authentic assessment is part of what teaching is all about.

Five Ways to Stop Cheating

1. Having problems with plagiarism? Try this: Have your students write their rough drafts during class; and then post them. I should back-track. In my class, all students have their own blog. So when I give them an assignment, I have them post it online in draft and final form. Posting rough drafts both cuts down on plagiarism (which is often the result of lack of guidance) and gets students into the habit of re-working their writing.

2. Having problems with Scantron cheating? Try this: Don't give Scantron tests. I'm a firm believer that multiple choice tests were invented by pencil manufacturers. I mean, really now, can you give me any example of a pre-industrial teacher giving a multiple choice test? Yet we think of it as a "traditional" model of assessment. Insanity. Could you imagine Socrates giving Plato a Scantron test? No, you can't. Because that would be ridiculous. Yet many of us continue to give these tests to our kids every week.

3. Having problems with students cutting and pasting from the Internet? Try this: Have students write short essays that are completely cut-and-pasted. Then have them trade essays with classmates. The assignment is to identify where each of the cut-and-pasted parts come from and to give an assessment of the site or page from which each source was stolen. Because kids aren't going to understand that cutting and pasting doesn't get them anywhere until they start understanding just how bad the essays at 123helpme.com really are and why encyclopedias are not considered primary sources.

4. Having problems with students using cellphones, Twitter, and IM in class to cheat on tests? Try this: Require them to use cellphones, Twitter, and/or IM during tests. I started opening up all of my tests last year. I basically allowed students to collaborate with one another whenever they wanted to using Twitter. And guess what? Across the board, student understanding of the material went up. It's not that their test scores improved whereas everyone was now cheating their way to an 'A'; in fact, the scores remained pretty similar in terms of the ratio across the student population. Rather, students who had been having trouble -- whether due to test anxiety or little mistakes that snowballed -- were now getting beyond those problems and beginning to demonstrate what they knew rather than what they didn't know. And before long, they were able to use Twitter as a lifeline rather than as a crutch.

5. Stop giving tests. The number one reason kids cheat is because of the amount of importance we assign to tests. Why do we do this to ourselves? Outside of school, how often do kids face tests set up like the ones they take in school? This year, I've instituted a new grading policy: no tests. Instead, kids earn points for blogging, bookmarking, and developing their own projects. All the stuff I used to assess by tests, I'm assessing in class in a no-anxiety formative way. And so the kids don't cheat. Because to cheat in my class would be like trying to cheat in pottery class.

From the Archives: Social Media and Cheating

Originally posted April 30, 2009


Reader MagistraM writes:

I love how you have placed the responsibility for learning so clearly on your students. A common concern about using digital tools for classwork and assessments is that the students will be "cheating". This lesson demonstrates how the social tools facilitate every student's learning - and demands each student to contribute.

I would say that social media actually may present us with a new post-cheating paradigm. I liken it to students in an oil painting class: barring having someone else do it for you, you just "can't" cheat on an oil painting.

Because of the transparency of Web 2.0, cheating in the traditional forms -- plagiarism, copying, cribnotes -- is severely limited in a practical sense. Because of the individuality and personalization of assessment and creation via Web 2.0, cheating itself becomes a rather uninteresting option.

Students tend to cheat out of a mix of boredom and procrastination; cheating is a manifestation of a lack of motivation to be authentic -- whether we're talking about the total slacker who cut-and-pastes from Encarta, or the 'sophisticated' cheater who tries to juke the SAT.

Unauthentic assessment will produce cheaters.

And what is unauthentic assessment? I'd define it as assessment that fails in its structural makeup to address the realities of society -- both at a local and global level.

Now, I'm no spring chicken. I know there are kids who will try to cheat their way around anything. I've caught a few in my own classes. But, if the teacher is using the tools available to engage the students rather than just to talk 'at' them, the teacher has got a much better shot of fostering the type of community in the classroom where cheating will not be tolerated among the students themselves. Web 2.0, by its very nature is a medium that requires you to give of yourself to get anything in return. And that's the sort of thing that a good teacher can tap into both to encourage authentic engagement as well as to foster a spirit of classroom-wide local goodwill. Combined, cheating becomes a much less cool option.

I Think 'Common Sense Media' didn't do their Homework

Was considering posting about the Common Sense Media silliness about kids using technology to cheat, but Michael Kaechele beat me to it with an excellent post.

First of all, where are the teachers in the classroom administering the tests? I think cheating is not that easy if teachers are paying attention while they administer tests.... Cheating has been around for ages before we had cell phones. Don't blame phones for students behavior.

More importantly teachers should re-evaluate their tests. If tests are really at high-level thinking requiring analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and application then they should be "cheat-proof." It is much easier to cheat on multiple choice or fill in the blank than on a test that actually requires thinking, interpreting, and students writing their own opinion.

Absolutely agree.

Social Media and Cheating

Reader MagistraM writes:

I love how you have placed the responsibility for learning so clearly on your students. A common concern about using digital tools for classwork and assessments is that the students will be "cheating". This lesson demonstrates how the social tools facilitate every student's learning - and demands each student to contribute.

I would say that social media actually may present us with a new post-cheating paradigm. I liken it to students in an oil painting class: barring having someone else do it for you, you just "can't" cheat on an oil painting.

Because of the transparency of Web 2.0, cheating in the traditional forms -- plagiarism, copying, cribnotes -- is severely limited in a practical sense. Because of the individuality and personalization of assessment and creation via Web 2.0, cheating itself becomes a rather uninteresting option.

Students tend to cheat out of a mix of boredom and procrastination; cheating is a manifestation of a lack of motivation to be authentic -- whether we're talking about the total slacker who cut-and-pastes from Encarta, or the 'sophisticated' cheater who tries to juke the SAT.

Unauthentic assessment will produce cheaters.

And what is unauthentic assessment? I'd define it as assessment that fails in its structural makeup to address the realities of society -- both at a local and global level.

Now, I'm no spring chicken. I know there are kids who will try to cheat their way around anything. I've caught a few in my own classes. But, if the teacher is using the tools available to engage the students rather than just to talk 'at' them, the teacher has got a much better shot of fostering the type of community in the classroom where cheating will not be tolerated among the students themselves. Web 2.0, by its very nature is a medium that requires you to give of yourself to get anything in return. And that's the sort of thing that a good teacher can tap into both to encourage authentic engagement as well as to foster a spirit of classroom-wide local goodwill. Combined, cheating becomes a much less cool option.

21st Century Cheaters

From Open Thinking up in the great land of .ca, a tale of how a video went viral via (and because of) a simple cheat scheme.

Moral of this story?

Recognizing the power of networks and nodes and understanding why certain messages become more wide-spread than others (whether by merit, messenger, or manipulation) are important media literacy skills.

Sort of a uniquely 21st century skill, no? (Or, the 21st century version of ballot-stuffing)...

One way or another, this is the sort of thing our students have to deal with; so we should be educated in it as well.