kcdavis6274
New member
Posts: 29
|
 |
« on: February 01, 2012, 03:24:16 AM » |
|
Has anyone devised tactics for fighting fraternity and sorority networks? I'm tired of them passing on tests and old problem sets. Not only do the younger pledges learn nothing from rote memorization, it is unfair to the students who cannot afford a place in the Greek houses on campus.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
slac_vap
|
|
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2012, 06:53:17 AM » |
|
1) Write new tests, and 2) give copies of the old exams to everyone in your classes as practice exams.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
"...the world between reality and fantasy improv nonsense is blurred in Columbus." -David Gaus
|
|
|
|
anon99
|
|
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2012, 08:19:12 AM » |
|
1) Write new tests, and 2) give copies of the old exams to everyone in your classes as practice exams.
+1 If you have multiple choice, reword and reorganize the answers. For short answers ask the opposite question. For some students changing the wording of the question is enough to make them think it is a different question. For any questions with math change the names of the key words (if Sally is half as old as her dad becomes if Sally's mom is twice as old as Sally) or the numbers. Another option is to separate the 'question sheet' from the answer sheet/booklet and only hand back the written answers. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
curmudgeonintraining
New member
Posts: 45
|
|
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2012, 08:34:13 AM » |
|
The Greeks are dedicated to cheating and better organized than you will ever be. Other than hanging onto tests and requiring essay answers, there's not much you can do and worrying about too much will give you an ulcer.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
educator1
|
|
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2012, 08:34:52 AM » |
|
1) Write new tests, and 2) give copies of the old exams to everyone in your classes as practice exams.
+1 |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
educator1
|
|
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2012, 08:39:23 AM » |
|
1) Write new tests, and 2) give copies of the old exams to everyone in your classes as practice exams.
+1 This bothered me to no end until I realized that my old tests and quizzes were excellent study aids for ALL of my students. They gave them an exact idea of what I was expecting for answers (these are problem analysis and solving questions, not multiple choice) and good practice in analyzing various problems. I have since posted every quiz and test given the previous semester that I taught the course on Blackboard together with the solutions. I no longer get the complaint "but I didn't realize that you wanted THAT detail in the answer". |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: February 01, 2012, 08:40:32 AM by educator1 »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
prof_smartypants
Treasure-pilferin' and grog-swillin'
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 7,078
Kiss the baby!
|
|
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2012, 08:45:34 AM » |
|
The Greeks are dedicated to cheating and better organized than you will ever be. Other than hanging onto tests and requiring essay answers, there's not much you can do and worrying about too much will give you an ulcer.
Really? Let's generalize a bit. Stop being lazy and redo tests each semester. Update your courses. Require short answer and essay exams. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Welcome to college, motherf*cker.
|
|
|
fosca
Peripatetic Professor
Senior member
Posts: 634
|
|
« Reply #7 on: February 01, 2012, 09:03:14 AM » |
|
Has anyone devised tactics for fighting fraternity and sorority networks? I'm tired of them passing on tests and old problem sets. Not only do the younger pledges learn nothing from rote memorization, it is unfair to the students who cannot afford a place in the Greek houses on campus.
1. Make up new tests--or at least a bunch of new tests. I have between 15 and 20 different tests for each chapter, and I use a random-number generator to mix them up. I make up a new batch everytime we change texts, so the number keeps growing. I also mix up the answers, so that if people memorize the scantrons (see below) they are still in trouble. 2. Work at a community college. We only have to worry about the athletes here, and given the grades that many of them earn, I don't think they're well organized. 3. Don't give back the questions. I test with scantrons (my students don't have to be able to read and write to take my course, so I don't make them write, at least), and I hand back the scantrons and go over the questions on the overhead projector the class after the test. Students can also come look at the tests in my office. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
They equate learning with "understanding magically everything that [the professor] teaches us because it's all so easy" not "expanding their knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge to new situations and problems." |
|
|
venerable_bede
Ain't nothin' but a
Senior member
Posts: 426
|
|
« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2012, 09:41:40 AM » |
|
Aww, man. I thought this thread was going to be about a Thermopylae meet-up.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats. --H. L. Mencken
|
|
|
prof_cj
Still uses actual books for his gradebooks
Senior member
Posts: 274
|
|
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2012, 10:05:23 AM » |
|
Aww, man. I thought this thread was going to be about a Thermopylae meet-up.
I thought that too. Now I'm sad. Count me for requiring essay answers and rewriting exams every semester. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
helpful
|
|
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2012, 10:08:07 AM » |
|
I thought this was going to be a thread on the debt crisis and potential bankruptcy of the cradle of democracy.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
snowbound
|
|
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2012, 10:44:37 AM » |
|
Sigh. How much time I would lave to watch the flowers grow if I simply gave the same identical tests each semester, and didn't even take the bother of having separate question and answer sheets and collecting the questions sheets at the end of the test. The Greeks are hardly the only ones at fault here.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
bms2000
|
|
« Reply #12 on: February 01, 2012, 10:57:12 AM » |
|
As a student, I always thought that if the professor was too lazy to make up a new test, then they had some nerve punishing those of us who were actually trying to do the right thing by not looking at the old exams.
As a professor myself, I make new exams, every single time. I rarely give multiple choice (engineering = problems). I will use the same general type of problem, and I give students old exam problems as study guides, but I make new problems every time. It ends up being less work than trying to police past exams.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
I am 95% confident that I hate teaching statistics.
|
|
|
|
mountainguy
|
|
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2012, 11:38:48 AM » |
|
Based on years experience at PepsiU:
For Exam Security
1. Make scrambled versions of multiple-choice tests whenever possible. There is software that will do this for you, including a program that McGraw-Hill gave me for free when I adopted one of their textbooks.
2. Make sure there's a 1:1 student/exam ratio. If you have 33 students enrolled in a class, only make 33 copies of the exam. This will keep extra copies from magically disappearing.
3. Number all exams. Have the students sign the exam in when they're done, and count to make sure you get them all back.
4. Use the same procedures for letting students review exam answers.
5. If you have a group that you suspect may be especially prone to cheating, use a seating chart on the exam day so that you can match exam numbers to individual students from the get-go. (The seating chart is useful in large lectures anyway, because you can quickly identify who no-showed the exam).
For papers/essays
1. Scaffold, scaffold, scaffold! Students are more likely to recycle a final paper than they are a topic proposal or annotated bibliography.
2. Change the paper guidelines or topics slightly each year. I TA'ed for a professor who used a 3x3 rotation for essays. Depending on the semester, students were assigned to write about text A, B, or C using method 1, 2, or 3. We didn't tell students that we rotated topics each semester, which led to some *interesting* situations. (Admittedly, the 3x3 thing is extreme. Just changing the text probably would have been enough).
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
questions
Junior member
Posts: 66
|
|
« Reply #14 on: February 01, 2012, 01:00:11 PM » |
|
I have never found someone able to cheat on an oral exam, thought this not workable for class bigger than 30 or so. There are a lot of good ideas for both exam security and leveling the playing field above. I make my exam paper what students write their answer on, and require them to review the test in my office if they want to look over them.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
