Artifact 7

                This article was very informative. I knew that students had cheated, but I never really thought much about the extent to which some people will go to cheat. A student at my high school did the trick in which they take the label off of a bottle and them write notes/answers on it then places in back on the bottle. Because we were allowed to have drinks in class, they went to take a drink and then the answers were there. This student that got caught cheating was suspended for 3 days out of school. Needless to say, the teacher no longer allowed drinks in her classroom. When I think of cheating, I usually think of homework questions rather than tests. If two people do an assignment together then they tend to have the same answers. In my case, if I discuss the answers out loud with someone else I usually understand it better. Technically, this would be considered cheating. When people have the same answers it is cheating. At first, I figured that is what this article would be about. Never did I think that some teachers are taking extreme measures to make sure that students no longer cheat, specifically on papers and tests. It was very clever of Christe to sign up as a student for her own online class to see what students have questions about. Some students, such as myself, do not like talking in class in a group as much, so they won’t ask questions even if they have trouble with it. She finds out what students need help with and then confronts the student to make them tell her what they are struggling with. This is a very good teaching strategy because the student doesn’t have to come out of their comfort zone, yet still gets answers to their questions. Her idea of a phony website with the answers to the questions was brilliant. She says she only catches 3-4 students cheating, but there are probably way more that just don’t get caught. Also, I never thought of text messaging as a way to cheat. Teachers usually walk around the room during tests, but at a big University with huge classes, cheating would be a lot easier. For example, I am sure that students at Missouri State could cheat easier on exams than Fontbonne students because our classes are so much smaller. In this case, I could understand why the Missouri State teacher might be worried about students cheating, but not as much here. I am not saying it doesn’t happen, because it obviously does. Statistics in this article weren’t very high. Only 50% of students admitted to cheating, which is a high number, but in reality more students cheat than they admit. I do not think there is one person that could say they have never cheated. Exams are different, but homework is usually a given. Students that need help will ask for it. If the student that is giving the help is willing to share their answers, the other student will willingly accept.