"Stop writing please" - Page 5

On March 05 2011 14:19 micronesia wrote:
In high schools it's becoming very difficult for teachers to enforce rules and prevent cheating. If you see a student cheating you better have video evidence, notarized statements from three witnesses, and a successful polygraph before you attempt to penalize the student. Otherwise, the parent will be down your throat, you will be abandoned by your superiors, and you will end up looking like the asshole. Even if you do manage to make your case successfully the kid will get a slap on the wrist as everyone's hands are tied.

This is of course trickling into college/university. Lots of kids think they can do whatever they want, even in a college class. Some professors are very up front about their rules and expectations. These rules and expectations should be approved by the institution, in general. If they are, then students must follow them... even if it means getting a 0 when you bubble after the 'stop time.'

There was a thread recently where a majority of tl users pointed out that they are okay with cheating on academic tests/etc. This is in a community of higher-than-average academic performers (or so I'd believe).

If you want to make the claim 'strictly timed tests are a poor measurement tool in education' then you definitely can. However, you chose to go to an institution which is obviously 'okay' with strictly timed tests. If you think the way that institution is doing things is stupid then go somewhere else. Now the problem of course is that most college classes have strictly timed tests. This is a VALID complaint but also not really relevant to the specific case in the OP.

I have a couple of students who can't seem to perform well on timed tests. Things that they understood a moment ago they can't seem to demonstrate on a test question... and they get it wrong. Most likely their vocational aspirations do not include "taking timed written tests on this topic" so it's not the most fair way to compare them to their classmate whose brain works differently such that they generally do well on tests... at least as well as they did in activities while learning the material. Actually it's pretty freaking amazing how much difficulty some students have with tests. This along with other weaknesses students show depending on circumstances lead me to a daily mental thought of "OMG I DIDN'T KNOW SUCH STUPIDITY COULD EXIST IN THE UNIVERSE" but it's really just the nature of the beast I guess.

Moral of the story: If a hard-ass professor tells you not to bubble after time is up, DO NOT BUBBLE AFTER TIME IS UP. If he says he is going to fail you, assume he will fail you. If you don't like his pedagogy... well.... what percentage of college professors have good pedagogy? If the professor's biggest fault is that he won't accommodate people that don't follow his instructions, you are actually in pretty good shape in the grand scheme of things.

On March 05 2011 10:21 JeeJee wrote:


eh i disagree with this example
the OP's is a little silly, but this one's completely the student's fault. you need an eraser, you raise your hand for a proctor to come and talk to you. you don't speak to fellow exam writers, that's just suicide. there's so many ways to cheat if you allow this in any form. i 100% agree on no-tolerance there.

On March 05 2011 09:24 elmizzt wrote:
Rules are rules. If a student has a problem with the rule, he should bring it up with the professor before the exam, not after the fact. I wouldn't consider it a trap because he specifically went over his policy in a previous class like you said. I really respect the prof/TA for sticking to his guns, whereas in my experience most profs/TAs are pathetically easy for students to walk over, and they take advantage of that.

On March 08 2011 02:08 MoreFaSho wrote:


Why not at least investigate whether or not cheating took place. We don't take a zero tolerance policy on anything else. School allow children to eat candy even though many elicit drugs look quite similar to certain types of candy.
Why would this seem unreasonable:
A kid gets expelled for possessing loose pez candy.
Is it unreasonable for me to say:
"There are so many ways to traffic drugs in middle schools if you allow this in any form. I 100% agree on no-tolerance there."

On March 06 2011 06:02 sikyon wrote:
Frankly if you're not good enough to complete the exam in the given time, then maybe you should have been better with the course material. Trying to make the exam easier by squeezing extra time out of it is not fair.