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427 points JumpCrisscross | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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skhunted ◴[] No.41904004[source]
I’ve been teaching in higher education for 30 years and am soon retiring. I teach math. In every math course there is massive amounts of cheating on everything that is graded that is not proctored in a classroom setting. Locking down browsers and whatnot does not prevent cheating.

The only solution is to require face-to-face proctored exams and not allow students to use technology of any kind while taking the test. But any teacher doing this will end up with no students signing up for their class. The only solution I see is the Higher Learning Commission mandating this for all classes.

But even requiring in person proctored exams is not the full solution. Students are not used to doing the necessary work to learn. They are used to doing the necessary work to pass. And that work is increasingly cheating. It’s a clusterfuck. I have calculus students who don’t know how to work with fractions. If we did truly devise a system that prevents cheating we’ll see that a very high percentage of current college students are not ready to be truly college educated.

K-12 needs to be changed as well.

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zahlman ◴[] No.41905073[source]
Absolutely true, and not limited to the USA either.

In university I can recall a computer graphics course where literally everyone got 100+% on problem sets (there were bonus questions of course) and the median score on the midterm was below 50%. Leading up to the exam I remember the prof leading an exam prep session, opening the floor to questions, and getting a sincere request from one of the students to please go over the whole concept of "matrices" again.

This was a 400 level course, BTW. At one of the highest-rated universities in Canada. (I was taking it as an elective from a different program from the default, so I can't speak to the precise prerequisites to get there.)

This was over 20 years ago, BTW. I'm sure it's only gotten somehow even worse.

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1. chatmasta ◴[] No.41905133[source]
In my algorithms class (and some others), our professor openly approved of collaboration on problem sets. He knew that students were going to collaborate anyway, so it may as well be encouraged and used as a pedagogical tool. The problem sets were more difficult because of this, but nobody was afraid to talk about them and help each other work through the proofs.

The midterm and final exam were in-person in bluebooks, and they were 60% of your grade. If you were just copying the problem sets, you would fail the exams and likely the class.

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2. ◴[] No.41905699[source]