I teach college. In one class my room was tiny. I used to give different versions of the same exam (just on the multiple choice portion), so that no one had the same exam as the person sitting next to them. I had a student cheat off of her neighbor. “Liz” was normally a B student. She decided to cheat off of “Bob”, who was the top student in the class. Liz erased mostly correct answers from her exam, and replaced them all with the answers from Bob’s exam. Bob got nearly all of his answers correct. Which meant they were incorrect for Liz’s version.
Liz had to attend a disciplinary hearing with the honor council. She was found guilty by a jury of her peers (seriously). I could have gotten her kicked out of the class with an F but I decided to be nice and just give her an F on the exam. She nearly got kicked off her athletic team and almost lost her scholarship.
I tried to ask myself what outcome I wanted. Like I said, she was normally a B student so I don’t know what possessed her to make such a foolish choice. To her credit, she was mortified and genuinely remorseful. I decided I wanted her to learn her lesson about cheating, and to learn from the class. I wanted her to come out of the experience as a better person. I knew she was probably busy and overwhelmed.
She never knew I was the one who caught her. She thought one of her classmates (but she didn’t know which one) turned her in. That allowed her to sincerely believe that I had her best interests at heart – which I did. I talked with her about what she needed to do to make sure she got the C she needed in the class to keep her scholarship. She was very appreciative and worked her butt off for the rest of the semester.
I’ve had other students that were habitual cheaters that were only sorry they got caught. That wasn’t Liz. But she made a stupid mistake and I hope getting caught improved her character and taught her not to cheat again.