I would just like to note that this statement is not unfair if it is true. What may be unfair, however, is making the statement based on inadequate information. It is certainly true, for example, that in some countries bribery of government officials (i.e., to get business permits) is a way of life, and in others it is not. As others have noted some international students may come from settings in which certain practices are not considered cheating, whereas they are considered cheating in the U.S. It is possible, however, that some of them may come from countries in which academic cheating is simply more common. The problem comes with generalizations based on the behavior of a few people who may or may not be representative.</p>
<p>“Too many 18-year-old Americans, meanwhile, text one another under their desks (certain they are sly enough to go unnoticed), check e-mail, decline to take notes, and appear tired and disengaged.”</p>
<p>I think this problem is rampant in American colleges among US students. Ask any prof if there is one thing he could do it would be to block all electronic access to outside sources in the classroom. Some have tried banning such devices but that is hard to enforce. My wife tells me several of the younger workers in her office spend hours each day texting or on their phones. They think nothing of it when confronted. It’s seen as their right.</p>
<p>Don’t professors have full authority to base grades on any factors they choose? If so, then it’s simple. Deduct points for screwing around in class. Sleeping at your desk? 25 points. Texting during the lecture? 10 points. Within two class periods the problem would go away, and the professor would be part of the solution, instead of just griping about the problem.</p>
<p>Why is it hard to enforce? It’s what my husband does. He includes attendance as a part of his college students’ grades… Old-school, but it’s worth ten percent of their final grade, and he finds it necessary to incentivize class attendance and participation. Students get docked points for unexcused absences and tardiness, he takes roll, he notes when people are late and talks to the students after class about why they weren’t there. </p>
<p>If you’re caught with your phone out, you’re counted as absent that day. He’ll just keep lecturing, walk up to the student, take their phone, set it on his podium, mark them as absent, and keep going with class. The students learn REALLY quickly to quit messing with him, he ends up with a full classroom of participating students, and they end up understanding the material. Everybody wins.</p>
<p>I wish I could do that with the meetings I have to run here in my office, but in this economy, I can’t tell one of the firm’s principals to please hand me his Blackberry because he’s disturbing my class…</p>
<p>Regarding cheating or texting: That shouldn’t be tolerated in any culture.</p>
<p>Regarding the original article: without knowing more about what the teacher is actually teaching and how, it’s impossible to know how relevant her comments are. </p>
<p>Has she bothered to even find out what her students have going on beyond her class, and does she value all aspects of learning? </p>
<p>Perhaps the students whom she fails actually excel in other classes. Perhaps they thrive in an environment outside of the rules she has set up. Perhaps they have built spectacular projects or created new things that she is not aware of. It actually takes more effort to create new things than to just repeat learned things. Or perhaps they are juggling many obligations, interests and priorities and contribute to the campus beyond just showing up to class. </p>
<p>Some lower graded students might in fact be more responsible (and less “lazy”) than those only focusing on one thing like a high number grade. She should look at the whole picture of each student rather than only see race for her reasons and judgments.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you are trying to push this false dichotomy of intelligent students and unethical students, especially as it relates to foreign students being judged by our ethical standards. I have given examples of students in top 10 programs doing things that Americans would consider cheating. Perhaps you’d like to argue that top 10 isn’t good enough to be considered “good”, though, and that only the top 2 or 3 are the true bastions of academic integrity.</p>
That reminds me of my chemistry teacher in high school. He told us on the first day of class that he would not be taking attendance and that we are free to stay away from his class if there are other things we had to do. However, he would hold us accountable for all of the material and he would not tolerate us disrupting class (that includes texting, sleeping or doing homework for other classes). That class had one of the lowest attendance rates of my high school career and a good number of students failed, but the students who did show up made a sincere effort to learn.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I attended a high school overseas. An American high school teacher couldn’t get away not taking attendance or failing a third of the class - but a college professor can.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure why you are trying to push this false dichotomy of intelligent students and unethical students, especially as it relates to foreign students being judged by our ethical standards. I have given examples of students in top 10 programs doing things that Americans would consider cheating. Perhaps you’d like to argue that top 10 isn’t good enough to be considered “good”, though, and that only the top 2 or 3 are the true bastions of academic integrity.”</p>
<p>That was cheating on homework, not cheating on tests though right. I don’t cheat on homeworks, but I do find it “less unethical” than cheating on tests.</p>
<p>This problem goes beyond students. My wife attended a dinner at Harvard honoring one of my mentors that had a keynote speech that was given by another (Nobel Prize winning) mentor. I had to be in another country at the time and regretted missing the event as both are near and dear to my heart and to my intellectual development. My wife told me it was funny watching the (male) Harvard professors seated at her table attempting to engage in conversation while emailing away with Blackberries below the table thinking somehow that no one would notice that they were doing this. She just kicks me when I do it.</p>
<p>And it goes beyond just Americans, too. Being a high-profile firm, we’ve got a lot of foreign engineers high in the ranks, and I don’t see any difference in the incessant Blackberrying between the Americans and the non-Americans. Annoyingly, it’s becoming an accepted part of the modern global culture.</p>
<p>Being a gal who constantly writes thank you notes on nice stationery and who actually owns placecards in bulk for dinner parties, the trend towards depersonalization drives me bananas.</p>
<p>I had two classes this semester that were filled with students from a Chinese university. I would frequently (EVERY time a homework assignment was due,) see these students scrambling to copy answers from each other at the beginning of lecture. On one occasion, the professor noticed this and said to the student “You’re doing that on your own, right?” and she kind of just looked puzzled as the professor repeated himself and then walked away. (I never heard her speak a word of English and suspect that she just didn’t understand him.)</p>
<p>In one course, I had a professor who would ask for homeworks at the beginning of lecture and then immediately hand out the solutions. Some of these students would proceed to take the solutions, and copy/change their answers and later hand in the homeworks while the professor took a break during the middle of the class.</p>
<p>Do American students cheat? Of course. Maybe they just aren’t as obvious about it, but I think it is terrible that my school (Michigan) accepts so many international students who seem to have such little integrity.</p>
<p>This thought crossed my mind while reading the post about the professor who left the classroom to “work in their office” during exams, and others who give take home exams. It seems to me that in this day, any prof who thinks students don’t cheat is being very naive, unfortunately. So, what would explain this kind of lax supervision on their part? I don’t buy the whole “treat the students like adults” mentality, it’s just a mask for laziness.</p>
It’s nice that you write thank-you notes, but they wouldn’t be any more or less personal if they were written on a Blackberry. The false correlation “electronic = depersonalized” is rampant in our culture and drives me bananas.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean it isn’t rude to write emails on your Blackberry under the table at dinner, of course, but then it would be just as rude to write notes on nice stationery under (or on) the table at dinner.</p>
<p>At Michigan, all exams in the College of Engineering are never proctored because of the honor code or whatever. (It is different in the liberal arts, business, etc. schools here) Professors usually just check in every once in a while to see if there are any questions.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen any obvious cheating in an Engineering exam. The only cheating I really have seen has been by students from our “partner” university (Shanghai JTU) madly copying homework assignments.</p>
<p>cheating… were talking about cheating on homeworks, lab reports, quizzes, in-class assignments etc. these graded assignments are worth 5-10% of the total grade. As a college student myself, it is easy to “cheat” on homework but when it comes to taking the exam there is virtually no way to cheat. for example, my calculus 2 final… no calculators, sitting every other seat with all the calculus professors walking around the room. also, the department policy is you cannot receive a grade 2 letters higher than your final exam grade. For example, if you make a C on the final the highest grade you can receive is a B. granted exams are curved, but no one ever knows how the curve will turn out. </p>
<p>conclusion… if the kids cheat, text, don’t pay attention that means they have no motivation. banning phones or checking everyone’s homework for cheating will do no good as these kids are going to fail anyway if they have no motivation to learn. this is college! students are officially men and women and they should be treated like that. it is now up to them to decide how their futures will be.</p>
<p>"At Michigan, all exams in the College of Engineering are never proctored because of the honor code or whatever. (It is different in the liberal arts, business, etc. schools here) Professors usually just check in every once in a while to see if there are any questions.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen any obvious cheating in an Engineering exam. The only cheating I really have seen has been by students from our “partner” university (Shanghai JTU) madly copying homework assignments."</p>
<p>Been pretty much my experience as well… Just to back that statement up.</p>