Need ideas on how to stop CHEATING & start an effective HONOR CODE!

ariesathena
Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:37:48 +0000

The cornerstone of a good honour system, as stated above, really is having a requirement that those who witness cheating say something about it.

I would not worry too much about “plagerism” as missed quotes and footnoes. Before y’all jump all over me, let me explain. I think that an honour code is as strong as the weakest part of it. It is really, really hard to suspend a student for mis-citing a source, forgetting quotes, not indenting properly, or whatever. You’ll have almost no student support for a system that does that. Focus on the big stuff.

Consider having violations brought before a council made up of (respected) faculty members and students - and, of course, make it a violation in of itself for the “court” members to discuss what happens there.

The remedy for cheating (blatant, not “grey area” stuff) is simple: failure of that class. Straight-up F for the quarter.

I remember that the big issues in high school were:
*Students getting info about tests (what the problems were, what questions were asked) and then studying for those.
*Having other people write papers for them.
*“Group work” on individual assignments. Those are the kinds of things that would really benefit from a reciprocal honour requirement: students who know about the “group” study for an assignment can turn in their peers, and the peers cannot play it off as a mistake.
*Copying homework that got graded credit.

My college did not have an honour system, but the math department had an ingenious homework grading system: if you completed 60% correctly, you received full credit. You were required to have at least tried the other problems. You were allowed to “miss” up to 10% of the assignments; after that, your grade started moving downwards. High completion rates would help your grade. That system really discourages cheating, because the benefit (or lack of punishment) is very small.

Consider having different punishments for students as they progress throughout high school - and perhaps different standards.