How to Catch a Cheater
nerdlife.net
nerdlife.net
After the first two tests, the professor must have noticed that something wasn't right. I finished the third test quickly, and was pretty confident that I had done extremely well. We used scantron sheets for our answers, so we got to take the paper with the questions home after the test. I had marked all of my answers on both sheets, so I loaded the course website and started checking my answers.
My heart sank as I went through the answers. Somehow I had managed to get every single question wrong. I figured that there must have been something wrong with the answers, and when I matched the answers (not the letters), I realized that I had actually gotten every question right.
The prof swapped the letters, so the kids whose friends were texting them the "answers" got screwed. It was pretty funny, even if it increased my blood pressure for a little bit.
Other departments had their own anti-cheating methods. Kids coming straight out of high school, who were used to less sophisticated cheat-detection methods, tended to get burned pretty bad their first semester.
I might be in the minority but I am of the opinion that if you are grading students on something that can be easily obtained through a google search you probably shouldn't be grading them on that.
Just to take a trivial example: take a look at Project Euler. There's no question in my mind that working through those exercises is a valuable learning experience, and (in the context of a programming course) would be worth grading someone on-- even though the answers are readily available to anyone who searches for them.
How in the world you got that out of my comment is beyond me.
People cheat with resources available it is a sad fact but it is true. You are being unfair if you decide to punish honest students by grading on something that is easily available (I've seen homework grades as 30% off class grades before).
There are only so many simple recursive procedures, and I guarantee nearly all of them are online.
That said, I do think that once students have a basic understanding of computer science all assignments should be given so that the answer are not online. And this wouldn't bee to hard, even. It would just take some effort by the professor.
(lazy student speaking from personal experience. being graded on the homework 'encouraged' learning the concepts!)
And that is bad, why exactly? You're unprepared, you fail, you learn a lesson, you retake. Repeat until done. I too was a lazy student and found that failing a few classes and having to resit the exam was a fine way to motivate you to study.
For example have them write a program that solves the game of Nim, but don't tell them the name of the game they are solving. Instead call it "pick up pennies" or something like that. Now Google won't help.
However, there will be someone in the class who knows that "pick up pennies" is just the game of Nim, and will google it. Renaming makes it harder so fewer people will be able to cheat, but it doesn't make it impossible. (That said, it wouldn't be all that hard for the professor to create his own game which is similar to Nim in some respects, but different in others -- I believe this would be the best solution -- but unfortunately most professors would not put the time in to do this.)
This problem multiplies tenfold when you try to do it with math. (Integrate _____ -> WolframAlpha. Prove ______ -> Google.)
In general, creating good, well-balanced problems isn't easy! And many of the "classic" examples are classic precisely because they incorporate just the right blend of concepts in an unusually simple package. That's not easy to duplicate, if it's possible at all. (I do my best to write exam problems that way, but it can be a tortuous process.)
Replace the teacher with a coach in a weightlifting class. One day he wants you to lift some freeweights, but he wants you to lift them in a particular way that does not use your legs. (Let's say he's having you do "military presses".) "Nonsense!" says the modern student, who already knows that it's best to lift heavy things with their legs. "Why shouldn't I be able to use this awesome resource (my legs) that's right here at my disposal!?"
Well maybe - just maybe - the coach wants to target your deltoids. Hmmm.
Enter Professor Luis von Ahn, who wants you to do homework without using google. Perhaps that is because he doesn't want you to target and improve your research abilities. It could be that, rather, he would like you to exercise and sculpt your ability to work problems from first principles. The professor may be aware that practice makes permanent, and homework is intended to get students to strengthen specific things, and that taking the easy way out robs the student of the intended benefit.
That's how I approach being a student, and so I grant that when sensei says wax-on, paint-uh-fence, and sand-uh-flo that he's got some idea of what I should be working on. But that's an old, old attitude that exists only in a handful of Hollywood movies these days. So that's why I'm betting you're actually in the majority.
By the way, the instructor here is an awesome guy. Anybody who hasn't heard of Luis von Ahn should do themselves a favor and watch his presentation on Human Computation:
1) The early homeworks in this class were basically puzzles, where if you’ve seen the style of problem before you more or less knew the answer. The goal was to expose us to these types of problems and teach us how to think them through properly.
2) The class was taught by Luis just as he was beginning to hit mainstream media. The guy has a unique approach to problems that was absolutely inspiring. His lectures were one of the few that I actually made an effort to go to.
Edit: Now here is someone that was actually paying attention: I believe it was called Finkleberg’s 101 game, at least when I took the class. Maybe he pulled the same trick with a different problem several times. I remember thinking “this is such a googleable problem” because of the peculiar name so I actually assumed that a google search for the name would be a honeypot trap. My assumption proved correct.
PS: There are plenty of great resources at a top institution to learn, but you can only explore a tiny fraction of them.
I don't disagree, as long as the instructor is able to defend the pedagogical purpose of the limitations he demands. The OP is essentially contending that few situations warrant such limitations, and I agree with him about that.
I just had a thought over my morning coffee: I would agree that the instructor should be able to defend such choices to the head of the department. The instructor may choose to defend the choice to the student, but the instructor should only be required to defend the choice to the student if the student is also required to be able to defend why they should be allowed to be there. I fear the most precious thing we've lost in our modern society is a student's willingness to bring themselves to the process, and so if I (as an instructor) must defend why I've set boundaries on an exercise then then you (as the student) must be able to defend that you really want to learn what I have to teach.
Alas, higher education has been reduced to a transaction for a service, and "the customer is always right".
few situations warrant such limitations, and I agree with him about that.
I have the opposite view. Most of the homework that I've ever seen (as a Math & Comp Sci double major) was about the benefit of the exercise, and very rarely about strengthening research abilities. But, then, I was in school when Tim Berners-Lee was gestating the world wide web concept at CERN.
Google does simple math, so that's basically an equivalent issue.
IMO it's dumb -- in real life you have access to Google. But I mostly wanted to say I think there's clearly majority support for artificial grading conditions, since the no-calculators thing is so popular.
For similar reasons, we were also allowed to bring in any books, notes etc. to exams. If you didn't have a good understanding of the subject, they weren't helpful at all as there was no time to start figuring out things, but if knew stuff, you didn't need the books and lecture notes at all or only for reference.
Sometimes I miss those times.
If one is taking a class merely to learn how to Google for the answers, then one should not be in a university. One should be in a trade school which only teaches you enough of your fields of study to be able to figure out the right terms to Google for.
When you take university classes, the goal is to learn to be the people that provide the solutions that the trade schoolers will Google for.
This is a situation where you can't give problems to an undergraduate student that are easy enough to answer while they're simultaneously impossible to Google. I'd love to give my own students the opportunity to experience these types of critical thinking questions. Unfortunately, I know that I'm completely incapable of assigning ungoogleable problems without turning them into some Dr. House shit that can't be answered by a college student.
Few people would say it's wrong to not be able to google during an exam, but most would agree that not googling during exercises is insane.
Two weeks after we had taken the test, he said, "I have to come clean. The reason I have not graded your tests is that I lost them and have been trying to find them for the last two weeks. I'm very, very sorry, it was entirely my fault, and as a result" (he produced stack of paper from behind his back) "you all have to retake the test right now. Put your books away, take a test and two sheets of scratch paper, and start working."
We didn't have as many students sign up for the second semester of AP Chemistry. Not many people failed the first semester, and scores in AP classes were given a full letter grade boost compared to regular classes, but students knew he wasn't messing around. As a result, it was one of the best AP classes we had, and lots of kids got good scores on the AP test.
In high school and particularly AP, those courses are blatant cycles of 1) cram, 2) test, and 3) forget all but the core of what that section was about.
(If you want to say, "You should learn it all for the final" keep in mind nobody does, nor are final exams built around remembering everything from the whole course.)
The great thing about AP classes was that the teachers could really teach, and they could justify themselves by pointing to the AP test if anyone complained about the rigor of the work. The students were game, too, at least the ones who didn't drop the classes. Everybody sincerely tried to understand what they were doing instead of just trying to make the right pencil marks on the test paper, since understanding was the most efficient way to retain something for months at a time. The test looming at the end of the year rendered cramming pointless -- you could cram for one test, but you would have to eventually learn the material anyway in order to take the AP exam, so cramming for a test actually felt like the failure that it was.
I still wish I'd taken more; I could have gotten out of more dull first-year classes.
But no, there's no mistake, here. Much like other high school classes, the AP classes I took were sequences of sections followed by intense "reviews" the day prior to each test. They were the very model of how schools encourage cram-and-forget education.
This naturally made students who crammed have a tougher time in later classes in college. I wasn't one of them, but I refuse to look down on the people who were behaving exactly as the teachers were training them to behave.
Thats a good thing though - it prepares the students for the real world.
"In high school and particularly AP, those courses are blatant cycles of 1) cram, 2) test, and 3) forget all but the core of what that section was about.
(If you want to say, "You should learn it all for the final" keep in mind nobody does, nor are final exams built around remembering everything from the whole course.)"
--
It's not like the crammers are even bad kids. A lot of them have no choice because if they didn't study that way they wouldn't have enough time to study and will end up getting worse grades.
This would mainly show people that the world screws you over and people who are part of crappy systems will go ahead and screw you over on top of the crappy system. I see little fairness in this situation.
Kids who can't pass the class without cramming and who aren't going to retain the material shouldn't be in an AP class in the first place. They're going to run into a concrete wall at the end and waste their money (or the school's money) taking a test they aren't prepared for. Some students can handle it, and that's who the class is for. In my graduating class, there were maybe a dozen kids who got a 5 on at least one AP test, and I think there were two dozen who got a 3 on at least one AP test. That's out of a graduating class of a little over 300. (The entering class was over 400, so you can tell I didn't go to an especially good school.)
As a one-off stunt to punish the students in his class, that clearly wasn't his intent (or any plausable effect).
You either know the material, or you don't know the material. The timing, location or preparation for the test is irrelevant. The test is irrelevant.
That's a long way to go for a little intellectual arrogance.
it was crude and pretty obvious but extremely effective and no one in my class was ever caught.
The sort of policy that does not allow one to do basic research is pretty anti-academic if you ask me.
It was definitely one of the most fun courses I've taken.
(Hey Brian!)
"Commonly referred to as The Glorblar Problem"
That phrasing is a cue that the student is expected to either look something up or to refer back to notes or memory of lectures or discussion of the Glorblar Problem in class. Why else mention it, if it were an honest homework problem?
We know they didn't hear about the Glorblar Problem in class - it doesn't exist. For the same reason, we know that hitting the books, either back at the dorms or in the library, wouldn't have turned up anything.
Remember that this is homework, not a test. Yes, presumably the problem is doable without any reference material. The students don't necessarily know that, though. They do know that they've been prodded in that question to at least check their thinking or work against external information....which isn't available to them through the channels they've been permitted to use.
So, the professor deliberately tempted people to look up something online, then amused himself by busting the people who did. Cute method, but it proves nothing other than "schmuck bait works".
The way I see it, the people that are actually doing their homework wouldn't even be tempted by it..because they are actually doing their homework.
"Remember that this is homework, not a test. Yes, presumably the problem is doable without any reference material. The students don't necessarily know that, though. They do know that they've been prodded in that question to at least check their thinking or work against external information....which isn't available to them through the channels they've been permitted to use."
Checking your work against the correct answer and Googling the answer (and just writing it down) are two different things.
Especially:
"Checking your work against the correct answer and Googling the answer (and just writing it down) are two different things."
And you can tell the difference based on a server log...exactly how?
Are you here all week? Do you always get this many laughs?
"And you can tell the difference based on a server log...exactly how?"
If you can't see that googling answers isn't cheating, I'm sorry.
ETA: Or, charitably, you didn't recognize that the big UPDATES at the top of the blogger's post indicate that since my original post, he thought to clarify the context and indicate that he'd actually misremembered the phrasing of the question.
Or maybe both?
I wouldn't consider the actual professor's question from the linked exam to be entrapment, as it happens. That in mind, I'll save my disgust for the people who thought the scenario of entrapment originally described was so terribly clever.
I don't think it help students to progress it any way. It just feel like you are fighting against a bureaucraty which has no rules, or which has rules that will only be revealed until it's too late. What they are creating is traps, and traps don't teach anything because they are random.
Please teachers, read Richard Feynman stuff, he had such a joy to teach his students and stop bullying your students.
So, he doesn't want students to check their work, eh? After that first assignment, I'd cheat by every method I could possibly think of at every opportunity, because at this point, he has made it about grades, rather than about education.
The only time you can't go back and re-work and check the internet for help is during a test. You're SUPPOSED to look things up with homework, homework is for learning before a test. After all, the whole point of homework is to prepare yourself for a test, if you don't do the homework, if you just copy the answers, you won't be ready for the test. So what exactly is he achieving by not letting students get the maximum value out of homework?
Dirty, dishonest intellectual curiosity - you have to catch those people, right?
Seems like this just forces everyone to the same result: those who break the rules will and save themselves time, those that try and follow the rules will probably break after hours, and end up googling anyways.
Maybe I'm missing something but this seems totally absurd.
My wife is a professor (ya that again:>). As an accounting professor they do a lot of their homework/projects in excel. Excel, of course, saves the information of the document creator in it's meta-data which is trivial to look-up. She'll routinely get 5 or 6 of the exact same file (with the same origination data) for the same project. Overall, she'll catch 10%-20% of her class cheating in a given semester without even really trying.
1) the homework was supposed to work out your thinking muscles. Getting the "right" answer wasn't the point of the assignment as much as trying to discover how to obtain an answer. (much better described in these comments by pohl)
2) On crying "entrapment": See Orpheus and Eurydice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Death_of_Eurydice). There were rules clearly put in place and whether they made sense or not, if broken carried with them penalties that the perpetrators were well aware of. If that doesn't smell like the "real world" I don't know what does. With that said...
3) Universities are NOT the real world. They barely resemble the real world. The point of university has never been to "prepare you for the real world."
As for 2, heaven forfend anyone apply ethics to the actions of those in authority.
As for 3, well, you've just cancelled out your second point.
And Luis ended up telling everyone he was going to give them 0's and they'd take a huge hit in their grade, but he ended up not actually factoring that into the grades.