Let Us Cheat!
FYI, I do not consider plagiarism a form of cheating, it is stealing and an entirely different conversation.
The Problem
The American Education system has frowned upon cheating and deemed it nothing short of despicable. The unfortunate few who get caught face stiff punishments and expulsions, while a good chunk of student population cheats and lies their way through school unscathed.
According to a report made in 2005 by Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe for The Center for Academic Integrity 70% of public high school students admit to serious test cheating.
If you Can’t Stop Them, Embrace Them
I propose that cheating in all forms be encouraged. Talk during tests, bring in cheat sheets for exams, collaborate on homework and projects, use your cell phone during a test. Your ability to locate information that you don’t know is far more valuable then your ability to retain that information.
When asked the speed of light, Einstein replied, “Why bother carrying information about the speed of light around in my head, when I can just look it up in a book?”
Imagine how much better you could grasp a subject if your teacher had to design their lessons and tests around the expectation of cheating in the forms of collaboration, sharing, and access to the Internet. This would not only force teachers to create more intuitive and unique lesson plans and exams, but will encourage collaboration and sharing between students. My colleague, Chris Alfano, put it well,
“True mastery of an idea comes only when one is tasked with conveying it to another. Bit-torrent provides a perfect model. We must reform our schools to tap the upstream capacity of their students to fill the demand. The strongest networks, however, are the ones with dedicated seeds. Teachers must become seeds as students work together to pull their collective weight.”
Let us cheat, Let us help teach ourselves!
February 19th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I completely agree with your view on cheating. The main problem is that some professors don’t want to go the extra mile to make their classes more cooperative, intuitive and fun to work. They rather show the same power point slides for 5 years in a row, give the same homework and same tests, since this makes their life much more easier.
I did notice recently though that in many of my information systems classes, especially on tests and homeworks professors do encourage students to go on different sites and get their information from anywhere they please as long as it is somewhat credible and the student states the resource. So maybe in the near future there will be more classes/professors taking up this form of education.