Harvard Students Caught Cheating.

A group of students were allegedly cheating on their take home exams. This happened at a government class, hey at least they are getting ready for a career in politics. :banana:

Here is the link to the CNN article: Harvard Students Cheating.

 

That's not surprised at all. My high school Valedictorian graduate cheated on her AP Calculus BC homeworks and exam. She was ranked #1 out 255 students in the class. She also received full scholarship to University of Virginia. But I got full scholarship through Uncle Sam from his Misguide Children's gang (USMC).:Eyecrazy:

 

What gets me is when all of these education snobs denounce DL as a form of education because "online" students cheat. Good for you Devil Dog, same with me, however, I joined the good ol' Army or as some of my Marine buddies call it the Ain't Ready to be a Marine Yet branch. Hooah! :drillsergeant:

 

Why am I not surprised?

 

279 students in one class? I've had some large classes but this is obscene.

Rich

 

No surprise. I'd say cheating is as rampant at the Ivy Leagues as anywhere else.

 

With that many students in class, I would imagine there would definitely be some similarities between student responses. I just wonder what they did to cheat? Were the responses word for word identical? Or were the responses just similar? When you have a question about Congress and Interest Groups, it seems like the students would just answer "yes" or "no" and then support the answer. Perhaps they used similar examples to support their claims. I don't know, but I wonder about the test's design. Was it created in such a way that students were forced into using similar pieces of information in their responses?

Too many questions...

-Matt

 

It's not unusual at all for entry-level classes at large universities to have hundreds of students. But in this case, the professor will be assisted by a number of teaching assistants, who may be adjuncts or graduate students. The professor will lecture to the students as a large group, but the students will break into smaller groups with the teaching assistants for discussions, labs, etc. The teaching assistants will also handle most of the grading.

It sounds like there were some real problems with the test. Some of the questions were apparently confusing and unclear; unfortunately, the professor cancelled his scheduled office hours during the exam period, and was not available to provide clarification. It sounds like the students may have begun discussing the test with each other, in an attempt to figure out the questions.

 

It wasn't all that unusual in 1960... :smile:

I had a couple of classes that large -- at a school (Canadian) that wasn't that big, by American standards. Never saw a TA in the history class -- but I'm sure the professor had help in marking etc. Medieval History was about that size (270) ...French Lit. was close - I'd say 200 at least. We did have tutorial groups in French.

Johann

 

I had 200+ student classes at USF as well. Chem I,II, Intro to anthropology etc.

Harvard is just a school and students are just students. The halo needs to come off of these schools a bit imho.

 

I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that no school exists where students don't cheat, or at least attempt to cheat.. High School.. University (both undergrad and grad).. I remember a relative of mine who wrote several doctoral papers for others as a way for himself to pay for his schooling (mind you this was in the 80's) ...

 

Harvard's Computer Science 50, one of the most popular courses on campus, had well over 500 students in the class. It was held in a large auditorium.

 

500 wow! How can you learn like this? I was extremely lucky, the biggest class I had as an undergrad had 30 students in it. Most of my classes were in the 12-23 range. Then again I went to a small school, roughly 8000 students when I attended.

 

The University at Buffalo has had more than 1,000 students in Chemistry 101.

So how do you learn like this? Typically a class like this has two parts:

(1) You go to lectures with hundreds of other students in huge auditoriums. The main professor lectures to all of you. There is typically little or no opportunity for questions or discussion during the lectures.

(2) But you are also assigned to a "section", which is maybe 20-30 students. There can be dozens of different sections associated with the same class. Each section is led by a teaching assistant (TA), who might be an adjunct professor or a graduate student. In addition to attending lectures, you also meet regularly with your section for class discussion, questions, labs, etc. The main professor prepares the test and assignments for all of the sections, so all the sections have to do the same work. But you hand your work to the TA of your section, who grades it.

It's hard to see what other system could be practical at a school where hundreds of students want to take the same class. Does it make more sense for the main professor to deliver the same lecture over and over, dozens of times, to small groups of 20-30 students at a time ?

 

For courses that are shared between the College and the Extension School (like the government course in question) that's kind of how it works. Extension students generally watch online, though some professors make a point of inviting them to attend lectures in person. College students are expected to attend in person, though professors often make the recorded lectures available to College students in case they have to miss a class. In practice, I get the sense that a lot of College students take advantage of the recorded lectures.

 

This New York Times article provides some additional information regarding the course and the counter-arguments made by the students accused of cheating in this scandal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/education/students-of-harvard-cheating-scandal-say-group-work-was-accepted.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1

Steve