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(Yahoo)   A bunch of Dartmouth Medical School students have been expelled for cheating on their online exams based on the "evidence" of online learning software the students were forced to install that isn't even set up to be used that way   (news.yahoo.com) divider line
    More: Asinine, Medical school, Cheating, Doctor of Medicine, first-year student, Plea, Arraignment, Academic dishonesty, Dartmouth's Geisel School  
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3675 clicks; posted to Main » on 10 May 2021 at 9:05 AM (2 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Copy Link



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Warthog [TotalFark] [OhFark]  
Smartest (53)   Funniest (1)  
2021-05-10 8:46:38 AM  
They're expelling people over Canvas logs?  Canvas blows goat choad.  Our school system requires kids to use it, and that software suite is glitchy AF.  I find it totally credible that the system was doing its own thing in the background and that the appealing students are telling the truth.
 
kudayta [TotalFark]  
Smartest (63)   Funniest (2)  
2021-05-10 8:54:42 AM  
In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.
 
Warthog [TotalFark] [OhFark]  
Smartest (35)   Funniest (4)  
2021-05-10 9:01:44 AM  

kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.


In most situations that's true, but not when you've got both your hands wrapped around a patient's aorta.  Medicine remains one of those professions where having it all inside your head is important.  For now.  Having an AI you can talk to may change that soon.  "Alexa, how do I identify and isolate the femoral artery?" might become a thing.
 
Jclark666  
Smartest (1)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:09:30 AM  
It wasn't "software they were forced to install" it was "they looked at the class website during the test."
 
2021-05-10 9:10:38 AM  

Warthog: They're expelling people over Canvas logs?  Canvas blows goat choad.  Our school system requires kids to use it, and that software suite is glitchy AF.  I find it totally credible that the system was doing its own thing in the background and that the appealing students are telling the truth.


In several cases, "Canvas doing it's own thing in the background" is Exactly what happened.

They need to apologize and reinstate those students before the lawsuits start - because Discovery is going to reveal just how stupid the school was to expel people based on that software.
 
LarryDan43  
Smartest (1)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:10:59 AM  
Looked up one answer? That's farked.
 
Chromium_One  
Smartest (27)   Funniest (1)  
2021-05-10 9:11:00 AM  
Article does nothing to counter my bias that school administrators are generally choads of limited ability and intellect.
 
Bslim  
Smartest (10)   Funniest (13)  
2021-05-10 9:11:05 AM  
"The data indicated that he had looked up course material related to one question during each test, honor code violations that could lead to expulsion"

Let's unpack, shall we?
If you're stupid enough to look up shiat on the same machine you're taking the test maybe you're too stupid to be in the medical field.
 
2021-05-10 9:13:21 AM  
Now he faces suspension and a misconduct mark on his academic record that could derail his dream of becoming a pediatrician.

Dude.  I'm pretty sure getting convicted of cheating won't disqualify you from being able to walk on a sidewalk
 
beezeltown [TotalFark]  
Smartest (8)   Funniest (61)  
2021-05-10 9:15:16 AM  

Warthog: "Alexa, how do I identify and isolate the femoral artery?" might become a thing.


Alexa: "Feminine Identity is the concept of female-"
Doctor: "No, Alexa, the femoral artery!"
Alexa: "Now playing Femora Party by The Jaded Hussies"
Doctor: "Alexa, call my malpractice insurance provider..."
 
2021-05-10 9:16:38 AM  
See? That just proves it. Cheaters!
 
manunkind  
Smartest (17)   Funniest (2)  
2021-05-10 9:17:37 AM  

Chromium_One: Article does nothing to counter my bias that school administrators are generally choads of limited ability and intellect.


Those who cannot do, teach; those who cannot teach, administrate.
 
sleze  
Smartest (16)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:19:08 AM  
It seems like a common theme among Universities that when it comes to misconduct of any kind (cheating, sexual misconduct, free speech, etc), they have a VERY bad record on due process.  I am truly curious why that is.

And before people jump down my throat, I think that the sexual misconduct stuff should immediately be turned over to the local Police Department.
 
2021-05-10 9:20:06 AM  
Easy solution.  Set up a camera, or cameras, to record yourself and your screen while taking online tests.
 
2021-05-10 9:20:08 AM  
We were told Canvas ran a facial recognition pattern scan, recorded how often we looked up, logged into a new site etc. We were told to tape our cam during tests.
 
thornhill  
Smartest (9)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:20:25 AM  
FTFA:

While universities have long used anti-plagiarism software and other anti-cheating apps, the pandemic has pushed hundreds of schools that switched to remote learning to embrace more invasive tools. Over the last year, many have required students to download software that can take over their computers during remote exams or use webcams to monitor their eye movements for possibly suspicious activity, even as technology experts have warned that such tools can be invasive, insecure, unfair and inaccurate.

JFC. How did school administrators not realize that would be problematic.
 
steklo [TotalFark] [OhFark]  
Smartest (9)   Funniest (1)  
2021-05-10 9:20:35 AM  

kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.


I was in the army and worked at a telecommunications site and many of my Army Communication tests were performed in this manner. Matter or fact during many live drills and tests, you were graded on exactly what book & volume would you be able to find "What to do when your communication site is blown up by the enemy" instead of knowing, exactly what to do.
 
Magorn [TotalFark]  
Smartest (26)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:21:13 AM  

kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.


a rather smart guy from India gave a Ted talk about modern education with the thesis that all the skills we value and test for in grade and high school, Writing legibly, composition, doing simple arithmetic , being able to memorize large quantities of information and spit them out on demand, are all skills designed to make excellent clerks of the kind that were once necessary as the "gears" of the machine that was the British Empire in the pre-electronic communications era.   And we've just never really updated our ideas of what being "educated" in the modern information age  really means.


I often say my skills and training as a lawyer are NOT some sort of encyclopedic knowledge of the law, but having the training in legal thinking and parlance to spot your issues and know where to look to find the law that applies to your situation
 
2021-05-10 9:21:54 AM  

kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.


Intro to Engineering 101 my professor stated:  You don't need to know the answer just where to find it and how to apply it.  Rogue memorization is for the history department.

Atleast in the Mechanical Engineering department you were allowed a sheet of paper with all the relevant equations.
 
JerseyTim [TotalFark] [OhFark]  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (4)  
2021-05-10 9:22:32 AM  
This is why you always open up Edge to look up the answers in a separate browser.
 
2021-05-10 9:22:40 AM  
Too bad Dartmouth doesn't have any money, not "deep pockets."

Too bad Canvas's company is not listed on the NYSE as "INST."

Too bad there are no hungry lawyers out there who would like to see their young clients get their anticipated lifetime earnings plus punitive damages all in a lump sum.
 
TheBlackrose  
Smartest (28)   Funniest (1)  
2021-05-10 9:24:50 AM  
FTFA: Zhang, 22, said he had not cheated. But when the school's student affairs office suggested he would have a better outcome if he expressed remorse and pleaded guilty, he felt he had little choice but to agree. Now he faces suspension and a misconduct mark on his academic record that could derail his dream of becoming a pediatrician.

Damn, I didn't expect the student affairs office to be taking bits off of police interrogations.
 
2021-05-10 9:26:16 AM  
Yay for personally relevant experience. I'm a doc, and when I was in med school, three of our main exams were online (Steps 1, 2CK, and 3). My wife's also in grad school, and they use Canvas for about anything.

With the first, I don't understand how exactly the school didn't have the testing software locked down. Even most of the practice question banks (Kaplan, Princeton, USMLEWorld, off the top of my head) use their own program and lock down. If you're in a practice question bank, the program won't let you access the internet. Our exams were even stricter- there wasn't a way to even close the exam window. It would close when you submitted your exam, or when you ran out of time. It seems elementary to have Canvas simply disallow access during an exam- it already does that when there's time-release materials like exams or some presentations, you get access at a given time, and lose access at a given time.

That brings me to Canvas itself. It's the most dogshiat system I've ever seen, even Blackboard works better. I completely believe that Canvas was at work in the background- I know Blackboard did. I even had to uninstall it after finishing a class, as it kept logging in per router logs.
 
2021-05-10 9:26:17 AM  
I had a feeling this sort of thing would become rampant as half the software they use was never designed for how they are using it and the other half was so hastily built to fill a need it is buggy as hell.
 
2021-05-10 9:26:36 AM  

thornhill: FTFA:

While universities have long used anti-plagiarism software and other anti-cheating apps, the pandemic has pushed hundreds of schools that switched to remote learning to embrace more invasive tools. Over the last year, many have required students to download software that can take over their computers during remote exams or use webcams to monitor their eye movements for possibly suspicious activity, even as technology experts have warned that such tools can be invasive, insecure, unfair and inaccurate.

JFC. How did school administrators not realize that would be problematic.


I would have failed. I was one of the type of students that stare into the distance when I am thinking of an answer. It also helps with eye strain which can distract. Having to keep staring at the computer screen would have been difficult.
 
Magorn [TotalFark]  
Smartest (10)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:27:12 AM  

thornhill: FTFA:

While universities have long used anti-plagiarism software and other anti-cheating apps, the pandemic has pushed hundreds of schools that switched to remote learning to embrace more invasive tools. Over the last year, many have required students to download software that can take over their computers during remote exams or use webcams to monitor their eye movements for possibly suspicious activity, even as technology experts have warned that such tools can be invasive, insecure, unfair and inaccurate.

JFC. How did school administrators not realize that would be problematic.


Because the school administrators, who largely got their jobs 20-30years ago by being the biggest bastard in the room during academic infighting, know dick about technology, and when some bright -eyed system vendor pitches them on the miraculous capabilities of his company's software (that the actual coders will hopefully have banged out a beta test version of in a couple of months)   they are too stupid to know they are being bullshiated, and so the students suffer.

Still better than the "Prison on Lockdown" protocols the Texas bar examiners put in place this year though
 
cefm  
Smartest (4)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:28:34 AM  
Seems like the school farked up badly in several ways. First by not telling students what the software would be used for, not understanding how it works, and not telling students how to avoid false flags, and second by not proving their case and having enough confidence in it to allow the accused students enough time to explain their side.
 
thornhill  
Smartest (3)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:29:18 AM  

Warthog: kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.

In most situations that's true, but not when you've got both your hands wrapped around a patient's aorta.  Medicine remains one of those professions where having it all inside your head is important.  For now.  Having an AI you can talk to may change that soon.  "Alexa, how do I identify and isolate the femoral artery?" might become a thing.


I don't disagree with that, but I do think that schools can come up with more creative solutions to test students and ensure they're not cheating than essentially installing spyware on their computers. Medical schools are pretty small; maybe they hire more TA's and the tests are partially done verbally, student to TA over Zoom? I know that's highly inefficient, but it's hopefully only something you have to do one or two semesters. Also, assuming that students are on campus, it also seems like there could have been a way to work with state medical officials to come up with a way to safely test inside, such as testing students in small groups in large spaces like a gym.
 
2021-05-10 9:31:19 AM  

SirDigbyChickenCaesar: kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.

Intro to Engineering 101 my professor stated:  You don't need to know the answer just where to find it and how to apply it.  Rogue memorization is for the history department.

Atleast in the Mechanical Engineering department you were allowed a sheet of paper with all the relevant equations.


Same in the sciences. Lot of time we were allowed a 3×5 card to have anything we wanted on it. It is impressive how much information you can put into one of those.
 
metric [TotalFark]  
Smartest (3)   Funniest (1)  
2021-05-10 9:31:35 AM  
In grad school, all our tests were "take home" tests. I don't think the internet is much help at cheating on advanced statistics calculations. You can either do it, or you can't.
 
Warthog [TotalFark] [OhFark]  
Smartest (4)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:33:58 AM  

Magorn: I often say my skills and training as a lawyer are NOT some sort of encyclopedic knowledge of the law, but having the training in legal thinking and parlance to spot your issues and know where to look to find the law that applies to your situation


66.media.tumblr.comView Full Size


I tell our summer associates that law school is like a boot camp for learning a foreign language.  The individual cases are just the vocabulary.  Eventually they're important, but not of much use until you internalize the underlying structure of how to issue spot, dissect a fact pattern, research for the law applicable to those facts, and then write it all up in a comprehensible way.  The students who work to develop an encyclopedic memory of individual cases often don't do as well as those who focus on mastering the process itself.
 
2021-05-10 9:35:47 AM  
Private_Citizen:

Sue the software company as well.....

They put the school & the enduser studentsin the situation.
 
2021-05-10 9:37:02 AM  

Bear_of_Arkona: SirDigbyChickenCaesar: kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.

Intro to Engineering 101 my professor stated:  You don't need to know the answer just where to find it and how to apply it.  Rogue memorization is for the history department.

Atleast in the Mechanical Engineering department you were allowed a sheet of paper with all the relevant equations.

Same in the sciences. Lot of time we were allowed a 3×5 card to have anything we wanted on it. It is impressive how much information you can put into one of those.


we'd spend more time organizing our "cheat sheets" than actually studying.
 
thornhill  
Smartest (2)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:39:31 AM  
 
2021-05-10 9:43:59 AM  

SirDigbyChickenCaesar: kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.

Intro to Engineering 101 my professor stated:  You don't need to know the answer just where to find it and how to apply it.  Rogue memorization is for the history department.

Atleast in the Mechanical Engineering department you were allowed a sheet of paper with all the relevant equations.


A doctor doesn't always have the time to look it up.

When I had a checkride coming up in the military, it consisted of 5 tests: the 150-question look it up in the TOs test, the 50-question you'd better have it memorized test, the letter-and-punctuation-perfect boldface test, the actual in-flight performance evaluation, and the in-flight from-memory emergency procedures evaluation.

Some things are so important that they have to be memorized. I certainly wouldn't want the ER doctor pausing to look up what to do if were hauled in there, just as you wouldn't want a pilot to look up emergency procedures as your plane enters a death spiral. Doctors have plenty of time to evaluate and research the less-pressing things.
 
flemardo  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:44:15 AM  
On the one hand I'm sure the school farked up some. On the other hand I've had to deal with student cheating in different capacities.  I'm torn on what to think because I know both sides to have idiots who think they're slick.
 
2021-05-10 9:48:38 AM  
The medical school has already made one change that could reduce the risk of false cheating allegations. For remote exams, new guidelines said, students are now "expected to log out of Canvas on all devices prior to testing."

Seems to me like they should have made that a requirement from the get-go. You'd expect an ivy league school to have IT issues like this properly ironed out beforehand, but no, apparently Dartmouth had to fark it up.
 
Joshudan  
Smartest (6)   Funniest (5)  
2021-05-10 9:48:53 AM  
CSB time...

Back when my daughter was in 7th grade she got in trouble for cheating. Some plagiarism software said she pulled quotes and phrases from some paper on the internet.

She is all defiant. "I didn't steal from that paper" she says "cuz I did no research whatsoever. That was all off the top of my head after watching a movie about it"

She still got a zero on the paper.
 
2021-05-10 9:49:58 AM  

TheBlackrose: FTFA: Zhang, 22, said he had not cheated. But when the school's student affairs office suggested he would have a better outcome if he expressed remorse and pleaded guilty, he felt he had little choice but to agree. Now he faces suspension and a misconduct mark on his academic record that could derail his dream of becoming a pediatrician.

Damn, I didn't expect the student affairs office to be taking bits off of police interrogations.


That was my school's stance as well (I was on their Honor Code Committee for a year and quit- normal term was 4 years). If you got accused, they would openly tell the student to plead guilty (no you're not allowed a lawyer) and take their non-administrative lumps rather than challenge it.

That's a huge reason why I quit. I helped write a good chunk of the Honor Code itself, and seeing it perverted in such a way disgusted me.
 
Ashelth  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:49:59 AM  

Bslim: "The data indicated that he had looked up course material related to one question during each test, honor code violations that could lead to expulsion"

Let's unpack, shall we?
If you're stupid enough to look up shiat on the same machine you're taking the test maybe you're too stupid to be in the medical field.


Pretty much exactly that.

Most of my exams were already structured around experimental design so I just gave everyone the weekend to do the exams and said "experiments should be designed utilizing modern approaches, reagents and kits". (and yes I will know if you simply reword the Hersey-Chase experiment)
 
Cheron  
Smartest (12)   Funniest (12)  
2021-05-10 9:50:57 AM  
csb and largest balls contender/

Late 80's when computers were the school's mainframe which was purged at the end of each semester. For graduation, my roommate had a two-semester 8 credit independent study class. He regularly went to office hours to discuss his project. On the day it was due he made a point of popping his head in the professor's office to tell the professor "I hope you like it." A week later he called to ask if the professor had read his report yet. A week after that the professor sheepishly called him to say he must have lost the report could he print another. My roommate assured him he would print a copy as soon as he could get to the computer center. My roommate then told the professor his records had been deleted as part of the end-of-semester purge. The professor apologized for losing the report and gave him an A. My roommate never did any work other than pretending to work on the project.
 
Flashlight  
Smartest (0)   Funniest (3)  
2021-05-10 9:53:34 AM  

kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.


You don't want to end with doctors like Dr. Hartman

More Lessons with Doctor Hartman.avi
Youtube GYTOFbNV2XY
 
2021-05-10 9:54:06 AM  

sleze: It seems like a common theme among Universities that when it comes to misconduct of any kind (cheating, sexual misconduct, free speech, etc), they have a VERY bad record on due process.  I am truly curious why that is.


Academic omerta.  The first and usually only impulse in a University administrator when something that looks bad comes up is to make it go away immediately, and cover up the traces.  They have power over students, and exerting that power is easy.  And it usually works.
 
2021-05-10 9:55:06 AM  
For every complex problem there's a solution that's simple, elegant, and wrong.

There are just no simple solutions to these kinds of issues, and anyone coming to you peddling a solution is selling snake oil. You also think that a medical school of all places would be interested in a trial of some sort to determine the effectiveness of the "cure" but people see a computer as a black box where magic goes in and answers come out.
 
Magorn [TotalFark]  
Smartest (11)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:55:06 AM  

Warthog: Magorn: I often say my skills and training as a lawyer are NOT some sort of encyclopedic knowledge of the law, but having the training in legal thinking and parlance to spot your issues and know where to look to find the law that applies to your situation

[66.media.tumblr.com image 500x281] [View Full Size image _x_]

I tell our summer associates that law school is like a boot camp for learning a foreign language.  The individual cases are just the vocabulary.  Eventually they're important, but not of much use until you internalize the underlying structure of how to issue spot, dissect a fact pattern, research for the law applicable to those facts, and then write it all up in a comprehensible way.  The students who work to develop an encyclopedic memory of individual cases often don't do as well as those who focus on mastering the process itself.


an old prof of mine used to say of his exams:

The "C" answer is "The law that applies to these facts is"

The "B" answer is "The law that applies to these facts is.... BECAUSE..."

The "A" answer is "The law that normally applies to these facts is , because....HOWEVER, you could argue that this law should apply instead because...."

One shows memorization, the second understanding, the third shows mental flexibility and an ability to argue all sides if need be
 
thehobbes  
Smartest (4)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 9:57:04 AM  

Cheron: csb and largest balls contender/

Late 80's when computers were the school's mainframe which was purged at the end of each semester. For graduation, my roommate had a two-semester 8 credit independent study class. He regularly went to office hours to discuss his project. On the day it was due he made a point of popping his head in the professor's office to tell the professor "I hope you like it." A week later he called to ask if the professor had read his report yet. A week after that the professor sheepishly called him to say he must have lost the report could he print another. My roommate assured him he would print a copy as soon as he could get to the computer center. My roommate then told the professor his records had been deleted as part of the end-of-semester purge. The professor apologized for losing the report and gave him an A. My roommate never did any work other than pretending to work on the project.


"Corrupted" document files are another game changer, especially with non-tech savvy older professors.

But anyways, best way to beat cheating on  online exams is to make them timed to the point that if you look up every answer, you're not getting through the test before the deadline.

A student that can quickly reference material normally knows it anyways.
 
2021-05-10 9:57:11 AM  

Warthog: kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.

In most situations that's true, but not when you've got both your hands wrapped around a patient's aorta.  Medicine remains one of those professions where having it all inside your head is important.  For now.  Having an AI you can talk to may change that soon.  "Alexa, how do I identify and isolate the femoral artery?" might become a thing.


Good thing the student wants to be a Pediatrian not a surgeon or ER Doc. Doctors look up things all the time as there is a shiat ton of things out there that they have no chance in hell of memorizing even if it's their field of speciality. It's like this. If I rattle off a chemical formula most people would have no idea what it meant. But a Chemist would be able to figure out what it does from how I said it due to their experience and training. And this isn't even getting into the systematic issues where we focus so much on memorization in our education that practical and applied knowledge and ability of the student stagnates if it isn't out right crippled.
 
2021-05-10 9:59:07 AM  

Sword and Shield: Yay for personally relevant experience. I'm a doc, and when I was in med school, three of our main exams were online (Steps 1, 2CK, and 3). My wife's also in grad school, and they use Canvas for about anything.

With the first, I don't understand how exactly the school didn't have the testing software locked down. Even most of the practice question banks (Kaplan, Princeton, USMLEWorld, off the top of my head) use their own program and lock down. If you're in a practice question bank, the program won't let you access the internet. Our exams were even stricter- there wasn't a way to even close the exam window. It would close when you submitted your exam, or when you ran out of time. It seems elementary to have Canvas simply disallow access during an exam- it already does that when there's time-release materials like exams or some presentations, you get access at a given time, and lose access at a given time.

That brings me to Canvas itself. It's the most dogshiat system I've ever seen, even Blackboard works better. I completely believe that Canvas was at work in the background- I know Blackboard did. I even had to uninstall it after finishing a class, as it kept logging in per router logs.


It's not elementary to lock things down to the point where people can't cheat.

I work in this area so getting a kick, etc.  Profs often come to us asking about technological ways to prevent cheating.  It cannot be done.  Period.  Anyone trying to sell a magic cure is ripping you off

Lock down the browser?  Nice, let me shell out of my VM
Make it smart enough to know when it's running in a VM?  Let me sit my laptop next to the main computer
Install eye tracking software to know when you're not looking at the screen?  I'll prop my phone up next to the monitor
Have it track hand motions too?  I'll feed the camera a pre-recorded video of me being all correct and shiat

Obviously, some of these require more technical savvy than others, but students will go to incredible lengths to cheat when they think it's critical.  More often they simply won't care, open up stuff, get caught and take the punishment because most schools are loath to expel people.  (And I won't even talk about equity issues here when you have some students in their comfortable bedrooms and others in a cinderblock stairwell because it's the only private place they can go)

The trick isn't preventing cheating, it's making tests you can't cheat on.  Just having them have to turn in written work rather than click a radio button will sort out 90% of the low effort cheating.  My personal favorite is some sort of oral exam (yeah, yeah, haven't heard that before)  Get students in front of a class and have them talk for a bit- you'll sort out very quickly who did the work.
 
Magorn [TotalFark]  
Smartest (19)   Funniest (0)  
2021-05-10 10:03:01 AM  

SirDigbyChickenCaesar: Bear_of_Arkona: SirDigbyChickenCaesar: kudayta: In the real world, being able to look up the answer quickly and  efficiently is a more valuable trait than knowing everything off the top of your head.  Well maybe not more valuable, but no one knows everything.  That's why we invented the written language.

Intro to Engineering 101 my professor stated:  You don't need to know the answer just where to find it and how to apply it.  Rogue memorization is for the history department.

Atleast in the Mechanical Engineering department you were allowed a sheet of paper with all the relevant equations.

Same in the sciences. Lot of time we were allowed a 3×5 card to have anything we wanted on it. It is impressive how much information you can put into one of those.

we'd spend more time organizing our "cheat sheets" than actually studying.


Organizing your cheat sheets WAS studying, you just didn't realize it.   Years ago as we were growing to adulthood  my brothers and sisters and I wanted to copy down mom's recipe cards that she used to cook all of our favorite dishes into a shared computer file (back when a c-64 was state of the art hardware)  but when we made the recipes they just did not taste the same.  Then we noticed something odd:  Mom needed glasses to read, but she never put them on when looking at these small index cards that she simply could not cook without.  Soon we realized the truth:  The content of the cards was irrelevant, they were just a cue to trigger a memory in her brain of that dish, and the real recipe was stored there.   We ended up having to have her make the dishes while somebody watched with a pen and paper to write down the real recipe.

I'd bet that to this day when you think of certain formulas, in your mind's eye you see those index cards.
 
Fizpez  
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2021-05-10 10:04:00 AM  
I only teach at the high school level, but my default position for this past year has been that my online students are going to cheat outrageously on everything and anything.  Given that we were also required to teach to in-person learners as well (and at the same time - don't even get me started) every single exam has been open note, open book, open everything because I am damn sure not going to outsmart 60+ online students and the thousand different ways they can cheat.

/Yeah, I know its not medical school
 
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