Group items tagged

"The professor said he did find a way to greatly reduce cheating on homework in his class. He switched to a "studio" model of teaching, in which students sit in small groups working through tutorials on computers while professors and teaching assistants roam the room answering questions, rather than a traditional lecture. With lectures, he detected cheating on about 11 percent of homework problems, but now he detects copying on only about 3 percent of them. It might help that he shares findings from his study to his students, showing them that cheaters are much more likely to get C's and D's on exams than those who work out homework problems on their own. "

A physics professor figures out how to detect cheating on homework, (an assessment), triangulates with another assessment (OK, it's an exam) to determine the impact on student learning, and modifies his teaching practice, reducing cheating from 11% to 3%.

This is a happy ending and an interesting useful outcome from assessment. There is also a kind of "duh" quality to it, but that is not a problem. What I'm pondering, though, is the time and energy expended for a 7% gain. What I hope follows is further assessment of the gains for the other 93% relative to learning and attitude toward learning, school, and the subject matter.....

"A student majoring in computer science at San Jose State University said he fought against a professor who had tried to force him to remove his homework from the Internet, and won..." For computer science assignments where a working solution to a specific problem is the expected response, the implications are clear. But what are the implications for assessment (and for higher educaiton generally)?