Comment by wps
15 hours ago
I've sat in classes where people at my table genuinely took pictures of the exam while the professor's back was turned (being kind to us and giving us useful information on the board) and uploaded the entire exam to the Gemini app.
Cheating is all around disheartening and is now incredibly easy with all the free multi-modal models around. Real active proctoring is needed and devices need to be confiscated during exams. This is common practice in many other countries.
My son is taking an AP chem class - he's doing really well, super interested in the subject. It's a difficult class, to be sure. Many of his peers are just goofing off and don't understand things. My son regularly tells me about people in his lab group that are cheating off his papers (and, I think, even his test). He tries to cover up answers, but it's not always possible to do.
What is even more frustrating is that the teacher knows this and does nothing about it. Maybe one could argue that, in the end, these students fail to learn and will get their just rewards. But it seems to me that the lack of immediate corrective action (eg, an F on an assignment) is a failing of the system.
What is even more frustrating is that the teacher knows this and does nothing about it.
When teachers are evaluated based on how students perceive them, and are in turn evaluated by others based on the grades their students receive, there's a perverse incentive/conflict of interest for them to allow cheating.
Read r/teachers for 20 minutes and you'll understand why some teachers in the US don't do anything.
(And then mute r/teachers because it's depressing as all hell.)
If I were your son, next exam I would physically move my desk to the corner of the room out of protest. He should also report everyone he sees cheating.
He started writing his answers in French so that his peers wouldn't understand:D
I'm very interested in how this cheating is perceived by other students.
There is no peer pressure not to cheat?
Students aren't considered sketchy or jerky for cheating?
Being seen cheating has no adverse affect on their ability to date, to join group projects, to join student startups, etc.?
As someone who attended an elite school in the post-covid era, here was my experience:
There is relatively little stigma against cheating. Maybe in smaller seminars and classes with higher collaboration there is some, but much less so in large STEM lectures. Many of the incentives in classes where exams were online led to arms races and widespread cheating (without exaggeration, over 80% of the class). For instance, a certain math class I knew of had all grades based on remote and often asynchronous tests. Many people would cheat/collaborate and ace them, leading to the professor increasing difficulty (as scores were very high). This led to more cheating and so on. It got to the point where the problem sets had such difficult problems in this intro class that only a handful of people (who had taken advanced course work in high school) in the entire 100+ person seminar were distributing proofs for everyone else. Really not great dynamics all around and it's worth noting that my school does not have a reputation for being ones with an especially competitive and cutthroat culture.
At least in my experience (MIT ’06) many of the people most comfortable gaming academics ended up in finance.
I've always felt that it was these kind of folks that caused the 2008 financial crisis
Intentionally or negligently caused '08?
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Covid and Chatgpt are no the only changes in society in the recent years.
If you are an all around liar and cheater you can even be president!!
It's not just "the recent years". There's a reason the phrase "honest politician" is an oxymoron.
Have a phones-free classroom. Problem solved.
I can't imagine why you would be so stupid to allow phones to exams.
Is this normal in the US?
Usually the rule is you can't have a phone out of your pocket or backpack during a test. Students still have phones on them. If they disallowed that too, how would that work, an airport security style check going in?
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That’s pretty sad. Even sadder is that those people will hardly even feel it to be cheating because they’re now using AI for absolutely everything and so suddenly contented with a situation where it can’t be used they still can’t help but use it. Not a good sign.