You
may be right, Dave, but the opportunity to hold an open class discussion on
the topic is a pretty good incentive to do so as well. Bear in mind, however,
that I teach Criminal Justice Psychology--and thus the majority of my students
are going into the CRJ field, counseling fields (including clinical psychology and medicine), and
social work. That's not a typical student mix, instead it's one that strong
emphasis on ethics is very important to. Another reason for showing it, of
course, is so they can see what the TurnItIn.com system is, and what it's
capable of as well.
Incidentally, to take a slight tangent to the topic--how
many TIPsters agree with everything they focused on in the show? From my
own perspective, they had some strong points, but it seemed to be "off" in a
couple areas. The first was the role of grading and college admissions in the
perpetuation of cheating--you'll note that at no time did they place any blame
at all on the parents or home environment, only on the models they are getting
from society. Personally, I think that the parents of the kids have a bit more
responsibility to teach them sound values than was demonstrated
there--particularly in the case of the high schoolers. A second problem I saw
was in treating the individual who was writing the term papers as the cheat;
sorry but he's simply a free-lance writer doing work for hire (except, of
course, when taking a test for someone else). It isn't cheating to write a
term paper--it's cheating to buy one and submit it as your own. You can buy a
research paper from a range of sources--including the Encyclopedia
Britannica--and it's totally legitimate for them to write and sell them. They
aren't enrolled in the classes (or the same college) as the buyer and have no
responsibility for the use of their work, in my opinion. The show tended to
make it look as though the writer was responsible for the cheating instead of
placing the blame squarely where it belongs--on the cheating student him or
her self!
One
point that was clear, however (and one I've been arguing for years), is that
grading on a curve is a bad idea. It encourages students to compete instead of
cooperate and, if they know some of the students in the class are cheating,
they have much more incentive to do so themselves since it will allow them to
remain competitive. Any instructor can grade on a straight point value
basis--and by doing so he or she can encourage students to work together to
improve all their grades instead of working against each other in an attempt
to improve only their own.
Comments?
Rick
---
