Catching a student cheating can evoke all sorts of feelings: frustration, disappointment, anger, ambivalence. In episode 19 of Teaching in Higher Ed, Dr. James M. Lang joins me to talk about lessons learned from cheating.

Podcast notes

Our reactions to cheating

• Disheartening experience
• Feels personal

You’re the last thing on their mind. When a student is cheating… their cheating isn’t an assault on your and your values. – James M. Lang

• The reality of how many students are cheating in higher ed today

[Cheating] is a long term and persistent problem in higher education. – James M. Lang

The learning environment’s contribution to cheating

• A positive or a negative contribution
• The curricula
• The individual classes

Reducing the likelihood for cheating

• Infrequent, high-stakes assessment
• Engage in more frequent assessment (with feedback)
• When students have the opportunity to retrieve knowledge from their mind multiple times, and then do something with it, the more likely they are to remember it.
• Service learning: helps foster students’ intrinsic motivation
• Offering unique learning experiences each semester

Plagiarism vs cheating

• Both fall on a spectrum from easy/opportunity cheating to more planned
• Cheating and how learning works

Academic integrity as something that has to be learned

• Knowledge: What is plagiarism? What’s a citation/source?
• Skill: Citing sources, etc.
• Value: Belief that it’s important and it matters
  • Academic integrity campaigns: Involve your students

Advice for when we inevitably still encounter cheating

• Step back emotionally
• Have an educational response
• Report it when it happens

Other cheating lessons

• Self efficacy: Carol Dweck’s research on mindset (video)
• Growth or fixed mindset
• Fixed mindset
  • “I can’t write.”
  • “I can’t do math.”
  • Fixed mindset were more likely to report that they would cheat the next time
• “Learning is hard, but you’re capable of getting better.”
• “You say you worked hard on this.”
• Early success opportunities

Recommendations

Bonni recommends: James Lang’s Fullbright Specialist Program and speaking

Jim recommends: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gives a TED Talk on Flow: The secret to happiness

Lessons for us in our lives, but also for how we approach our teaching

Ending Credits

Thanks again to James Lang for joining us for this important dialog on Teaching in Higher Ed.

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