Comments on: Studying the question

By: GrannyJ

GrannyJ — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:13:18 +0000

Curious — the idea of group study never occurred to me! In fact, I don’t think it was in the air when I was in school, oh so many years ago. But then, Mom drilled into me the idea of originality, meaning do your own thing (and it better be good, BTW). As a result, I think I would have been too competitive to study well with others. Now that I am a Revered Elder, I see nothing wrong with the idea, especially when the subject is a tough upperclass math course.

By: jouette

jouette — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:38:08 +0000

what on earth is the world coming to? sheesh.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:44:51 +0000

I think you are right - working together is a good thing to learn to do. And, yes, if they’re slacking and cheating through study groups that will show up in their exams. I’ve always told my students that they should feel free to study together, to talk about material with each other and to (gasp) learn from each other. But then again, I teach religion where ‘correct’ answers are a bit more elusive than in math or engineering.
That all said, however, if a professor specifically requires students to work alone, then the facebook thing was a violation of the requirement. The problem, from my perspective, would be the ‘work alone’ requirement and if I were that professor’s dean, I might have some words with him. But yeah, the kid did violate the rules.

By: gh1f

gh1f — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:20:09 +0000

Students learn a lot from each other when they work on problems together. My attitude is that students should be encouraged to work together because doing helps their learning. But then the students need to know that if they do not do the work, or learn the material themselves, then they probably will not pass the exams. Each student is responsible for their own knowledge. As a consequence, I don’t think homework grades should count for much.

So I agree with you.

But if the rule says no working together with the student students knowing the rule up front, and the school has an academic code about such things, then the facebook site is academic cheating.

Exactly what are we learning about the student when the student sets up a facebook site to do this knowing the rules?

By: Vinegar Martinis

Vinegar Martinis — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:59:38 +0000

That’s ridiculous. Once those students enter the real work world, are they not going to have conference calls and meetings where collaboration is a part of their daily environment?

Gad what a moron!

By: Johnny

Johnny — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:59:53 +0000

In Engineering classes, we had a set of unofficial rules of ethics when it came to study groups. But, you had to feel each other out - without insinuating that the other person wanted to be a cheater. The rule was, as I practiced with my lab partners, when you had homework, you could read out answers to long equations to each other on the phone. But, you couldn’t discussed HOW you got to those equations. So, the answer-only method was a double-check that your answers were right. And if they weren’t then each of you had to go and double-check your work to see where one of you went wrong.

But, not all followed this rule. It’s a fuzzy area.