Academic Dishonesty

Why do students cheat?  Is it out of laziness?  Is it a shortcut to success?  Is there too much pressure to meet standards of excellence that are required to get into College and/or University programs?

This weekend's Sunday Star had an article from the University of Toronto that articulated how University Professors face a new tide of student dishonesty. 

Here are a few of the "cheating horror stories" at U of T:

• A tutorial assistant charged three students $1500 each to slip them the answer sheet when he escorted them to the washroom during the exam. Ruling: Suspended for five years

• A student plagiarized an essay, then forged a doctor's letter saying he was too sick to hand in a second essay on time.  He then plagiarized it and handed it in late, followed by a third plagiarized essay. Ruling:  Recommended for expulsion

• A student submitted an essay written originally by a professor at Purdue University whose name, sadly, she failed to include in her essay bibliography.  Ruling:  Suspended for two years

Plagiarism is dealt with on a situation by situation basis at CtK.  Because our role is to nurture our students, often times they are given the opportunity to redo the offending assessment piece without penalty.  Students are realizing that post secondary educators are far less forgiving.  Handing an assignment in late or a professor prodding a student to hand in missing assignments like we do on a constant basis are all laughable concepts in post secondary.  It simply is not tolerated in the large majority of circumstances.

The 2010 Growing Success document on Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools seems to have mildly shifted the pendulum back to where teachers can consider assigning late marks and zeros.  CtK has had a detailed policy for handling assessments that have not been handed in as per the deadline.  Teachers that follow the policy have been allotting zeros if a student fails to complete the assessment piece through this process.  In light of this new document, our team will be getting together to re-look at our policy to consider assigning late marks for pieces handed in late.  Once the policy has been approved by our administration, we will post it on our public website at http://www.ctk.ca/.

Looking forward to your comments.  See you all at Curriculum Night this Wednesday at 6:30 pm.