Is anyone planning to cheat on your final exam using your Apple Watch?

[Scepticalscribe]

Graduated in 2014. I was honestly surprised how clueless professors were. Especially in Physics. A bunch of people were using programs in their calculators that could solve entire problems.

Two things occur to me about this.

The mindset of this tone of this post reminds me very much of the 'victim blaming' that rape victims endure. You know, the ones that argue that they 'asked for it', or were somehow complicit in what happened to them.

Here, you appear to find greater fault with the 'clueless' professors that with the cheating students.

Now, in an era of such rapid, revolutionary and transformational technological change, it appears that there is a sort of arms race in play with regard to such matters. For now, the kids have the advantage because they have mastered the tech, while the professors probably failed to spot this as they are a bit behind the curve on what precisely some of this tech can do.

Inevitably, that'll change. All arms races reach some sort of unstable equilibrium eventually.

Moreover, educational establishments and institutions will wish to preserve the integrity of their exams (and the worth of the resulting qualifications or degrees), so they will have an incentive to deal with this, on practical, as well as on moral grounds.

The second matter is that of the work world; someday those individuals will be asked to work in a field that requires that they actually know, understand and can apply the material that their lying degree says that they can.

 

[IphoneIssues]

Two things occur to me about this.

The mindset of this tone of this post reminds me very much of the 'victim blaming' that rape victims endure. You know, the ones that argue that they 'asked for it', or were somehow complicit in what happened to them.

Here, you appear to find greater fault with the 'clueless' professors that with the cheating students.

That's quite a leap. The poster I quoted said professors are hip to what's going on, and I said, from my experience, they really weren't. Hard to judge tone on a forum.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

That's quite a leap. The poster I quoted said professors are hip to what's going on, and I said, from my experience, they really weren't. Hard to judge tone on a forum.

There is a difference e between being 'clueless' and not being completely clued in to what is going on.

 

[IphoneIssues]

There is a difference e between being 'clueless' and not being completely clued in to what is going on.

Again, he said they knew what was going on, and I said they didn't. It's that simple.

You are taking an odd stance. The teachers are not the victims here; the institutions are, and this is why teachers need to be briefed on this stuff. When cheaters make it through, they devalue their degree.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Again, he said they knew what was going on, and I said they didn't. It's that simple.

You are taking an odd stance. The teachers are not the victims here; the institutions are, and this is why teachers need to be briefed on this stuff. When cheaters make it through, they devalue their degree.

I was quibbling about language.

But yes, in general, I agree with you, and, to be honest, I imagine that in the future educational establishments will pay a bit more attention to the developments in this field, - and catch up with what is actually going on - as to not do so may serve to wound their academic reputation, and that will hurt them. Agreed.

 

[lordofthereef]

There is a difference e between being 'clueless' and not being completely clued in to what is going on.

We are speaking graphing calculators, which were first released in 1985. The profoessor is either clueless or apathetic.

Cheating is obviously not the professor's fault. But it is the professor's responsibility to make reasonably sure that no student has an unreasonable advantage with preloaded caluclator programs. I graduated high school in 2003 and this wasn't a wild concept then either.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

We are speaking graphing calculators, which were first released in 1985. The profoessor is either clueless or apathetic.

Cheating is obviously not the professor's fault. But it is the professor's responsibility to make reasonably sure that no student has an unreasonable advantage with preloaded caluclator programs. I graduated high school in 2003 and this wasn't a wild concept then either.

Well, my background is in the humanities, not the sciences, so I am not au fait with the tools used in the sciences.

However, I agree that educational establishments do need to inform themselves of whatever such advances exist in their fields, and be able to take steps to deal with situations where unfair advantage might accrue to some students.

Part of the problem possibly is that many educators don't actually think like that - they didn't cheat themselves, they love the pursuit of knowledge and their minds are not calibrated to conceive of human duplicity.

Until I was an undergraduate, I had never heard of students despoiling, or destroying, or hiding, or stealing university library books, in order to gain an advantage over other students - I was horrified that such activities occurred.

Later, as a university teacher, I used to give students my own books to read, and had to stress in class that these were my own personal books, that I wanted them back - and back in pristine condition - and back within a specified time, so that other students could also borrow them if they wished.

 

[lordofthereef]

Well, my background is in the humanities, not the sciences, so I am not au fait with the tools used in the sciences.

However, I agree that educational establishments do need to inform themselves of whatever such advances exist in their fields, and be able to take steps to deal with situations where unfair advantage might accrue to some students.

Part of the problem possibly is that many educators don't actually think like that - they didn't cheat themselves, they love the pursuit of knowledge and their minds are not calibrated to conceive of human duplicity.

Until I was an undergraduate, I had never heard of students despoiling, or destroying, or hiding, or stealing university library books, in order to gain an advantage over other students - I was horrified that such activities occurred.

Later, as a university teacher, I used to give students my own books to read, and had to stress in class that these were my own personal books, that I wanted them back - and back in pristine condition - and back within a specified time, so that other students could also borrow them if they wished.

Fair points. Unfortunately the "pursuit of knowledge" is a pie in the sky mentality in a day and age when a high school diploma isn't worth a damn thing... The baxhelor's is the new diploma and even that is becoming useless in some fields.

I had to take way too much chemistry to get into veterinary school most of which is useless to me today. AND schools are demanding of hitting a 4.0 in courses that aren't even relevant because it's that competitive.

I never cheated, but knew people that did, and I truly believe that part of being a good professor is understanding your students. Part of that lies on the university too. Not being aware that programs can be written on a piece of technology your students have been using for 30 years is, simply put, inexcusable. I'm honestly leaning on the notion that these instructors simply didn't care. That happens too. I had an English course with 300 some students where the professor would LEAVE during exams.

 

[Atreyu25]

So this thread is starting to feel like it needs to be in the religion/politics thread.