{"id":5530,"date":"2018-02-01T21:42:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T04:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisahistoryblog.wordpress.com\/?p=5530"},"modified":"2018-02-01T21:42:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T04:42:08","slug":"grading-and-plagiarism-goes-boink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2018\/02\/grading-and-plagiarism-goes-boink\/","title":{"rendered":"Grading and plagiarism goes boink"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I go through routine grading of primary sources (marking rubrics for six criteria for each assignment), I often think about Laura Gibbs\u2019 non-grading routines at the University of Oklahoma.\u00a0 <\/span>Her grading system is explained to students here<\/a>, and I have looked at it periodically for many years, like a diabetic outside a bakery, wishing, wishing\u2026<\/p>\n

My primary justification\/excuse for not going into an honor grading system has been the number of students I teach. To fabulous profs like Laura, the grading is secondary to the ongoing feedback provided to each individual student. That level of granularity is impossible for my classes of 40 students each. I have also always felt the system would be difficult for the community college level of work.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I have worked hard, using Canvas\u2019 rubrics, to establish grading norms that are easy for students to understand, making the feedback, if not fully individualized, at least in-depth and helpful.<\/p>\n

Now the overall objection to \u201cdeclarations\u201d or honors grading, where students declare their work as complete, I hear from many people, as I\u2019m sure Laura has as well. The big one is: \u201cstudents will cheat\u201d. They will say they are done when they\u2019re not. They will say they covered all the criteria when they didn\u2019t. They will say they wrote all this themselves when they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I worry about that too. But my view is changing, oddly enough because my view on plagiarism has evolved over the last 30 years of teaching.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where I am at the moment. I have students who plagiarize passages out of the book or off the internet. They put them in primary source commentary, discussions, and writing assignments. I catch a lot of these, eventually. I don\u2019t use TurnItIn, because it steals the students\u2019 intellectual property. Rather I rely on my experience reading student work, and Google\u2019s search for phrases I find suspicious. I am almost always right when I suspect plagiarism.<\/p>\n

When I find it, I inform the student privately that it\u2019s not OK, to see the syllabus and catalog about plagiarism. The last few years I\u2019ve asked them to discuss with me what plagiarism is, and to promise not to do it again. This last may seem strange, but it\u2019s been helpful. And this term I\u2019ve been asking those who want a regrade to not only tell me what plagiarism is, but to rewrite their work by messaging me with their original work with all the plagiarized passages in parentheses, followed by their revision.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s the larger context. A number of years ago, we were told that we cannot kick a student out of a course for plagiarism. Then we were told we cannot give them an F in the course either. All we can do is give them an F on the assignment they plagiarized. This implied a new view of cheating at the state level. It also reinforced the idea that I am the police officer, responsible for finding plagiarists and catching them. But the punishment is to be limited.<\/p>\n

I find that I no longer accept any of this. Plagiarism is cheating – it is an academic crime, yes, but more importantly it is dishonesty, which is a moral crime. It is very difficult to legislate against a moral crime. This country has extreme problems today with the whole issue of cheating and dishonesty. More and more it is seen as OK so long as you don\u2019t get caught. That\u2019s not morality. That doesn\u2019t teach anything at all. I catch you, I give you an F. So you don\u2019t do it in my class anymore. That\u2019s the lesson: not that it\u2019s wrong, but that it\u2019s forbidden.\u00a0 <\/span>By some teachers. Sometimes.<\/p>\n

At Laura\u2019s institution, there is a group that deals with academic integrity<\/a>, and states its intention to foster such integrity, inside and outside the classroom. At my institution, the page on academic integrity seems more concerned with the student right to protest<\/a> an instructor\u2019s punishment.<\/p>\n

The moral responsibility for student plagiarism and cheating should not be on me. It should be on the student.\u00a0 <\/span>I have become, in today\u2019s world, much more concerned that the student understand the unethical nature of plagiarism and other forms of cheating. I want them to feel it inside, but I have not the time, skill, or knowledge to Socratically take them individually through their own beliefs to guide them toward a universal morality. Instead, I take the approach I\u2019ve mentioned when I catch it. But there must be many, many plagiarized passages I miss. Why? Because if they\u2019re really good at it, I won\u2019t catch it. So I\u2019m only catching the students who aren\u2019t very good at it. Perhaps someday those students will change their minds. But the habitual, hard-core offenders are just proving they\u2019re right to cheat, because they get away with it.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t work in that world anymore. I would like to move to a system where I ask them to promise honesty at the start, and declare that they have completed their work as best they can. Then, if they cheat or plagiarize, I\u2019ve done my best to ensure that they know that what they are doing is cheating and lying<\/i>. The moral burden is on them.<\/p>\n

Being less brave than Laura Gibbs, and subjected to different conditions, I will be adapting her method. My whole class won\u2019t be honor-graded. I am keeping the quizzes and the writing assignments as is. I am keeping the reading annotations in Perusall, because I\u2019ve seen it helps students complete and grapple with the reading. But today I have designed a short quiz for each primary source assignment, and I plan to do it for each homework. The single question asks them to check off criteria on a list. These are the same criteria I currently use on my rubric. As a Canvas quiz question, this is \u201cmultiple answer\u201d. All the checkboxes checked will lead to 100% for that assignment in the gradebook, or fractions thereof if not all boxes are checked. It\u2019s up to them to be honest.<\/p>\n

I plan to roll this out with my two mid-semester start classes, after spring break. But the idea may be bigger than a self-graded quiz. If I do this for both primary sources and homework, the emphasis of the course will shift toward their own work, and their own assessment of that work. In classes where I don\u2019t have homework, I may well add it, in this self-evaluative format.<\/p>\n

So, does all this mean I won\u2019t engage their work, won\u2019t read it all, because they\u2019re doing the \u201cgrading\u201d? On the contrary. It will make it possible for me to focus on their work better, to discern patterns, to help the students individually who need help. And when I do catch cheating, it will enable me to place the responsibility where it belongs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I go through routine grading of primary sources (marking rubrics for six criteria for each assignment), I often think about Laura Gibbs\u2019 non-grading routines at the University of Oklahoma.\u00a0 Her grading system is explained to students here, and I have looked at it periodically for many years, like a diabetic outside a bakery, wishing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}