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What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
on 2009-01-15 17:03:13 |
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Among other classes I teach Earth Science. About how the earth is made, lives and breathes. Just before the winter holidays I handed out a homework assignment to each student. It was supposed to be an essay on either desert plants or animals. As I corrected them I was appalled to find one paper I recognized immediately. One paper screamed at me and hit me in the face after reading only the first sentence. Reading a few more sentences to confirm what I thought it what. This student, who gets very good grades, plagiarized his essay word for word from the Internet or some other source. The original article was written by my husband more thn 15 years ago and was a regular part of his tour scripts. I've read it and used it hundreds of times when working part time as a tour guide myself and there is an abridged version of it on our website. I checked with the school and believe it or not there is no policy for outright plagarism. Additionally there are political ramifications as he is a popular student and parents are well connected in our community. I want to bring him before the Student Council or faculty board or ethics. I have already given him a Fail for the paper and for the semester preceding winter break. I have now been told (unofficially) I can't do that. I have the papers I need to file with Admissions and I am being pressured not to. I know what I want do. IMO this student deserves serious discipline especially for stealing Rangers work. Only should I do it? Because this is going to open a huge can of worms.  |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
on 2009-01-15 18:12:31 (edited 2009-01-15 18:16:11)
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This sort of thing is very depressing. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it. It is nigh impossible to for teachers to fail students these days (especially in primary and middle school). I have kept regular contact with an old teacher of mine from middle school over the years. And facing similar situations he has said the school administration and higher levels of the educational hierarchy expressly FORBADE him from failing students. While I'm unsure you will be able to get him officially disciplined, perhaps the best you can do is compel him to complete an extra paper or two to get the points necessary to pass the course. Probably the best you can get even if you fight is some slap-on-the-wrist type punishment like Saturday school.  |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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on 2009-01-15 19:49:41 |
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I've heard of teachers giving a student a zero for plagiarizing an essay, but I've never heard or witnessed someone getting a zero a for quarter/semester, that must suck big time for that kid. I don't understand why he did it though, since he seems like a good kid, gets good grades, etc. Though I've seen this before, so I guess every kid must have some reason for doing so, who knows. I guess schools are a lot different around the country. I believe getting a zero on the paper indefinitely is fair, as well as other disciplinary actions, too. I don't really see plagiarism often, or hardly ever really (usually they just don't hand it in, or hand it in late minus late points), so in this type of situation you're in, especially as a teacher, I can't really say what else to do. You could also have a one on one talk with him, and/or with his parents, and see what went down. 
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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on 2009-01-15 21:08:42 |
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It seems this is bigger than I though. Not only are his parents coming in but so is the Dean of Students. Apparently this student is some sort of fair haired boy and his parents have some clout in our community. That could present a problem considering how small our town is. Still I don't care. He screwed up and there shall be integrity in my classroom if I have to fail everyone. If you would like to read what Ranger originally wrote please PM me for an MS Word copy. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
 
on 2009-01-16 06:18:31 |
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OMG that's just unexpected. I feel sorry for you. It's totally unfair to just let that student away from murder. You have the right to fight for it before it gets much worse. That student deserved to get a fail in his paper for plagiarism. This reminds me of a one well-known Indian doctor who wrote many medical books, and recently his latest book was saturated with plagiarised works. I think he was suspended from his profession. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
on 2009-01-16 06:55:47 |
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maybe just do the math, add up his scores and if his total grade did fail to reach passing then He failed the semester. just grade him on his performance. if a zero on that paper is not enough to fail him. I'm sure it will greatly reduce his grade. It will be a huge dent on his report card. A+ all the way then suddenly a B-. that will still stand out. maybe you could reduce his grade on behavior. that is most definitely a bad behavior. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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on 2009-01-17 13:26:06 |
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I have been told that all I can do is give him an "F" for the paper. He is to remain in my class and no other discipline is to be taken against him. Unofficially I am to drop the matter and have been told that pursuing this is not a good idea and it's best if I forget it completely. That made me very angry and I told the people involved if that was what they wanted I would file ethics charges and perhaps an infringement of copyright lawsuit as well. I also told them it was a violation of my integrity and insisted on his not passing last semester and that he be removed from my classroom. Then there was a lot of shouting and arguing and I started to shake badly so I just left. Rhun is in the other room with a couple of law buddies drinking beer and plotting some kind of evil I can tell from the laughter. I do not wish to get caught up in a scandal again but I think that's what's going to happen. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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| well, what my physics teacher says, is that the way he sees it, you could not do the project and get a 0, but if you plagerize, then maybe you will get away with it and maybe not, so logicly you should plagerise, but what he does to stop this is that if he catches you plagerising, he gives you a 0 for your homework average, the way he reasons this, is because he doesnt grade out homework, he just looks at it and trusts we did it, and didnt just copy it, so its based on trust, and when you plagerise you break that trust. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
on 2009-01-20 16:44:16 (edited 2009-01-20 17:21:29)
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Is there a way to make a quote box? Stunt wrote: "well, what my physics teacher says, is that the way he sees it, you could not do the project and get a 0, but if you plagiarize, then maybe you will get away with it and maybe not, so logically you should plagiarize" I corrected your spelling dear. I am a little disturbed by what he said. Finishing this morning what was left Fri there was a letter in my box informing me that the student was indeed removed from my class, would receive an incomplete for the semester and have to do it over again. Fair enough and I accepted that. I am also informing all of my classes that unethical behavior like the cut and pasting of reports together, and plagiarism and anything else would result in a very low grade. Additionally any student suspected or caught taking part in that kind of activity shall have to finish the semester by turning in hand written reports. I think that should do it. However I'm going to guess this is exactly over yet. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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serves him right. 
wooo maplestory |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by angel_of_stone
on 2009-01-24 16:53:39
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Ya know, I read the first post and I instantly agreed with Rin in that she should fail him. But I have now gotten to thinking and I realized that any research paper I have ever written was esentially me just re-wording what someone else had written. Though its too late now, I now think you should have tortured him a bit. Fail him on the main paper and have him re-write it properly to avoid failing the course. That way, if he really did learn what he needed to know he would have no problem writing a new paper and the plagiarized one would simply be due to his own laziness. On the other hand, I he copied everything without paying attention to what he was copying then he would have to put out an effort to re-write a paper that he has already failed on. I suppose I'm kind of evil.... I wouldn't make a very good teacher....
"But as Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means that anything can happen at anytime and for no reason." -Prof. Hubert J. Farnsworth
"I don't have any opinions anymore. All I know is that no one is better than anyone else, and everyone is the best at everything." -Seymour Skinner "...if I got trapped by an evil wizard then I did enough cool s**t in my life to be content with it ending. " -Wolf |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
on 2009-01-25 19:46:23 |
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Angel it was a direct copy of someone else's work. No rework, no second chance. |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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on 2009-02-24 18:41:31 |
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Wow... that's just unexpected to hear. Over here where I live, plagiarism is dealt with in a pretty simple fashion. We get caught, we fail that assignment, and the school dishes out whatever punishment it laid out for us. Since I'm in college that usually means I'm double shafted since we actually had to sign an honor code agreement. Still... wow that is so bizarre to me to hear how a normally cut and dry situation would snow ball into something big.  |
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Re: What to do about plagarisim in my classroom?
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by
on 2009-03-01 13:23:01 |
| He definitely deserves the punishments you handed out. If you are unable to give those, give him the harshest punishment that you are allowed to do. I imagine that you'll be able to fail him on the paper, because that's just standard protocol, and if you can't, that's really messed up. Good luck, and I hope he gets what he deserves! |