I’m a HS teacher. Lot of cheating in high school too. Very frustrating situation.

At the least you need to tell them you know they cheated. Scare the living crap out of them. My kid went to a high school with a very strict honor policy, and even with that, he showed me how the kids were cheating. It looked like 90% of the class cheated blatantly.

Even if you can't prove it to where you can do anything about it, you can at least make these kids think you are moving forward with a punishment. As future medical professionals, they need to be taught a lesson (even if it just makes them think). You never know, maybe it impacts several of them in a good way.

Thanks, everyone.

I emailed my dean about this, but haven't heard back. I'd like to think he is still considering it. My gut is that everyone has given up at stopping the cheating.

My exams use a question bank and pull from them, so everyone's questions are in a different order. The answers for each question are also shuffled.


I once had my house broken into. Having an entire class of students (or mostly the entire class) cheat feels very similar. I still have lecture with these people, help them individually with concepts, and have to give and give as though they never cheated. Feels gross.

School should NOT be virtual.
Several downfalls, including cheating becoming the norm.

I teach college online. Lockdown browsers do nothing. Students just use a different device. There's really no way to eliminate cheating, though adding an unexpected variation in the test will catch them for that test because their cheating preparation will be incomplete.

Instead, I make my exams open book/open note but put a time limit on so students can't look up every question. I tell them to study as if it were closed book but in the end they'll probably have time to look up a couple of questions where they aren't certain.

A different issue is that (I'm not saying you're doing this but just a head's up) if you use test banks that come with a textbook or if you reuse tests from semester to semester, then some/all of your questions may well be googleable. Students type in the question word for word and get the answer from someone who loaded the testbank in a prior semester. These tests banks are often awful, anyway, but I sometimes find nice questions in them, and I reword them with synonyms to make them less googleable.

I also have many different questions in a test pool so there's not much overlap between the questions two friends might get. (Not just for multiple choice questions, but also a pool of short answer questions/problems.) There are challenges designing the tests this way and there are still definitely some issues, but I've ended up with grade distributions from A to F, so it seems to do something.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor teaching two virtual classes and one in-person class. For exams, my college approved Lockdown Browser but not Respondus Monitor.

One of my virtual classes has remarkably high scores. After two exams with an average of 90, my dean gave me permission to use Respondus Monitor and the average fell to 50%.

I just heard from a student that for the first two exams, someone filmed the exam and posted it in their group chat.

Is there some way to get on the student group chats to see who did it?

These are pre-health students. Your future nurses and doctors.

Create how many questions you need - ideally long essay , then use a randomizer program to select one or two questions per student. That's it.
If they want to cheat at least they will have to spend time trying to find the person who has a similar question to their own which would slow down their cheating.

I also agree with making it open book

Years and years ago I took on an online grad class. Exam had 3 short essay questions (short being about 3 pages each answer). Upon submission of the exam, I got a short timed quiz. Some in class got a notice to check their email for exam results but to get them the email told them they had to submit the answers to the quiz through email. The thing was no one knew about the second part of the exam upfront and it was on submission that the quiz or email quiz kicked in. No one complained they missed or didn't understand to take the second part of the exam. But back then we didn't have group chatting of phones with cameras and so on though

Anonymous wrote:Get the student who came forward and told you about the filming to actually tell you the names of the people in group chat. All students are bound by the code of academic integrity. If they withhold info, they are guilty.

Really??? You want to punish the student who came forward? I guarantee that's the last time any student provides any information.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor teaching two virtual classes and one in-person class. For exams, my college approved Lockdown Browser but not Respondus Monitor.

One of my virtual classes has remarkably high scores. After two exams with an average of 90, my dean gave me permission to use Respondus Monitor and the average fell to 50%.

I just heard from a student that for the first two exams, someone filmed the exam and posted it in their group chat.

Is there some way to get on the student group chats to see who did it?

These are pre-health students. Your future nurses and doctors.

OP you are a college professor with this problem and your best source for an answer is DCUM?

I call BS. Total troll.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Throw out those grades. Don’t let them benefit from the grades. Let them know why.

I can’t unless I have proof.

The exams are mixed multiple choice, short answer, and essay.

I was probably too lenient on essays - the answers didn’t flow well but technically the information was correct. I think they were Googling each part of the essay.

Honestly, I think it was almost everyone in the class. When everyone gets a 90 and the only missed questions are from the essays, it’s hard to show cheating. It’s much easier to prove cheating if they miss the same answers. If they don’t miss anything, it’s a lot harder.

Tough situation! However, I more curious about your decision to post here for ideas. Is there not a policy regarding this in your department or peers you feel comfortable discussing this with? I’m an adjunct and have experienced feeling somewhat disconnected. This seems to indicate a departmental culture that is not collaborative. If that’s the case, when this fire is out, considering what additional resources and support you need may be in order.

Anonymous wrote:Throw out those grades. Don’t let them benefit from the grades. Let them know why.

I can’t unless I have proof.

The exams are mixed multiple choice, short answer, and essay.

I was probably too lenient on essays - the answers didn’t flow well but technically the information was correct. I think they were Googling each part of the essay.

Honestly, I think it was almost everyone in the class. When everyone gets a 90 and the only missed questions are from the essays, it’s hard to show cheating. It’s much easier to prove cheating if they miss the same answers. If they don’t miss anything, it’s a lot harder.

i am surprised that the one who studied was willing to do all the hard work and let the others benefit from his work. my kid hated cheaters and would never share answers with a cheater.

Get the student who came forward and told you about the filming to actually tell you the names of the people in group chat. All students are bound by the code of academic integrity. If they withhold info, they are guilty.

Throw out those grades. Don’t let them benefit from the grades. Let them know why.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make the exams open book and make them much harder and longer. Make them at least put effort into their cheating.

Yes.
I am a big proponent of complex problems for which you can't just memorize or lift answers straight out of the lesson notes.
Open books seems like it helps, but actually it doesn't for such problems, because you don't have the time to leaf through the book and figure out something. You need to have studied beforehand.

The problem I have had this semester is that one person does study, but films themselves taking the test and uploads the video to the group chat.

I give clinical questions that require students to think critically about what they have learned. Someone is able to do it well and then upload their answers.

Isn't it obvious who cheated, because their response are basically the same?

This isn't a multiple choice test right?

I’m thinking of adding a couple extra essays to their last exam. I might explain that I know how they cheated and ask them to give an explanation.

Any ideas?