<p>I certainly do not condone what the students did, but having 120 kids in an Major English Texts class? Where is the tuition going? So large that students grade each other's quizzes?</p>
<p>It seems more like the problem is with the setup. They should have had a couple of TAs (more like 4) for such a large class.</p>
<p>Does anyone know anything about the instructor? It seems she is not even an assistant professor, but a senior lecturer. (She might be very good - I wouldn’t know.)</p>
<p>Certainly the atmosphere was conducive to cheating but there is an honor code in place. It should not have happened and anyone found culpable should be disciplined.</p>
<p>Did u see the news about the cancellation of the May SAT in SKorea? Copies of the test were being sold days before the scheduled test date.</p>
<p>Think how much money Columbia/Barnard made off that class - 120 students being taught by a lecturer, with students grading their own papers…</p>
<p>What kind of tests would you be giving in an English class that you could cheat on? My recollection was that we wrote essays.</p>
<p>Here’s what I know about her: She’s old enough to have an AB from Radcliffe College (and good enough to have a PhD from its parent university). She’s been teaching at Barnard since at least the early 90s, and maybe earlier. She’s Daniel Ellsberg’s daughter-in-law.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>With that tuition, to have that class with 120 students! It sounds criminal.</p></li>
<li><p>There are no excuses for cheating.</p></li>
<li><p>These are freshman who got into Barnard. Did they also cheat their way to get into this school? Cheat once, cheat a million times.</p></li>
<li><p>Agree with math mom: Quizzes in a literature class???</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“Here’s what I know about her: She’s old enough to have an AB from Radcliffe College (and good enough to have a PhD from its parent university)”</p>
<p>So she’s been teaching for 20 years, has a Ph.D. from Harvard, and is only a lecturer? What’s wrong with this picture? (I’m sure it could happen to anyone, but it gives one pause…) (I know a lecturer in Italian at Princeton - similar story, but they don’t really have an Italian department, which is why it makes more sense. But English?)</p>
<p>Actually, the real question is why on earth the conversation would be around how a “structure is conducive to cheating,” and not the fact that all sorts of life is structured in a way in which we need to choose to do the right thing. who are the kids who think this makes it okay to cheat? And when will they start running our banking system?</p>
<p>How do you cheat when writing about the aesthetic qualities of Milton? (or was it multiple choice?)</p>
<p>My D is at a university that is nowhere near Ivy-level, but is still selective. I have been astounded at the number of multiple choice or short answer tests she has been given in humanities and social science classes. When I went to college, we had no quizzes in these kinds of courses, just a midterm and final, both full-length essays, or perhaps a lengthy paper in lieu of a final. Standards are really dropping it seems, and its becoming clearer why employers claim their new hires can’t write.</p>
<p>In my (humanities) class, the vast majority of the grade (90-95% and higher) comes from papers and participation, but I will give short, usually MC quizzes in two cases. Please keep in mind that while I teach at a very good school, it is not as selective as the ones that most CC-type applicants and their parents aspire to.
- As daily “are you reading this at the most basic level?” indicators–this helps me identify those students who are going to truly struggle and allows me to connect them with outside resources that can help them before things get too ugly.
- History quizzes. I believe that students need some contextual understanding of a work, and even my best students (who are as good as any you’ll find) don’t come to me with any meaningful knowledge of history. However, since I don’t TEACH history, the only way to get students to pay attention to my mini-lectures on historical events (which, in most of their minds, won’t matter for their grades since the course is not a history course but a _____ course) is to quiz them.</p>
<p>Almost all of my humanities classes were paper based. I honestly don’t think we ever had short quizzes or anything like that. 2-3 large papers was the norm.</p>
<p>It sounds like it was a popular lecture class. If there is no upper limit imposed, sometimes those can get pretty big. I think it’s unusual, though, to have a lecture course be that big without sections led by TAs, who would also grade the papers.</p>
<p>It also sounds to me like it was a notorious gut (easy A) class that was loosely administered, and that the hammer finally fell on it. Even without cheating, that sometimes happens with gut courses, which makes gut-seeking something of an art.</p>
<p>"So she’s been teaching for 20 years, has a Ph.D. from Harvard, and is only a lecturer? "</p>
<p>For some reason English departments tend to keep lecturers. I have seen lecturers in Stanford with a PhD from Yale and teaching for 20 years.</p>
<p>I’m not worried about the quality of the professor. I’m concerned with these students! How did they get into the school in the first place?</p>
<p>If these are just reading quizzes - they’re usually some comprehension questions and maybe a quick analytical one. Just to make sure you’ve read the texts rather than anything else. But there is no reason that they should make up such a large portion of the grade. The last time I took an English class where reading quizzes were so important was in 9th grade.</p>
<p>The students cheating - many many people cheat on little assignments like this. Top students are not g-d, they’re just normal students.</p>
<p>They might be passage IDs. Those aren’t too unusual.</p>