<p>My son is taking a Dual Credit on-line college US history course
(he is a high school junior). He took a 50 question open note and book test in 14 minutes and his instructor said he must have cheated. He had copies of his prior quizzes in front of him and the on-line text book minimized. A lot of the questions he even knew the answers without the reference material. He was 10 feet from me during the exam. She said she changed his grade to a zero and is reporting him to the Dean. She refuses to meet with him saying it will not change her decision. My son is in the top 6% of his class, is a speed reader and very efficient on the computer. He tends to be a loner and works independently, but she seems to think someone helped him. What does he need to do to redeem his reputation and dignity. He is extremely upset and does not ever want to take an on-line class again. HELP!!!</p>
<p>Hmmm…if she is refusing to meet with him, then he should request a meeting with the Dean himself. That seems strange though–at the college where I teach, a Dean won’t meet with a student UNLESS there has already been a meeting with the instructor. </p>
<p>He should also tell her that he is willing to take another test over the same material and the same format in front of her, or a proctor of her choosing TODAY to prove that he can complete a test for which he has the answers memorized in a similar time frame. He should tell her exactly what you’ve said above and copy her dean in on the email. </p>
<p>Since you watched him taking the test, it also seems like this might be a case where an email from a parent is warranted.</p>
<p>He did offer to retake the test in front of her and she said that would not change her mind. I sent an email to the head of Dual Credit and she is looking into it for me, but from everything I have read, the Dean seems to support the professor’s. She has accused 2 other students of cheating in the same class (collaborating on essays) which I discovered today. I am waiting on the head of DC to reply, then I will request an appeal. And you are right, it does say to resolve with professor first, but that is obviously not possible at this point.</p>
<p>I agree with everything scubasue suggested, except I would recommend an impartial 3rd party proctor you both agree to - that may be better than the teacher, who might be trying to find something to support the allegation of cheating.</p>
<p>Definitely send the email if you watched him take the test.</p>
<p>I would also ask the teacher to put in writing what she is basing the allegation of cheating on - if it is simply that he answered 50 questions in 14 minutes, that is worth having in writing so there can’t be any change of stories later.</p>
<p>This is her last reply…
This means you were able to anser each question in under 16 seconds. On your first exam you did not seem to possess these skills because you spent 54 minutes and only scored a 70.</p>
<p>That exam was his first college exam and he, fortunately, got a rude awakening that college is much more challenging than high school. Since then he studied and took the next one much more serious. This is her evidence of his cheating.</p>
<p>How many questions were on the original exam? </p>
<p>Without knowing how long each question was, that does seem like an unusally short period of time for answering each question, so I can understand her suspicion. Were the questions exact copies of the ones on the practice tests? </p>
<p>But, I think your son’s reply should be something along the lines of:</p>
<p>“I memorized the chapter(s) and I am a exceptionally fast reader and I am willing to retake the test TODAYto prove to you my mastery of the material. It seems that if I was incapable of answering the questions that fast on the orignal test, I won’t be able to do it on a retake test today either, and you will have proved your point.”</p>
<p>Your best lever in a situation like this is going to be the school’s own written policies on academic integrity. Find out what they are, and find out if there is a formal process for resolving disputes of this kind. There’s no guarantee your son will prevail, but it is clear that the professor’s mind is made up so you need to take the matter elsewhere.</p>
<p>It is a sad irony that your son apparently set off the professor’s alarm by simply learning from her first exam how to prepare for and excel on the second. I mourn for the implicit assumption on the professor’s part that no one in her academic care is going to make a marked improvement. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the legal and quasi-legal precedents for false accusations of cheating are not very encouraging. The bottom line is that typically a student’s best defense is to avoid at all costs anything that could even remotely be perceived as cheating. By the time the accusation has been made, the best remedy - prevention of accusation - is off the table. </p>
<p>I used to breeze through math quizzes, and I quickly learned that it was easier to get along socially with the other students if I doubled or tripled my time spent on the quiz by reviewing my answers until a few other students had handed their paper in. At the time, I was unconcerned about appearing to cheat because I hold myself to my own high standards for integrity. The thought of being wrongly accused never entered my mind - as I am sure is the case for many honest students. </p>
<p>But later in my college career, when a friend was accused of cheating for finishing a quiz very rapidly, I realized that the same strategy had not only a social benefit, but a preventive one. Sometimes it’s best to excel inconspicuously. You can still do top-notch work, but doing it from the apparent middle of the pack has less inherent risk.</p>
<p>Given this professor’s tenacity in defending her accusation, if your son continues in the course I recommend making videos of him doing any future assignments. These can serve as both a defense against further accusations, and as proof that he is capable of working at the pace and quality of which she is so sure he is incapable. Perhaps by the end of the course, if you have a few of these, you may succeed in convincing her she was wrong.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, look into the formal process.</p>
<p>^if you get no further response from the instructor, definitely this</p>
<p>Students often struggle on the first test of a new course because they are not yet comfortable with the types of questions and the wording the teacher uses. Once they get the feedback from the first test, subsequent ones are much more predictable.</p>
<p>While you are going through the process, make sure he is well-prepared for the next test and videotape him taking it. Another 14 minute completion would go a long way toward his defense.</p>
<p>I became a pretty rapid test taker once I learned to trust my first instinct. The six hour (360 question?) Series 7 stockbroker license test took me 55 minutes.</p>
<p>Your son is still in high school. So you should get involved and contact the Dean at the college, and see what you can do.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your very welcomed advice and opinions. I will use them all wisely as I can see this is going to be a very arduous process.
Sincerely appreciated!!!</p>
<p>Was this a multiple-choice test?</p>
<p>A fast reader can easily shoot through a multiple-choice test at 16 seconds per question.</p>
<p>My D. was accused in front of her class of cheating (using adult to help her) on her first history assignment. Luckily, the teacher was not so entrenched in her opinion. When teacher realized that my D. really knows the material that she wrote about, she cut her accusations short. Teacher never apologized … but since that accident my D is her pet student.</p>
<p>I recall being able to finish sections of the SAT in less than a quarter of the allotted time. It was agonizing to have to sit there and go over the answers again and again. </p>
<p>The idea that a person would be accused of cheating on an open book/open note test simply because they were FAST is bizarre. It is difficult for me to figure out what he could supposedly have done to cheat, other than getting the test ahead of time. The intransigence of the professor is also bizarre.</p>
<p>You’ve received good advice on how to proceed. Good luck.</p>
<p>^^^^
Exactly what I was thinking. I guess if you are GOING to cheat on an online open book test, wait a good interval between questions!!! Lol.</p>
<p>It’s ridiculous. Where is the burden of proof?</p>
<p>I got similar reaction from my fourth grade teacher when I tested at the 12th grade reading level on a Weekly Reader test. Hauled to the principal’s office and accused of cheating… the teacher’s take was that HE could not have gotten that score, so I could not possibly have done so. I was beyond indignant… it was not my fault if he was too dumb to do well on the test! Guess I was lucky it was only fourth grade and not high school or dual enrollment. But I think there are situations where teachers are threatened by very bright students and just don’t believe something like taking a test very fast can be done because they couldn’t do it themselves. Still really hate that teacher all these years later, though.</p>
<p>Are you in the same city as the Dean? If so, I would ask the Dean if your son can retake the test in the Dean’s presence. Or take the next test in the professor or dean’s presence. Or as others have indicated, video him taking the next test.</p>
<p>I was disqualified from a poetry competition in 2nd grade because they said a 2nd grader couldn’t possibly have written the poem. My teacher was the one who had to tell me I’d been disqualified. She KNEW I’d written the poem because I wrote it in class and she asked me to submit it for the competition. She had it made into a bound book and had a classmate who drew really well illustrate it. That was really nice, but I was very hurt. </p>
<p>Keep fighting- agree with those who say offer to have him take it in front of the Dean, etc.</p>
<p>Intparent: Not only was your teacher an @#%, he/she CLEARLY had 0 idea how the scoring on a standardized test works.</p>
<p>2016BarnardMom (at the risk of sounding like a certain other frequent poster)–reminds me of the time my much younger cousin showed up for a club-team soccer match and the officials wouldn’t let him play because there was no way a 6th grader could be THAT tall. Of course, when the parents objected, they asked to see some ID for the 6th grader. The fact that they couldn’t produce any ID was apparently further evidence that they were all cheating/lying.</p>
<p>"It is a sad irony that your son apparently set off the professor’s alarm by simply learning from her first exam how to prepare for and excel on the second. I mourn for the implicit assumption on the professor’s part that no one in her academic care is going to make a marked improvement. "</p>
<p>I had a prof accuse me of plagiarizing a paper in college. I had not done well on the first paper I wrote for her–I think I got a C-. I worked much harder on the second one, took her suggestions, and also just enjoyed the topic more, so it was a much better paper. She gave it back to me with a note saying it was “so much better I have trouble believing the same person wrote both papers.”</p>
<p>This was back in the dark ages. I was able to show her my notes and also my handwritten rough draft. That convinced her. These days when almost everything is written totally on the computer I’m not sure what would convince a teacher like that.</p>
<p>It is kind of odd that teachers would have so much trouble with the idea that their students could improve.</p>
<p>This post underscores my perplexity about online classes. If it had been a regular class, students likely would not have been allowed to have previous quizzes or their textbook out when taking an exam. Yet, apparently, it is OK to do so in online classes. It seems like the standards are very lax for online classes. … I have always wondered how the online teachers know whether students are actually doing the work.</p>