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Plagiarism, in-pocket texting the top trendsDec 14, 2008 (Daily Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Last year, Hesperia High School English teacher David Cain caught one of his advanced placement students turning in an essay that had been purchased online. This year, Cain's equipped with far-reaching technology that may deter most students from plagiarizing, the No. 1 problem in cheating at most local schools. Two months ago Hesperia High followed the lead of more than 6,500 high schools and colleges around the world and subscribed to TurnItIn.com, an online service that searches a student's paper against the work of classmates and against more than 9 billion pages of Web content. Educators are responding to the fact that cheating is rampant in schools across the country and getting worse, as found in a national survey released this month. The L os-Angeles based Josephson Institute, which surveyed nearly 30,000 students at 100 public and private schools, found that 64 percent of students cheated on a test at least once in the past year, up from 60 percent in 2006. In the survey, 36 percent of students said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment. Goodwill High School Principal John Beyer said he wasn't surprised by the results. "I think students see CEOs, they see politicians, they see celebrities commit crimes and perjury and really there's not a lot of consequences, so they figure why not," Beyer said. "The dream is to get ahead and do whatever works. We want an honest society, and unfortunately that's not what we read about." Tom Loomis, director of student services for the Hesperia Unified School District, said that cheating does not seem to be as big an issue as the recent survey suggests: "In Hesperia, I do not see very many suspensions that come across my desk that involve cheating." The discipline office at Hesperia High has recorded 17 incidents of lying or cheating this school year, within a school that enrolls about 3,600 students, A s s i s t a n t P r i n c i p a l Michelle Estrada said. Although cell phones -- which may feature Spanish-English dictionaries and Google search engines along with the ability to take silent snapshots that can be mass texted in seconds -- are banned from use in classrooms, some students are good at hiding their digital sidekicks. And increasingly techsavvy students may be getting better at not being caught. "Students are getting so adept at cheating they can text message with one hand in their pocket. It's amazing to me that it's getting so sophisticated," Beyer said. Cain said one way teachers can prevent cheating is to challenge students with creative assignments and stray from assessments that make it easy for students to cheat. "Don't have lessons that are just regurgitation lessons, where the kids take notes and then you give the test and have them spit it back out," he said. "Instead, encourage critical thinking and analysis -- that stuff you can't cheat on." To see more of the Daily Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.vvdailypress.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Daily Press, Victorville, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |