Once a cheater…always a cheater
This evening I chose to take a few minutes to go through the many emails that I receive in my gmail account. In doing so, I also decided to look through the mass teaching emails that I get from various organizations. In all honesty, I don’t go through them nearly as often as I should. With classes, any reading beyond what’s required occurs far more rarely than I’d like, but alas – that’s simply the way it is.
So, I was reading through the eSchoolNews.com e-letter that I regularly receive and was surprised to see a blurb about a Canadian student at Ryerson University who was nearly expelled for creating a study group on Facebook. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Of course, I had to read more! If you’d like all the juicy details, check out the article in The Windsor Star.
Anyway…back to my state of shock. How could this be happening? Why would an instructor want to rain on a student’s technological parade – particularly when it is being used for good and not evil. I quickly discovered why: apparently, the professor had specifically indicated that students should not work together on their homework assignments and the study group invited students to share the solutions to their Chemistry homework online. Before moving to the discussion of expulsion, the University did offer the student an opportunity to continue using the virtual study group as long as the request for homework solutions was removed. Of course, the student chose not to make the adjustment to the website, standing up for his rights. In this instance, I’m not so sure that he was doing that. It seems to me that this situation could have easily been avoided particularly since the professor requested that students not work together on their homework. Any thoughts?
