S/O PD Student Darwinism

[katiescarlett]

There were so many recent stories in the pd thread of student darwinism, I thought it would be fun to have one just for student stories.

I don't have any at the moment (of classmates), but figured we have enough teachers for some!

[Luci45]

The retired physics teacher I am married to had a student claim that his copy of the test didn't have a certain page in it. The triangle of paper left when he tore the page out was left under the staple.

There is always the classic kid who was told to use a pencil on his test (not Scantron) had written on the top of his page "Reason for pen, no pencil." The person who copied his test very carefully wrote the same on his test, in pencil.

My husband also had two versions of each test, often with completely different questions in certain places and often with just different numbers in the problems. I did his typing for him and was very careful to make them look the same at a casual glance, except of course for the tiny number at the bottom that indicated the version, and there were only a few differences anyway. He caught a lot of copiers that way, and the kids learned a lesson to not try it again. (It also was nice that all the kids got to review the varying questions at review when the tests were returned.)

He also had a student scheduled to take a makeup exam after a legitimate absence. The kid came storming into the office saying that this wasn't the same test Jason had taken. Husband said "No, but it covers the same material." The student threw the test down, said, "Well! I might as well just not take the test then!" and stormed out.

There were very strict safety rules in the science department. Each student was required to bring in a copy of the contract, signed by himself and a parent. Students who violated the rules were not allowed to take the class that day. Every year a few parents would come in whining about the kid's being kicked out, so the teacher would just go to the file cabinet and pull out student's contract. He never had trouble from special snowflakes, but some kids really got into trouble with their parents for forgery.

Some girls were stooped below the desk setting pieces of paper on fire, just for the fun of it! We never did figure that one out, but it was known they couldn't work together when the Bunson burners were turned on. 

[snowflake]

I suppose I could submit myself when I took Chemistry in college.  The teacher liked to encourage intellectual curiosity and let us make explosives if we wanted to try them out.  I figured it was no biggie if everyone was doing it and our lab tables were fire-proof.

I hope my kids never do that. 

[figee]

I have many.

One which sticks in my mind was from my first year of teaching at college.  I was teaching a first year intro course and it was first semester so everyone was new to the game.  After the first essay came back, a student came to see me demanding to know why she got such a low grade (fail).  I went through the essay explaining the problems.

Me:  So now do you understand where you went wrong?
Student: Not really.  My dad wrote the essay, and he's a lawyer, and he thinks it's a good essay!
Me:    I'm sorry.  Did you just say that your dad wrote the essay?  You didn't?
Student:  Ummmmm....  Anyway, he's a lawyer, and he thinks it's a good essay.
Me:  Who wrote the essay?
Student:  Silence.
Me:  Allow me to be clear.  If you wrote the essay, it is a fail for all the reasons I explained before.  If your father wrote the essay, you have submitted work which is not your own, signed an academic honesty statement indicating that the work is your own, and you will fail the essay AND also be pulled up for academic misconduct.  Which is it?
Student:  It's my essay.
Me:  Right.  (Knowing if it came to the crunch it would be my word against hers and a lot of paperwork).  You fail the essay.  Tell your father that he might be a good lawyer, but he's rubbish at (subject I teach which is not related to law).  Get out.

[Shalamar]

This is my own story:

When I was taking Computer Science at my local university in the 80's, my two best friends and I all registered at the same time (this is important).  We did pretty well in our classes for the most part, but there was one week in which we had a ton of work, and one assignment in particular that completely baffled us.  A friend of ours took pity on us and gave us the answers.  We knew that copying his work was wrong, but we were desperate, so we did it.

A couple of days after the assignments were handed in, the three of us plus our helpful friend were called into the professor's office.  When we submitted our work, you see, the computer sorted it by our student numbers.  Because we three had registered at the same time, our student numbers were all very similar. Therefore, the fact that all of our assignments were identical (right down to the errors) was glaringly obvious.  A little detective work on the professor's part found our helpful friend's assignment, and he had a full picture of what had happened.

He was very kind, though.  He said "I'm not going to get you in trouble - THIS time.  I'm going to give all four of you a zero, and if you ever do this again, we'll be having a different conversation."  We never did!

[jpcher]

I was teaching a first year intro course

 

I don't want to say what my mind interpreted this statement to be. But it gave me a good giggle at myself.


(sorry, it's been a long day.)

[guihong]

I could submit myself.  Twenty years ago, I went back to college and was required to take a computer programming course in "C".  I could not understand the professor to save my life (he could not speak English very well, let alone boil down "C" into plain directions), nor could I follow his assignments, which he passed out on small slips of paper.  After two or three attempts at extra help from him, and from someone else in the department (who couldn't make out what he wanted, either), I finally began mailing a copy of the slips and my class notes to my brother-who was a computer programmer  .  He didn't write the programs for me, but "translated" the notes and the assignments into a form I could follow, with much clearer descriptions.  I passed the class.

[Nikko-chan]

I could submit myself.  Twenty years ago, I went back to college and was required to take a computer programming course in "C".  I could not understand the professor to save my life (he could not speak English very well, let alone boil down "C" into plain directions), nor could I follow his assignments, which he passed out on small slips of paper.  After two or three attempts at extra help from him, and from someone else in the department (who couldn't make out what he wanted, either), I finally began mailing a copy of the slips and my class notes to my brother-who was a computer programmer  .  He didn't write the programs for me, but "translated" the notes and the assignments into a form I could follow, with much clearer descriptions.  I passed the class.

I don't consider that Student Darwinism if all your brother did was explain it to you in a way you could understand, even if it was a written way you could understand.

[jedikaiti]

Yea - if he'd done the homework for you, THEN it would be SD. Translating the assignment into something you could make sense of? Nothing a TA couldn't have done for you, assuming they understood any of it.

[A.P. Wulfric]

I used to assign a project that involved the traits of culture. Students were to create a poster including images from the 8 traits (either their own or from magazines, etc.)  There were other components as well.

I had one nameless poster and 3 students with no grade.  Now, it was easy to determine whose poster it was, but I wanted to talk to the 3 kids.

Student A: No, that's not mine. 
Student B: It's mine. Yup. I did that one.  I even used blue paper for the background.
Me: You sure?
Student B: Yup.
Me: And these photographs (glossy, clearly photos) are of your family?
Student B: Yes! Those are my cousins!

Note:  The photographs were of a boy and his family, who were Chinese.   Student B was Hispanic.  Student C happened to be a boy and Chinese. The same boy in the pictures in fact.  Student B thought I was SO mean for not believing her.

[kherbert05]

My Mom was a research chemist involved in kidney transplants, when they first started at Baylor College of Medicine. Baylor had gone up to McGill and hired the entire lab.


2 students working in Mom's lab, started mixing some chemicals they shouldn't. MOm tried to stop them and was called (ugly language) foreigner and they had degrees from Rice. They continue to do what they wanted. Mom ordered everyone else out of the lab. The others evacuated. Mom went to the students' supervisor to tell him what they were doing. The two "geniuses" got out of the lab before the explosion, but just. They got in a huge amount of trouble. I don't remember the exact chemicals but Mom said it was something they should have learned in HS.

[Lynn2000]

There is always the classic kid who was told to use a pencil on his test (not Scantron) had written on the top of his page "Reason for pen, no pencil." The person who copied his test very carefully wrote the same on his test, in pencil.

Yup, something similar happened to me in high school. This kid sitting next to me was copying off my test, to the point that he also copied my (female) name! IIRC, the teacher caught him mid-test and also pointed out the name thing. That's just sort of mind-boggling to me.

One of my fellow grad students was completely in over her head and did poorly in almost every aspect required of her. The relevant bit here is when she was trying to write her thesis and ended up copying information from another source, which directly contradicted her own research findings! That was how little clue she had about her project. Sadly, nothing she did was professional Darwinism, because she managed to graduate with an advanced degree anyway. 

[mmswm]

How to get kicked out of an open admissions community college:

1. Develop a crush on a professor
2. Make up excuses to hang around after class to talk to said professor
3. Make up reasons to visit said professor during office hours and call his office at all hours of the day and night.
4. Swoon over said professor as often as possible
5. Get offended when said professor does everything in his power to reduce contact with you to the absolute minimum required and still be an effective teacher.
6. Complain to everybody who will listen that said professor is being unfair and mean.
7. Make a fool of yourself in front of the ethics board when you bring the complaint to them and they discover that the professor has been kindly trying to not embarrass you by simply keeping discussion to the relevant subject matter and not kicking you out of his office.
8. Complain again that the ethics board must be biased because they didn't see things your way.
9. Get put on probation for inappropriate contact.
10.  Attempt to register for said professor's class, even though you have been banned from doing so as a result of your own ethics violation, as determined in the ethics board hearing.
11.  Pitch a fit in the admissions office that is big enough to not only require security, but a call to the local police, in order to remove you.
12.  Get kicked out of school.

[Twik]

Oh, dear. I hope the professor doesn't end up having to deal with this loon for years.

[faithlessone]

Someone on my undergrad course tried to pass off her older friend's high-graded dissertation as her own.

If that wasn't crazy enough, this dissertation was actually available in the library / through the library's online service as a good example.

Surprisingly enough, she failed her degree!