Professional Darwinism: Update to OP on p.74

[Shalamar]

This may not count as PD, because the guy in question has already been fired, but he sure as heck shot himself in the foot for getting future jobs ...

This guy, let's call him Jim, was let go from the company I worked for.  I don't know why, but I'm assuming the supervisor had good reasons.  Jim did not take it well and sent her an e-mail that basically said "I'll make you sorry.  I know where you live, and I know where your children go to school."   

Right.  Threatening violence on someone and her small children - in print - was reallly smart.  And yet he seemed surprised when the cops showed up at his door.

[mbbored]

So, I'm the poster who started the student darwinism topic, with my post on two women in the class I'm TAing who handed in identical homeworks.

We also just had a quiz in the course and I handed back those graded papers as well. One of the women came to me and said she felt that she had gotten an answer correct that I had taken points off for. I looked at the paper and what she wrote was flat out wrong. When I told her I couldn't give points for wrong answers, she told me she didn't believe she was wrong. At that point I said "Well, in science it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what research has already been done. Your answer doesn't reflect the information in the lectures, the textbooks or any published research on the topic."

Curious - if she brought published research that had somehow slipped your notice and which supported her answer, would you have accepted it?

(Not snarky, just curious )

If it was from a reputable source and fairly recent I'd pass it on to the professor for consideration. If she pulled out a study from the 1930s that says smoking cures asthma, not so much.

[Jocelyn]

Does TurnItIn still automatically keep the text from all the papers submitted and add them to its database?  That's the part I have a problem with    I can definitely see how it would help catch plagiarists, though!

They do...and it's very nice for detecting when your students from last semester have passed/sold their papers to someone in your class this semester.

[Jocelyn]

Does TurnItIn still automatically keep the text from all the papers submitted and add them to its database?  That's the part I have a problem with    I can definitely see how it would help catch plagiarists, though!

I think it does!  A friend of mine got 'dinged' for plagarism recently, when she was quoting HER OWN PAPER that she had written in a previous class!

You still have to cite yourself, even if it's an unpublished manuscript.

[Jocelyn]

Also many students will run their own work through it first, to check they haven't accidentally got too close - then if the teacher also does it, well turnitin has seen 100% of this paper before

THat's why I have the students submit their own work...they can run it through and get the benefits of the grammar checking, revise, and resubmit- and it shows up as drafts of the same paper, rather than as separate papers.
If you get a 100% hit to the student himself, then that's pretty obvious what happened. If, as I did, you get a 99% hit for 40 different sources, then that's pretty obvious, too.

[doodlemor]

The hydroponic thread reminded me of some criminals who Darwined themselves out of employment in a nearby Mayberry-like village.

They rented a closed up factory building, and filled it full of marijuana plants growing under many, many plant lights.  They had so many lights lit up 24/7 that the weed growing business was using more electricity than the rest of the town!  Small town people sometimes are especially curious about new neighbors, and someone noticed the huge amount of electricity being used.

The hydroponic weed business was ended with a pre-dawn raid by federal, state, and local law enforcement.  The locals had an exciting topic of conversation for quite a while.

[MariaE]

So, I'm the poster who started the student darwinism topic, with my post on two women in the class I'm TAing who handed in identical homeworks.

We also just had a quiz in the course and I handed back those graded papers as well. One of the women came to me and said she felt that she had gotten an answer correct that I had taken points off for. I looked at the paper and what she wrote was flat out wrong. When I told her I couldn't give points for wrong answers, she told me she didn't believe she was wrong. At that point I said "Well, in science it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what research has already been done. Your answer doesn't reflect the information in the lectures, the textbooks or any published research on the topic."

Curious - if she brought published research that had somehow slipped your notice and which supported her answer, would you have accepted it?

(Not snarky, just curious )

If it was from a reputable source and fairly recent I'd pass it on to the professor for consideration. If she pulled out a study from the 1930s that says smoking cures asthma, not so much.

Hehe - fair enough 

[Jocelyn]

The hydroponic thread reminded me of some criminals who Darwined themselves out of employment in a nearby Mayberry-like village.

That's why I lost interest in Tom Clancy novels. I'd always assumed he knew what he was talking about, until one of his novels involved some bad guys creating a secret compound in Western Kansas. One thing I know as a Kansan, there is NO way someone can buy up land, and put in a secret compound, and the neighbors will be so totally disinterested that no one goes out poking around. It isn't like there's just huge tracts of land and no one can get near your land- there's county roads all over the place. I figured if he'd written that without researching, he probably wrote a lot of his stuff without researching.
That, and I was tired of reading about how often the bad guys 'destroyed their night vision' by lighting cigarettes. Apparently bad guys are really stupid, or they don't read Tom Clancy books. 

[GSNW]

Update on SS teacher!  The ELA classes have been doing lessons on advertising and propaganda.  Students engaged in lessons which required them to analyze ads and create some of their own.  Instead of letting the kids goose their own ads and topics, he assigned them.  Okay.  Class periods were given themes, like cars, clothes... and, uh, on class period focused exclusively on booze.

In the 7th grade.

Parents and admin were not amused.

[Softly Spoken]

Update on SS teacher!  The ELA classes have been doing lessons on advertising and propaganda.  Students engaged in lessons which required them to analyze ads and create some of their own.  Instead of letting the kids goose their own ads and topics, he assigned them.  Okay.  Class periods were given themes, like cars, clothes... and, uh, on class period focused exclusively on booze.

In the 7th grade.

Parents and admin were not amused.

Actually, I would think it would be informative to knock the shine off of alcohol by showing how companies BS about how awesome it is. Kids are probably already seeing these ads with no context when they watch tv - a good teacher could help them realize that drinking booze doesn't make a party break out and people magically like you etc. 
Rather than preaching to kids about the evils of alcohol, you could simply show them how the supposed benefits are manufactured by companies just so they can sell their product. A good lesson on the psychology of consumerism.

[GSNW]

I imagine if he had presented it that way, there would be less trouble, especially in the "analyze ads" portion.  CREATING ads for the same?  Not so much.

[starry diadem]

I imagine if he had presented it that way, there would be less trouble, especially in the "analyze ads" portion.  CREATING ads for the same?  Not so much.

I don't see why not, actually.  It has to be even more pointed a lesson if the pupils are given the assignment to create something that manipulates the response they want.  That could really ram the point home about how they themselves are manipulated by advertising.

[Thipu1]

Back in college, first year students had to take a math class.  Many of us would be majoring in education and methods of teaching elementary school math had changed since we were that age.  It was decided that the best course would be one in 'New Math'.

The Prof hired to teach this course was writing a textbook at the time and that was to be our textbook.  When I say writing, I mean really writing.  Each week we had to go to the college bookstore and pick up photocopies of the latest chapter as he finished it. 

The complaints started when nobody could make head nor tail of the thing.  In one of these installments three pages were left out and nobody, not even the Prof caught it. 

He was not hired for a second semester. 

[Deetee]

Does TurnItIn still automatically keep the text from all the papers submitted and add them to its database?  That's the part I have a problem with    I can definitely see how it would help catch plagiarists, though!

I think it does!  A friend of mine got 'dinged' for plagarism recently, when she was quoting HER OWN PAPER that she had written in a previous class!

You still have to cite yourself, even if it's an unpublished manuscript.

I agree. All the courses I have taken were clear that copying your own work was still copying. Any written material needs to be original (or quoted and cited). So copying your own work is technically plagerism.

[Thipu1]

This could either go here or the Student Darwinism thread.

I knew a woman who had her PhD revoked (annulled?).

She wrote her own dissertation fair and square.  However, she also wrote her husband's dissertation. 

No, he didn't get his PhD either.