Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

My response varies depending on my perception of the reason for plagiarizing. In general, if asked, I will allow the student to correct their submission on the first offense after a strong lecture about what plagiarism is, why it's wrong, and how to avoid it. I have an "everybody gets one" philosophy of teachable moments. Second offenses get reported to the Dean.

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Plagiarism

I clearly (in bold, red font) state in my course policy announcement that every submission will be run through a plagiarism checker, and I am simply stunned by the amount of plagiarism I still have to deal with in every section that I teach (Political Science).

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Plagiarism

Do any of you have to deal with frequent cases of plagiarism? I teach political science, and don't have time to also teach composition and academic integrity; however, I realize that my younger students (and older who lack post-secondary education experience) are often ignorant of academic honesty codes, and I don't want them to fail because of that. Dealing with this problem adds a tremendous amount of time to my workload, particularly when I have repeat offenders. How do you handle this?

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Students who ignore announcements

Does anyone else have trouble getting students to read your weekly announcements? How do you handle this problem? How do you make sure students are aware of housekeeping issues? How do you encourage students to pay attention to course expectations as the session moves on and the freshness of that information fades?

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Working from home

When I began teaching remotely, it was to accomodate my children's schedules and to spend more time with them. I often find that the contrary is true. Rather than spending quality time with my youngest son (pre-K), I find that he is often frustrated because "Mommy has to work." We've tried schedule variations, but he feels left out because his brother and all the other kids go to school on the bus and he stays home alone with me, and my time has to include my teaching load and my housework. Challenging!

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Time Management and Plagiarism

The major problem, is not spelling and grammar -- it's the theft of intellectual property. Many students, for whatever reason, think nothing of skipping the reading assignments and simply Googling/copying/pasting answers to graded assignments. Believe me -- I've debased my composition quality standards as much as I can while still being able to surmise the students' meaning; what I can't overlook is academic integrity in terms of presenting original work. I'm learning to accept that proprietary education (the schools for which I work) is, primarily, a source of a credential for employment. But it's hard to get past the need… >>>

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Time Management and Plagiarism

Scott, I think it's both. Students are coming to higher education having spent a significant amount of time obtaining information from and communicating through the internet. The unprofessional communication I receive from my students (no capital letters, punctuation, abbreviated languaged, etc.) and tendency to copy/paste their work from web sites instead of completing their reading assignments and referring to what they've learned are evidence of that fact. As you've mentioned, some institutions take the time to prepare students for the demands of information literacy, while many do not. This leaves the content expert -- the instructor -- with the time… >>>

Jenny Witcher

Discussion Comment

Time Management and Plagiarism

I am having trouble overcoming the problem of time control based on the level of plagiarism I encounter with online students. There is a fundamental disconnect between today's student and true information literacy. I spend far too much time teaching my students how to avoid plagiarism, how to use APA formatting (required by the institutions where I teach), and regrading papers (I allow first-time offenders a second attempt). Does anyone else have this problem? How have you dealt with it?