On test day for my Behavioral Ecology class at UCLA, I walked into the classroom bearing an impossibly difficult exam. Rather than being neatly arranged in alternate rows with pen or pencil in hand, my students sat in one tight group, with notes and books and laptops open and available. They were poised to share each other’s thoughts and to copy the best answers. As I distributed the tests, the students began to talk and write. All of this would normally be called cheating. But it was completely OK by me.
[T]he superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times, once it is debunked, takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control. . . . [O]ne of the functions of old-fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that long-run civilized life requires.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Cheating is... good!?
1 comment:
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Actually I have been a part of the same idea and Have used this same thing when I was teaching.
ReplyDeleteOne of my students asked WHY? And it is obvious if you are at a job site and am not sure of a procedure do just sit there trying to figure it out because 'you can't cheat' or do you talk it over your coworkers.
This method is also useful to assess how well you have taught and they have absorbed the material as a class. If the class does well then you know you have gotten the info out to them OK, later if others do not do well then you have an individual problem.