Cheating is Natural

How’s that for a sensationalist title?

This post is spurred on by a trend resulting from remote teaching. Students and faculty that are not familiar with remote teaching can fall into some common issues not seen with face-to-face instruction. Many of these issues are salient in our student’s (lack of) understanding material, and we have taken great pains to facilitate learning on their terms.

Yes, you can make an argument for a change in academic rigor, but being flexible can mean the difference between a graduate and a dropout.

But this isn’t my primary point. Incidence rates of academic misconduct have been on the rise. But before we leap to conclusion about the crumbling moral infrastructure of society, I’d like to point some things out.

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I have been reflecting on the types of students we have in our classrooms this term, especially as it relates to their level of “comfort” with technology as their primary tool for learning. “Comfort” is a tricky word in this context. For most of us as instructors, we learned in an environment completely or mostly devoid of technology as we know it today. In middle school, the first PET computer I learned on required me to insert a cassette tape and wait up to an eternity for the program to load. Then came the first Apple computer, dot matrix printers, and the rest is history.

The difference between “then” and “now” is pretty obvious when it comes to technology. Think about the difference though, between Gen Z students and millennial students. The last birth year for millennials is 1996, with Gen Z-ers born in 1997 and beyond. (I’ve heard that those born today may be called “Gen C.” I can’t even imagine what life will be like for them yet). Continue reading →