Half the class cheated on one of the final exam

Rants / Vents

So I discovered on Monday that my college students had devised a scheme to cheat during one of their final exams.

Without going into details, their strategy could have worked but special circumstances allowed me to discover the deception. In fact, they had two exams on the same day, am and pm. As I had some time in between, I started correcting the papers and saw some complex answers from some students that really surprised me. On closer inspection, I quickly became convinced that the fact that the students knew some of the most advanced information was impossible. Before the second exam, I verbally asked some students about the exam questions, in particular one student to come and write on the blackboard a very complex name that he had written perfectly just 2 hours earlier. None of them were able to answer correctly. During the supervision of the second exam, I quickly identified problem papers, and when the students concerned came to hand in their exams, I asked them a question they should have been able to answered. All failed, claiming sudden memory loss. One told me he couldn't answer because he was “one of those who cheated”. In the evening, I continued my corrections and understood their stratagem, which led me to conclude that about half the group had cheated. Even some of the best students.

I'm disgusted. By a strange coincidence, the courses were being distributed on the same day, and the only course I was offered was with the same group in the autumn. I accepted, but in hindsight, I think I'm going to give it up on that course, or even resign from the College. I've been teaching for just 5 years, and every year I find the students less and less interested. I like the conditions of employment, they are good for my field, but I don't want to be in perpetual confrontation with young adults or become a jaded teacher. Too bad.

EDIT: I wasn't planing on going into details but lol: COMPLETE STORY in a reply BELOW

TLDR: They use Shazam in their web browser to identify music artists and pieces during a listening exam for a music/ear training class. Yes they did.

in Professorsby sheik_Tombouti

212

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18d

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Mammoth_Might8171

161

18d

How did they cheat?

sheik_Tombouti

141

18d

So...how do I start? TLDR above.

It's a music / ear training class I give to audio engineering students. One of the objective is to be able to recognize musical instruments by ear, sometimes composers, and some acoustic phenomena (not sure about that one, sorry for my english). This exam consist of playing audio examples and they get about 30 seconds to identify what I ask them too. Usually, when I ask to identify an instrument, they get an extra point if you can also identify the artist or the composer, sometimes even in what movie it was used. The notes I give them are filled with audio examples and we listen to a lot of things in studio and during the class. The extra points is a way of rewarding students who have taken the time to really do the required listening since I often take some extracts that were in the notes for the exam.

I've been doing this for the four times I gave this class. Usually, a few students will get 2 or 3 extra points, not more. This year, during the mi-terms, I was surprised by the perfomance and extra points some students that didn't seem extremely invested in the class got. I thought, well, they're more interested than I thought, good thing.

When I started the correct the final listening exam, I noted many students where able to identify obscur composers that I didn't even mentioned during class. Three rap-head that didn't attended half of the classes where able identify and correctly spell "Zbigniew Preisner", lol. Five students could identify Freddy Hubbard, even tho I never mention him nor put him the notes. A couple if students where able to identify the violinist Jean Carignan (not mentionned in class) , etc. In the end, some students had collected up to 20 extra points!!! After I finished the correction, I have almost half of class with 10+ extra points when I've never seen any students of my previous class get more then 3 or 4. Ridiculous. One student would have had is grade up from 45% to 65%.

I do my exams on Moodle (similar to forms), and ask them to close everything on their computer except a browser with the exam. No phones allowed. I do a quick walk around to ensure they did it and go back to the front of the class to play the audio files. I know there's many simple solution to this (paper exam duh), but it never occurred to me they would do that. Like abusing what is suppose to be a small reward system (never again).

When I saw the result of this year exam, I figured they have found a way to quickly identify music artist. Kind of like... Shazam. Well it turn's out Shazam is not only an app, but it works perfectly in a browser!!! So they just opened a additionnal tab in the browser and copy paste the artists name and Voilà!!! Even if I'd walk to their desk they would have the time to close it.

I wouldn't have been able to prove they had cheated if I had corrected the exams the next day. They thought they outsmarted me since they had all the artist names recorded in their shazam, and could simply pretend they did indeed knew about them. But the fact that I could see them on the same day and ask them question about the answer they gave ruined everything. Example: "Two hours ago you identify a famous jazz standard by Duke Ellington, what was it again?". "I was impress you identify the music from In the mood for Love, what's that movie about again? Love? Anything else?" (that's a true one). "Tell me the name of that song from X artist you identify previously again? You really forgot about it? That was only 2 hours ago." etc. etc. etc.

There you go. What what supposed to be a super interesting class where I can share my passion for music and sound with young adults is in the end just me fighting with wanna be audio engineer to just fucking listen to music and train their ears. I'm gonna stop now lol. Venting was good!!

TLDR: They use Shazam in their web browser to identify music artists and pieces during a listening exam for a music/ear training class.

afraidtobecrate

17d

What what supposed to be a super interesting class where I can share my passion for music and sound with young adults is in the end just me fighting with wanna be audio engineer to just fucking listen to music and train their ears.

Yeah, if you are looking to share your passion, it can't be for a grade. Nothing sucks the passion out of a subject like grades.