On Cheating and Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is an extremely important part of our classroom culture, and thus should be addressed not only on the first day or week of school but also throughout the school year regularly and often.

An effective way to initially address the issue is to honestly and sincerely tell students how you feel about it. Express your thoughts on the issue and let them know what you expect from them throughout the year. Here are a few ideas on what to tell your students.

• Your teacher would rather have you do the work on your own and turn in C or D work that you honestly put forth effort on than get A or B work that wasn’t truly earned by you.

• You will probably improve if you do your own work and put forth effort; it will be much more difficult to improve if you don’t do your own work.

• It’s NEVER okay to get answers from another student. NEVER. Do your own work.

• I’m willing to help you in any way that I can so that you can do your own work honestly.

• I will be extremely disappointed in you if you get your answers by cheating, which includes getting answers from anyone else.

Make sure that your students know the definition of cheating: cheating is any form of getting answers illegally. In daily work, it is acceptable to look back in the book to find the material. On tests, it is completely unacceptable to get answers from anywhere except from your own brains.

Make it easier on your students by keeping them accountable. This will remove most of the urges to cheat in the first place, and that is doing your students a huge favor. It also sets a standard and atmosphere in your classroom that sends this message: It is not okay to cheat, and as your teacher, I will make it almost impossible for you to do so.

Deterrents to Cheating

Before Tests

• Before passing out tests, double check your board or any posters hanging in your room to make sure that there are no answers available anywhere.

• Move students around to different seats or tables as needed, or have them turn their desks in another direction, placing them where no one has a direct view of anyone else’s paper.  

• Make a habit of collecting study sheets or test reviews. You can even offer a 100% for a daily grade on these as you collect them. This rewards students for diligently studying and taking notes. It also removes the most probable way of cheating—having notes right inside the desks or laying open on the floor.

• Before the test is handed out, have a “Test Spiel” that you rattle off every single time. This can be something like this: “Avoid every appearance of evil. Look nowhere but straight up to heaven to pray. Look around your desks and make sure that no notes or papers are lying around.” I also like to tell my students that I do all these things because I care. I tell them that if anyone ever does accuse them of cheating, that I could defend them because I had taken great pains to remove, as best as I could, anything so that they couldn't cheat.

• Pass out cover sheets with your tests. These are simply blank pieces of paper to cover up the answers as soon as they are written down by sliding the paper down to cover up the answers. Require students to use them and remind them periodically during tests.

• Walk around the room during tests, weaving in and out of the rows every once in a while. I usually do this as soon as the tests are passed out to ensure that nothing is placed on the floor where a student could see the answers. Doing this every 10-15 minutes is infrequent enough to not be much of a distraction, but often enough to keep students on their toes and be a deterrent to cheating.

• Never sit at your desk and work while your students are taking a test. Stand at the front of the room or sit on your desk facing the students, staring at them or glancing up very often. Look all around the room and at every student. That way you are keeping every student accountable and not staring at specific students you think might be more apt to cheat.

• Stand at the back of the room for part of the time during a test. You can hold a clipboard, or something similar, where you can still get a little work done but will make you look like a vigilant drill sergeant keeping an eye on your charges. They also won’t know if you are looking at them or not.

  
  

Become a Detective

Research how students have cheated in the past by talking to other teachers or former students. Here are some ways that students have cheated that I have gleaned from other teachers. These tidbits of information have shaped how I give tests because of what I have learned.

• Cheat notes in pockets or inside desks. Remedy: Walk around and look.

• Study guides laying on the floor. Remedy: Ask students to put away all papers and have nothing lying out. Check to ensure that they do so.

• Giving answers to other students orally (whispering) or placing test answers where another could see it. Remedy: Be vigilant during tests. Never leave the room and keep a hawk eye on all students. Do not allow noise of any kind, especially whispering.

• Copying answers of a person sitting next to them. Remedy: Keep a very close eye on the suspected student, and compare their answers to the person sitting next to them.

If someone does cheat, get your ducks in a row and be able to prove it. I have printed out websites and highlighted the exact sentences that were copied on both the website print-out and my students’ papers to prove that they matched word-for-word. Explain why it is wrong (plagiarism) and give them a chance to do it correctly. (This is greatly avoided if students are guided in class, step-by-step, and instructed on how to write papers when they are younger.)

If it is the other kind of cheating, make sure you have proof before approaching a student. Be gentle, try to get a confession, forgive, and give them another chance to do the assignment correctly, but with points still subtracted for their former violations.

When I was in about fifth grade, one of my teachers caught a student cheating during a test. The teacher had told us what he would do if he ever caught us cheating, and he did it. He walked over to the offending student, picked up his test, and ripped it up in front of all of us as he announced that the student was getting a zero on the test. I’m not suggesting that we do this, as it is rather drastic, but it certainly put a healthy fear into the rest of us. I like to tell my students this story because I think it helps them to understand how serious the matter is.