Blog Post 2

For project 2, I have decided to focus on the issue that is cheating and plagiarism in higher education. From the text Ethics in Higher Education I read “Cheating in College” an interview conducted by Scott Jaschik beginning on page 221 as well as “Studies Shed Light on How Cheating Impedes Learning” by Sarah D. Sparks on page 255. “Cheating in College” was helpful because it was able to provide me with a lot of information in regards to whether cheating is on the rise or decline, how students are cheating today, and some possible solutions to cheating. Sarah Sparks’ article was helpful because it was able to give me resources to prove how the issue is exigent and shows how a cheating student is not only hurting their peers, but themselves.

Within this specific topic I believe the problem I would most like to focus on is how we as a society have created an environment where the grade you attain is seen as more important than the knowledge you’re actually gaining from the course. As a current student, I know that some of my peers are “grade-chasers” in that they will do anything necessary to get the grade they are hoping for, including cheating. This attitude creates a very toxic environment for many students because if I am studying for a test, and a student cheats on that test and gets a really high score, that high score will affect the curve and can devalue all the work I put in for my score. This then influences more students to cheat because “Everyone is doing it, I might as well right? I really need that A.” It’s this kind of logic that will continue to exist as long as more value is put on the GPA at the end of the day instead of how much is actually being learned.

To combat this problem, I propose that educators as well as those in industry put an emphasis on the fact that they would rather see students try, fail, and try again as opposed to just not even trying and focusing solely on the grade they receive. This may result in a slightly lower average GPA but I believe that we would find an increase in successful problem solving skills from today’s students as well as it would put more meaning behind the diploma that they earn. This isn’t to say that cheating will ever go away, but if the way cheating was perceived by students was changed, it would result in less cheating.

For P2 I am planning on targeting The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) at Colorado State University because it is this organization that is responsible for the implementation of the honor code. I believe that they would be the most successful at handling the efforts to change the way cheating is perceived in the eyes of students. Honor codes have been proven to decrease cheating. Due to this, I believe TILT is a logical choice to target. They would be able to communicate between educators and professors and in turn those professors could highlight to their students how they would rather see a low score but know that they tried their best as opposed to cheating their way through the assignment.