I hate ALL the children...

...that I tutor.

Allright, that's a gross exaggeration. I don't hate them all. I just wanted to wring a few necks today.

You see, the biggest problem that I have in community college is the issue of academic honesty- i.e., students asking for help on assignments that are like take-home tests, meant to be worked without help as a true revelation of the student's knowledge. (To the extent that things like "knowledge" are truly valued in the modern Academy- but more about that later.)

So, here's where we stand. Community college instructors, pressured by students who complain that they are unduly nervous during timed, in-class tests, are increasingly giving take-home tests, quizzes, and assignments, with varying degrees of clarity as to the extent of collaboration that is allowed. The Learning Center instructs its tutors that we are allowed to help with any problems that are in the textbook; we're [obviously] not allowed to help with anything that an instructor brings in and says "this is a graded thing that they aren't allowed to get any help with." We tutors love it when the instructors do that; then, if a mildly sneaky student does something like copy the problems on a sheet of notebook paper and ever-so-innocently ask questions about them, we can point to where we have the test posted and say "[Ha ha ha! Busted!] We're sorry, but you're not allowed to get help with those questions."

Now, the problem arises with everything in-between; that is, students come in with a variety of problems, typed and hand-written, that are apparently not in their textbook, but aren't on something we've been directly notified about by instructors. If questioned, these students invariably say "these are just extra problems the teacher put on the board for us to work on" or "these are review problems for our test coming up" or something of the like. How do we know if they're telling the truth or not? Obviously, we don't. But it seems difficult to make a clear-cut policy on these cases.

One idea, the one we sort-of kind-of more-or-less follow now, is that the burden lies on the instructor to bring a copy of any off-limits questions into the tutoring center so that we know we shouldn't help with those questions. In other words, everything else is fair game. This would work great except that there are so many instructors, many of them little part-time adjuncts, who barely seem to know The Learning Center exists. Let's put it this way- we have exactly two assignments posted on our Do-Not-Help list at the moment, but I can guarantee you there are more outstanding assignments than that floating around. For example, a student today asked me questions about problems on a sheet that was labeled "Quiz 4." A take-home quiz? Was she allowed to get help from other students in the class, from tutors, or from no one? We don't know, because the instructor didn't notify us of anything and there weren't even instructions printed at the top. Instructors frequently won't even bother to print any guidelines on the things: even things like "you may work with one other student in your class" or "you may use your book, but not any human help" or "you may get help with these problems but the final write-up must be your own" would help to clarify the issue. But we know nothing.

On the other end of the spectrum, we could play it safe and say "we're only going to help you do problems out of the book." The problem with this is that there are many legitimate questions students could ask that aren't in the book; i.e., examples the teacher has done in class that they don't understand, or problems on a handout from class. So this would probably frustrate the students and be too restrictive. We want our students to get ENOUGH help, just not too much.

Then there are the "compromise" suggestions, which have been employed or suggested at various times by various tutors. One mantra is: "If you suspect the questions are from a test, just work SIMILAR problems." This idea has a number of problems associated with it. If you have something like a word problem and you just go through and change the numbers, then give the student as much guidance as necessary for them to get through it, you've really given them quite a lot of help, and all but the most incompetent among them will be able to work the test(?) problem with the proper numbers filled in, without having really gained the solution Knowledge themselves. (i.e., afterwards give them a different problem of similar difficulty, and they still won't be able to do it.) If you do more than just change the numbers, so that the actual set-up is different, they likely won't be able to do their test problem and will start asking you little questions about the similarities and differences, which you'll then be Stressed Out trying to decide whether or not to answer. Another proverb we sometimes quote: "Give limited help or hints, but try to make them figure it out on their own." This, too, is really no good: it lacks uniformity. And uniformity is another big problem we have: as different tutors interpret and apply the principles differently, students notice that some tutors are "softer on crime" than others, and launch Complaints against the more scrupulous amongst us.

All very Bad and Confusing.

So, as it stands now, our policy isn't clear and there is inconsistency amongst us tutors. By this point in this dull little narrative, you, gentle Reader, may be asking, DOES this matter?!? And I answer, YES! Yes it does! You see, the meta-Problem in this situation is not that there is unclarity in our policy- it's the reason behind the lack of clarity. The reason is that community colleges (at least the two I work for, anyway) DO NOT TAKE ACADEMIC HONESTY SERIOUSLY.

Let's compare and contrast for a minute. Take Rice U, for example, where I took classes in high school. Rice has an "Honor Code" system, in which a lot of trust is placed in students regarding things like take-home tests; i.e., you are on your honor to not cheat, or peek, or help each other. But this system is supported by very, very serious consequences and penalties for those who do [even attempt to] cheat. If you are caught trying to cheat at Rice, even on a little thing, there is a Hearing before the Honor Council, and a severe penalty, up to receiving an F in the class and a two semester suspension. At Lehigh, Nate is required to report cases of suspected cheating to the Dean. How about Northampton? In the Learning Center, when we catch a student cheating or trying to cheat, the worst that happens is that we tell the student, "No, we won't help you with that." There is no penalty. There is no guarantee that the student will even receive a grade of zero on the assignment; in extreme cases our supervisor, Lifen, might report the incident to the instructor, but even then, I've never heard of a student getting kicked out of school because of it. I told Sharon today- I think if a student tries to cheat, we should deny them tutoring for the rest of the semester. The fact that community college is not a Bastion of Academic Excellence like some of the big four year schools is no reason to be soft on cheating. Inferiority need not begot dishonesty!

But no one seems to care.

What has prompted my little harangue? Three students in the last two tutoring days who have shown up with questions that I was pretty sure were from tests. I helped them, not having any proof that they were from a test; but I feel guilty. One of the students today was pretty clueless, and got a LOT of help, bringing her test(?) grade up from (probably) an F to (probably) an A, as we helped her on every single problem just about. I wrote Lifen a note about it.

Do you all realize? This is how students Slip Through the System and end up in Calculus I unable to add fractions. :-(

Then again, I [marginally legally] copied code all the way through C++ at Wheaton. So who am I to speak?