Volunteer Opportunity for WSMS Students at St. Jude 2012 Marathon

A mother of  a student on Mrs. Murphy's team is organizing student volunteers to cheer on the runners in the St. Jude Marathon, Saturday, December 1, 2012. Student volunteers will pass water out to the runners and cheer them on to victory for St. Jude Hospital. Click on this link: VOLUNTEER NOW to participate. Each student who participates will receive 3 hours of volunteer service credit. It's a great service opportunity!

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On the Topic of Cheating...

Published Online: March 24, 2011

Updated: March 24, 2012

Studies Find Cheaters Overinflate Academic Ability

By Sarah D. Sparks

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

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That time-honored anti-cheating mantra, “You’re only hurting yourself,” may be literal fact, according to new research.

Emerging evidence suggests students who cheat on a test are more likely to deceive themselves into thinking they earned a high grade on their own merits, setting themselves up for future academic failure.

In four experiments detailed in the March Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the HarvardBusiness School and Duke University found that cheaters pay for the short-term benefits of higher scores with inflated expectations for future performance.

The findings come as surveys and studies show a majority of students cheat—whether through cribbing homework, plagiarizing essays from the Internet, or texting test answers to a friend’s cellphone—even though overwhelming majorities consider it wrong. The Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics, which has been tracking student character and academic honesty, has found that while the number of students engaging in specific behaviors has risen and fallen over the years, the number of students who have cheated on a test in the previous year has not dipped below a majority since the first biennial study in 1992. In its most recent survey, conducted in 2010, the study found that a majority of students cheat at some point during high school, and the likelihood of cheating increases the older students get.

Of a nationally representative sample of more than 40,000 public and private high school students responding to the survey, 59.4 percent admitted to having cheated on a test—including 55 percent of honors students—and one in three had done so twice or more in the previous year.

Cheating: Delusions of Success

Test 1- The first test involved a short 10-item quiz in which some participants had access to an answer key, which they were not supposed to use. This group had much higher mean scores than the control group, suggesting they cheated.

Test 2- After taking the test, both groups were asked to predict how well they would do on a second test on which there was no way to cheat. Those who cheated on the first test were overoptimistic about their performance on the second test, and saw a much bigger gap between their expectations and actual performance than those in the control group.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

In addition, more than 80 percent of the respondents said they had copied homework, more than one-third had plagiarized an Internet document for a class assignment, and 61 percent reported having lied to a teacher about “something important” at least once in the past year. By contrast, only about 20 percent of students surveyed reported having cheated in sports.

“One of the sad phenomena is that, on average, one of the things they are learning in school is how to cheat,” John Fremer, the president of consulting services at Caveon LLC, a private test-security company in Midvale, Utah, said of students.

While most academic interest in cheating has focused on how students cheat and how to stop them, the Harvard-Duke study joins a pile of emerging research suggesting that the mental hoops that students must leap through to justify or distance themselves from cheating can cause long-term damage to their professional and academic habits. The findings also suggest that changes in both school climate and instructional approach can help to break the cycle of cheating and self-deception.

“We see that the effect of cheating is, the more we engage in dishonest acts, the more we develop these cognitive distortions—ways in which we neutralize the act and almost forget how much we are doing it,” said Jason M. Stephens, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, who studies cheating among secondary school students.

Moreover, the more students learn to focus on grades for their own sake, rather than as a representation of what they have learned, the more comfortable they are with cheating.

Mr. Stephens, who was not involved in the Harvard-Duke study, quoted one high school student, “Jane,” who insisted that cheating on a test does nothing to lessen the value of the grade. “It says an A on the paper and you don’t go, ‘Oh, but I cheated.’ You’re just kind of like, ‘Hey, I got that A,’ ” she said.

That, said Zoë Chance, the lead author of the Harvard-Duke study, is where cheaters start lying to themselves.

Self-Deception

In the first of the four experiments by the Harvard-Duke team, researchers asked 76 participants on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus to take a short test of “math IQ” and score their own sheets. Half the tests had an answer key at the bottom of the page. After completing the test, all participants were asked to predict how many questions they would answer correctly on a second, 100-question test without an answer key.

The other related experiments repeated the scenario with 345 students at the University of North Carolina, but required the participants to actually take the test after predicting how well they would do. In one variation, the participants were told they would receive money for the second test based on both the number correct and how close the participant’s predicted score came to the actual score.

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Participants who had access to the test answers tended to use them. In the first rounds of testing in each scenario, mean scores were significantly higher among students who could sneak a peek at the answer key at the bottom. That fits with previous studies showing that, all else being equal, a majority of those who can cheat, do.

Yet the Harvard-Duke research also showed that cheaters lied to themselves.

In a preliminary experiment involving 36 Harvard students, participants were asked simply to imagine cheating on the first test and then taking the second without an opportunity to cheat. Those participants predicted that they would perform worse on the second test, without the opportunity to cheat.

When faced with the real situation, they weren’t nearly so objective. Across the board, cheaters tended to predict they would perform equally well on the next, longer test, though they knew they would not have a chance to cheat. In the experiment involving money rewards for the second test scores, cheaters missed out on getting money because their actual scores were so much lower than the predictions they made based on their first test scores. If participants received a “certificate of recognition” for scoring well on the first test, they became even more likely to be overly optimistic about their success on the second test.

“In our experiments, we find that social recognition reinforces self-deception,” said Ms. Chance, a Harvard doctoral student. If a student focuses on the high test score by itself, rather than cheating as the reason for it, she said, then “getting a high grade will lead ‘Alex’ to feel smart, and being treated as smart by the teacher will lead Alex to feel smarter still.

“Because Alex wasn’t conscious of cheating, there’s no reason to question the performance evaluation or the social feedback.”

That means students may feel they are getting ahead in class, but actually they are falling into a feedback loop in which they fall further and further behind, according to Mr. Fremer of Caveon, the test-security firm. His firm was not part of the Harvard-Duke study.

“If the test scores misrepresent what kids know, [teachers] may have the wrong sense of where they need help,” he said.

Moreover, such self-deception can lead to a “death of a thousand cuts” for a student’s honesty, Mr. Stephens of the University of Connecticut said.

“Kids start to disengage [from] responsibility habitually; cheating in high school does lead to dishonesty in the workplace as an adult,” he said.

Overwhelmed, Unengaged?

Not only does one instance of cheating lead to another, but the school environment can make it easier for students to mentally justify their dishonesty, research shows. Studies by Mr. Stephens and others that show students are more likely to cheat when they are under pressure to get high grades, uncertain about their own ability, unengaged in the material, or some combination of the three. In addition, students are better able to justify cheating in classes in which they feel the teacher is unfair or does not attempt to engage them in learning.

Yet the entirety of the studies also suggests that making students more aware of the importance of academic integrity and learning, not just grades, can make them less likely to cheat.

In a previous study, Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke and a co-author of the Harvard-Duke study, found test-takers became less likely to cheat if they were reminded of a school honor code, or if they saw someone they considered an outsider cheating.

Ms. Chance and Mr. Fremer said teachers and administrators should try to reduce opportunities for students to cheat, but should also help them establish classwide and schoolwide codes for academic integrity, and then reinforce the importance of that code before every assignment.

“When it comes to recidivism, question your assumptions about motivation to inform your decisions about punishment,” Ms. Chance said. “Try out the assumption that kids cheat because they are stressed out about college, and afraid they aren’t smart enough.

“Think about helping cheaters find alternative means to get what they want,” she said, “so that they don’t react by cheating more or giving up.”

Vol. 30, Issue 26

As to # 13 on the Test.....

Nora, good question. I'll be happy to help you out with some clues. Go back to the second powerpoint on the Landforms blog. Find the map that details Kurdistan. If you look closely, you will notice something very interesting about its' boundaries, and you will then have your answer! Good luck....

Hey! Don't Forget About Map Skills!

Saw this online this afternoon and couldn't resist posting it! After all, I'll be quizzing you soon on your map skills as a refresher, so, you'd better not forget about it........

Don't forget to read the post below this one about your test on Wednesday. You'll hate it if you miss out on that info!

The Regions Test - Wednesday, September 25th

The Regions test will take place on the above day and date of my headline - Am I too generous? Let's see... I think I originally said we'd have the test on Tuesday....However, I'm having mercy on you and giving you an additional day to study.

All I can say is that this test comes straight from the notes. If you know the notes, you will have no problem. If your notes are incomplete for any reason, click on the Landforms and Regions blog and watch the two powerpoint presentations on the main page again. All answers can be found there.

Third Period and Seventh Period classes remember that I am counting on you to show me what you've got - COMMITMENT, SELF-RESPECT, AMBITION - you are the only one stopping yourself!!!! If you can memorize the lyrics to your favorite tunes, you can memorize anything!!!!!

Fourth period, Fifth Period, and Sixth Period I am counting on your dedication to excellence to achieve only the highest scores you can possibly attain!

Click on the button above this post in the Page Button line entitled 2012 Posted Tests and Quizzes and you will find a copy of the real test for Wednesday sitting there, just waiting for your hot little hands to scour the pages and make an "A"! Good luck my darlings!!!! Don't disappoint me!

Hope You Are Taking Second Chances Seriously!

Please make sure you study for this second chance test for at least 1 1/2 hrs. Your effort in this matter is going to let me know just how serious you are about becoming "unstoppable." Remember, the only one who can stop you, is you! Good luck, my precious seventh graders! See you in the morning.

Reflection and thoughts of Re-Testing....

It IS NOT usually my policy to re-test. I think it truly encourages most students to be lazy on the first go-round. However, there are too many of you who have failed to be sufficiently responsible on this test - almost everyone of you who failed or made a D shared that you either didn't study, or you studied 20 minutes or less. THAT is not sufficient for a major test!

Therefore, I am going to offer a re-test on Friday, September 21. You may only re-test if you made less than 80. You may only earn an 80 (even if you were to score 100) on the re-test. That has been my policy for almost twenty years. If you didn't feel the urgency to study hard enough to earn an A on the first try, I will not enable you to score equally with those who studied hard and earned an A on the first test date. However, I will save you from the detrimental effects of an F.

Be ready for the re-take as soon as you arrive in class on Friday...this is your only chance to redeem yourself for poor choices where this test was concerned.

Regions Test on Tuesday, September 25

We will take our Regions Test on Tuesday, September 25. We have filled out cloze notes for the first half of the material on what constitutes (makes up) a region. That information is on the first powerpoint on the following blog: click Landforms and Regions under Unit blogs to your right on this page. When the blog loads, click on the Geographical Regions button. You will find the powerpoint there. We took notes in our Notes Composition Book for the second half of the material which covers all of the different types of regions. If you need to access that material go to the Landforms and Regions blog again, click on the Geographical Regions button again, and the information is in the second powerpoint on the page as you scroll down. The test will contain questions exclusively from all of this material. Please study for the test this time. It is not difficult material; you simply have to give it some time to commit it to memory. 

How Big of a Backyard Would You Need to Live Off the Land?

Need a Map?

If you have lost a map, please refer to the Reteach/Differentiation Button on the Landforms Blog. All of the maps you need are posted there; simply click on them to download or print.

In Memoriam - May We Never Forget

Many of my students asked me today if I was going to talk about 9/11 or show them a video on 9/11, and my answer was "no." We had specific curriculum to cover today, and I simply couldn't justify it. However, Keliese came to my door after school and asked me for the second time if I would put some 9/11 footage on the blog. After some refection, I decided that I would. There is no graphic footage other than the buildings being attacked by the jets on this clip; but, it does give some of the sense and horror and disbelief we all felt that morning as we watched the surreal events unfold. We should never forget that we lost close to 3,000 people that day - a greater number than were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the outset of WW II. Hopefully, my students today, some of whom were barely born at the time of the attacks, will remember the fallen in the years to come and the symbols of freedom they portrayed last week on their Liberty posters.

Open House

Thanks to all who attended our Open House last night. I so enjoyed meeting all of the parents who came!  I hope you walked away with a better understanding of how Geography is taught on the Falcon Team.

Please remember to check out all of the teaching blogs to your right on this page. Mrs. Murphy and I are constantly working to improve and update our work. We're especially proud that this blog has been viewed over 31,000 times in just one year, and over 16,000 times internationally. If you scroll down, you will see our national and international counters. We're hoping to continue collecting world flags from our visitors; as of yesterday, we had a total of 66 flags from countries around the world.

Thanks again for coming; we look forward to a fantastic year with your children. If you have any questions, you know how to reach me!

Mrs. Morton