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Showing posts from July, 2015

Issue of copying

As an instructor of a course at my university I often face the dilemma of passing/failing certain border line students. Like many other universities, at my place too instructors decide and declare the passing criteria for their courses at the start. In the very beginning of my career as an instructor I would give benefit of doubt to students who indulged in some wrong-doings and lapses. Very soon I painfully learnt the flaws in how I was handling such situations. Biggest issue was that indirectly a message was going across to students: that they could take things for granted. Top in the list of wrong-doings was copying. For take-home assignments, certain section of students give in to the temptation of copying material from others or the Internet. Following has saved me some headache: Reduced the weight of graded take-home assignments. Make the students solve problems during lab hours itself. Internet access is blocked during labs, unless needed for lab problems. Main trade-of