A New View on Learning in the 21st Century: Cheating

Morning Reflections...

As I sat drinking my coffee this morning with a book in my hand and my iPad on my lap and my phone I'm sure was not too far away I was reminded that this world is changing as is the way our students learn. I have had many similar reflections in the last week as I thought about the last year and the changes I want to make for next year. One major issue that I have thought a lot about is about cheating and how to deal with it in the 21st Century. 

In the last days of school my students were eagerly working to finish their final projects. They were excited because they were able to choose a topic of their choice and how they wanted to present that information to the rest of the class. The students were so excited and I was excited!!! It Worked!!!

Unfortunately my excitement was short lived as I was grading these wonderful projects (a majority of them were AMAZING!!!) and I came across three that were the exact same. So I did what I usually do and I typed some of the information into Google. To my surprise it was not directly copied from a website and after further investigation it came out that the three students had actually written the paper together utilizing the collaborative nature of Google Docs at a sleepover and had turned it in under their own names.

As we think towards the future of student learning, we were left with the question: What do we do???

We had a couple options, yet none seemed right:

1. They receive a zero on the final and their grade goes down by one letter grade. (Punishment)
2. They receive a zero on the final and in turn fail the course. (Punishment)
3. Suspension, though school is now out. (Punishment)

Ultimately, my principal and I had the discussion, how do we promote learning from this circumstance??? One of the students had been caught cheating before and unfortunately it is something that students do and there is usually a reason behind that. Not to mention if they continue on this road there will be some drastic consequences down the road. 

So we chose an alternate route: LEARNING!!!

1. Essentially their punishment was that they had to come to summer school and redo the project to my highest expectations as well as they had to have a conversation about copyright and plagiarism and its consequences with me as well as with our building principal. 
2. In the end they received a consequence also a learning opportunity and earned a chance to redeem themselves. 
3. All three turned in A projects as a result!

I'm sure this is not the fool proof way to handle this situation but we have to ask ourselves what are students learning from the consequences that are being handed out??? Are we doing it to punish or to aid in their future learning???