This week I had an interesting experience involving student plagiarism. A group of eight students whom I all know to be friends worked together on a lab report that was only supposed to be done in pairs. It was essentially identical between all four groups with the odd exception of word order or formatting. I contemplated what to do, asked my school associates for their opinions, and after a day or so of thinking about it, I came up with a solution that I think is appropriate. I pulled the groups aside and had a private discussion with each of them, explaining the situation that they had put themselves into. Though they had each submitted a high-quality report, I could not accept it as representative of their individual abilities because they had all worked on it or copied it from each other. Instead of giving a zero or omitting the assignment, I decided to get each group to send me an email to which I would reply with a new set of lab discussion questions. They should then reply to my email with thoughtful answers to each of the questions in order to receive their original marks on the report. Should the same thing occur again, they will have to redo the entire report, not just the discussion section of it.
This relates to my UBC courses because my instructors talked to me about the importance of student accountability and teaching life skills in addition to academic ones. My solution requires thought and action on the part of the students and also has clear escalating consequences in the case of a repeat offence, while at the same time acknowledging that students make mistakes and that they should be given a second chance to demonstrate their knowledge rather than solely punished. I was also glad that I got to put to use my knowledge of the Repair Kit for Grading chapter that I read during the short practicum! I think I can improve on my handing of the situation in the future, however. I think that I should be more precisely clear on what is expected of students and lab groups, and I should explicitly state my policy on coping and plagiarizing fellow students’ work before the situation arises in the first place. I am finding that being excessively clear up front is the best way to avoid confusion and vague expectations with my students. I struggle with that and I need to continue to improve on it in the future.
There’s not a lot I can say about how you handled the situation other than to say that you handled it in a mature thoughtful way that any teacher, regardless of their experience level should aspire to. You were thoughtful, gathered advice from more experienced teachers, tried to come with a fair solution, tried to think win/win and finally reflected on what had happened and how you might prevent a reoccurrence in the future. The process that you followed was outstanding and you should be complimented.