On Stating the Goals for Assigned Work

It is easy for students to misunderstand the purpose of assigned work. Since they don’t have the instructor’s knowledge or perspective on the material, they generally can’t tell where things are headed or why a particular assignment will get them there. If the instructor doesn’t make his goals for each assignment clear from the start, [...]

On the Motivations for Grade Inflation

People often claim that instructors who give inflated grades do so to obtain higher evaluations from their students, but I don’t buy that argument. Sure, the students will happily accept the inflated grades, but they still won’t respect bad instruction and will mostly say so on their end-of-semester course evaluations. The anticipated quid pro quo [...]

On the Motivations for Cheating

I think that students cheat primarily because our society rewards appearances more than realities. All of the emphasis is on how you look, not on who you really are. We reward people for their degrees and good credentials so much more than we reward them for becoming educated, that it’s no wonder students take shortcuts. [...]