Cheating in the Age of Technology and Cell Phone Apps...

The fall of 2015 marks the beginning of my fifteenth year of teaching. I have seen all sorts of elaborate schemes that students do in order to “get over” actually doing their work. Now in the age of technology students stop at very little to do the least amount of work possible.

We all know that we have students who have mastered Googling their answers and with the new policy of BYOD (bring your own device), it is hard to always catch the culprits red-handed. Yet most veteran teachers still do, while shaking our heads that we have NEVER seen that one before! J

I learned quite a few years ago that I can no longer go online and download quick worksheets to share with my classes or leave as sub-lessons because my students do the same thing. I can tell because many keys floating on the web have mistakes, and ironically my students copy down the same mistakes.

I am ok with the way things have evolved, it has all worked in my favor though. I have always been a teacher who enjoys creating her own resources, so I get to do more of that.  Although time restraints do make it difficult I am satisfied that my students actually have to work to get the right answer on papers I am planning on grading. I can be neurotic so I may make multiple problem sets and hand different class periods or groups within the class a different set of problems. I let the class know there is no point is asking around, no one will have the same answer.

I recently just finished up a lesson called Dimensional Analysis: Zombie Survival. My students had to work through a series of problems in order to escape the mob of zombies headed their way once the class bell rang. The students had to show me all their work and have the equation in the correct dimensional analysis format. The kids fussed a little or a lot. J Some thought they were smarter than me and ran to google for the answers. These tactics only wasted their time and once the class bell rang, those groups were eaten.

Some of the students' groups were successful. They tackled the math problems head-on. The extra problem, thrown at them as a surprise, did little to hinder their progression. Other groups looked over to see if they could get a glimpse of a corner of the page. However, I warned all the kids that in a true zombie apocalypse it is each group for their own.

The students challenged me on whether such an event could ever truly happen. Well, I asked what do you think life was like after the plague? A hurricane? An earthquake or tsunami? We never know how life may change suddenly and your survival skills need to kick in. Sadly I did have a few kids give up and say they would rather just die. I told them, “Well, thank you for your sacrifice because many of us would like to live.”  

The next day when I met with my classes, I gave them 30 more minutes I told the groups who had been eaten they were actually hiding in a cave and would have 30 minutes to get out. I am aware that by this point lots of photos were taken and passed around. That did not help though since you have to show me all your work and explain your method. Only groups who finished on the first day received 100’s the other students had lower scores depending on how many answers they got right.

Overall it was a successful activity. It was nice to see the kids engaged. I will not let the self-sacrificed spoil the bunch. I know the kids cheat, Google, take pics, snap-chat and it is making me become a more creative teacher. I look forward to designing more activities like this as the school year progresses. 

For teachers who are honestly strapped for time, you can also visit these websites to find great resources and innovative ideas for your classroom: 

Teachers Pay Teachers, TES, or Edmodo 

Let's keep our students guessing! 

Advantages of Electronic Dichotomous Keys

I am ashamed to admit I spent a good portion of my teaching career looking for good dichotomous keys for my students. I asked veteran teachers who would always claim to have an abundance only to disappoint me with bad runoff copies that contained vocabulary neither my native or ELL students could understand. I scoured the internet looking for good dichotomous keys my students could easily understand while exposing them to new organisms. I never found what I wanted.

I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and create my own dichotomous keys. After deciding which organisms I wanted to cover I set off to write the key itself. It took a lot of time, but I was very happy with the results. The first dichotomous key I created covered both bacteria domains, the four kingdoms and had viruses thrown in. It was a great way for me to assess my students understanding of the unique characteristics of those groups and their ability to classify. I thought about how I would present the organisms,

I decided against photocopies due to details often being muddied. I do not work in the richest school district so making class sets of color copies is not feasible either. I decided on presenting the organisms in a power point. The students could log into Schoology and then use their laptops, tablet, or cell phones to access the images. I did print out the dichotomous keys and answer documents.

The power point presentation was a great success! I paired the students up and watched them look at the pictures, read little notes and go through the dichotomous key to identify the organisms and viruses. I could listen to the students debate, about what they thought the answers were and redirect them if they were too far off. I could see what needed to be reviewed and what content my class had mastered.

This led me to creating a second Electronic dichotomous key dedicated to the flora of the Chihuahua desert. I have run across keys with plants that live further north or more humid climates compared to our desert. Although I like to expose my students to environments and creatures outside of our area, it is also important that they learn about their immediate surroundings as well. The next dichotomous key was based on desert plants. I was shocked to see how surprised my students were to see how many flowers our desert has. I had a few students come to class after a weekend to tell me now they noticed that El Paso does have a lot of plants and they remembered the names.

You can purchase these lessons at the following links:

Classifying Organisms Dichotomous Key

Desert Plants Dichotomous Key