Cheating is an ongoing concern in higher education and is increasingly more complex as classes and resources become more available online. Students have created online environments to share answers to assignments and exam questions, and will sometimes spend time utilizing resources to cheat instead of studying the course material. Particularly in large enrollment classes where exams are the same semester after semester, answers to full exams can often easily be found online. Students report cheating for various reasons, and promoting and supporting academic integrity can be challenging. Completely eliminating breaches of academic integrity is unlikely, therefore, as instructors, we must decide which approaches to utilize in the classroom to balance efficacy and peace of mind. ASU offers multiple tools to attempt to reduce incidences of cheating, including anti-plagiarism software and online proctoring. Anti-plagiarism software can also be used as an opportunity to further educate st...

Cheating is nothing new, and with internet access and the move to online learning, the opportunities to act without academic integrity have become more readily available. The discussion about academic integrity is often seen as a student-based issue, and thus tends to focus on dishonesty, cheating, and plagiarism and how we might reduce these behaviors by students.  As an instructor, you must decide how you choose to approach and address academic integrity in your classes. Research supports that instructors might increase academic integrity among their students by creating an environment that promotes honesty, responsibility, and fairness, instead of focusing on penalties.  Instructors are facilitators of their class and as such can work to create positive relationships and an atmosphere that supports academic integrity ( Boehm, 2009 ;  Stearns, 2001 ).  One of the first steps we can take is to ensure that students understand what academic integrity entails in g...

ASU currently has 13,164 international students enrolled, and is the #1 US public university to host international students. At our last TeachT@lk Webinar, Renee Klug , University International Educator, Sr. shared information with faculty on understanding and teaching international students. Click on image to view larger Intercultural Competence is a set of cognitive, effective and behavioral skills that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts. Renee helped faculty assess their own intercultural sensitivity by sharing 6 models, and having faculty evaluate common statements to understand what level was being used. Once faculty understood the models, she presented classroom strategies that could be used with common student challenges mentioned by faculty, including: reluctance to work in groups negotiating grades not willing to ask for help not speaking up in class not citing resources appropriately  Click on image to see l...

On Tuesday, March 21, we hosted a TeachT@lk Webinar on creating and managing online assessments. There were 3 main topics: Structure: Planning rigorous assessments that are aligned with objectives Tools: Effectively using Multiple choice, and tutorials for setting up Blackboard exams Integrity: Encouraging students to make good choices through pedagogical, technological and community pressures. Peter van Leusen lead the discussion on using Quality Matters standards to align content, and how RPNow can be set up to record students. Amy Pate shared "cheathouse" websites and what they do. The discussions among the participants was active and collaborative. Below are the links to resources and the recording of the session. Slides Recording Links Handout

On Tuesday, Peter van Leusen , Gemma Garcia and I hosted the first TeachT@lk webinar for the new Fall 2016 term. Our topic was focused on working with online assessments. We started with a discussion on alignment of your objectives with your assessments, and the standards presented by Quality Matters on assessment. Peter shared Triangle of Effective Learning to help explain this concept. Gemma showed us a variety of assessment tools and tutorials in Blackboard, including Bb Blogs , Journals , Wikis and Tests . Varying assessments types, not only helps students that have different strengths, but also allows you to better access the depth of the knowledge. We also showed how to develop test questions that were beyond the typical multiple choice format, and required higher-order thinking. Finally, we discussed how to build assessments with a mindset of "Risk vs. Reward" that stresses academic integrity. From pedagogical to technological tools, there are a variety of...