Cheating

Today I discovered a number of my students studying from the final exam - the final exam, mind you! Which means they got the questions to the final exam in advance and are studying from them. (part of me laughed as I was thinking, WTF are you studying? just write down the answers)

Now, for the record, this is an upper division course and I don't care if they memorize the shit, so I give them a guide in advance from which the questions are drawn. So technically I aid in the cheating by giving them a big bunch of questions. These are not MC, so they have to write stuff, and they have to understand it, and I feel that by answering the study guide they actually learn the material (at least, that was my experience in college) so I'm cool with it.

But to actually have the questions. I am nice to my students. I trust them. I let them take the exam any time during exam week. I have said to my colleagues, they wouldn't share questions. They aren't that stupid. Clearly I was wrong. They all turned bright pink and stuttered all over themselves.

No more niceness. Next year, all exams will be proctored. Not by me, but they will have to take the exam at 7am if that's the time, damnit! They'll have to take it during class time.

Students students students.