I see an increase in homework plagiarism due to the ease of finding solutions online. I am concerned for my students and my work. What can I do?

Question

I work as a remote tutor and help students understand hard concepts/problems in scientific fields in college/university/industry.

I am finding a real lack of originality in exercises assigned by teachers, who only copy and paste. This causes problems for my work because my students only have to find the question online. This lazy behaviour means that students forget everything and do not learn. It is even possible that I lose my job in the future because it is faster to copy and paste the solution from Google instead of solving the problem.

This Non Linear Equations Exercise is an example precalculus test from Cengage marked as a "hard question". If I Google the problem, I can see five identical answers, some free and some Cheggs/paid solutions. This Red Bull Fall Modelling Exercise Assignment is another example of a system control engineering assignment about red bull falls world record modelling with differential equations. Still the same, I search on Google and I find Felix Baumgartner Jump Model SOLVED.

Now, due to isolation because of the COVID-19 pandemic, lazy student behaviour has increased, as students now have internet access to solve their homework/tests, and can do so without knowing anything about the subject.

How are professionals/ethical teachers fighting this?

I am a tutor but I am also a continuously learning student for developing my career and I know that if others do the work for me I am not learning anything! As I said it is more easy to copy and paste the problems than solving.

Answer 1

While I sympathize with your concerns, let me give some background, and possibly a solution.

First, a good student exercise that leads to insight is an extremely valuable thing. Text book authors often will vet their exercises with real students to assure that they lead the faithful student to the right conclusions, and preferably to insight. In some of my books, I've asked teachers to avoid posting solutions because they harm future students who would find and use them. In some ways, the exercise set is the most valuable part of a textbook.

Second, too few, I fear, teachers fail to communicate that the purpose of a student exercise is not to have the answer, but to exercise the students mind. Most teachers can solve all of the exercises in their books quite nicely. There have been a few exceptions where research problems are snuck in to an exercise set (Don Knuth) but that is rare.

Third, some students want grades and prefer that over an education. I'm afraid that has always been true and will continue to be. But, they are wasting their time if they wind up incompetent when it matters. Some, of course, just fear failure but that is a different problem that does have pedagogical solutions.

If you are a student, then you want to understand the purpose of an exercise and to understand that seeing and copying a solution isn't learning. It is unlikely to bring you deep insight.

As a tutor, you can attack the problem, somewhat at least, by letting students know the above and that solutions are not the goal. Learning is. If students come to you for help, don't give them solutions. Figure out where the block is, perhaps a misconception, and give them a hint that will help them get past the block. A minimal hint.

But, yes, professors sometimes cut corners that shouldn't be cut. They have a lot of responsibilities beyond teaching. That doesn't make it right, of course, but as a tutor, you can still work around the deficiency if you give the students the right message about how to learn. That is an extremely valuable lesson for them. The serious students, at least, may well learn it.