Dealing with Plagiarism in schools

Sydney media were reporting this week of a cheating scandal at a high school affecting Year 12 students.

I had heard some "talk" that parents had "complained" about it and perhaps influenced a decision to let off students. I cannot confirm this either.

Whether or not this happened is the issue, but how it is dealt with.

I see it this way.

In an assessment task, a student must demonstrate their own understanding of what they have learnt. That is present ideas in their own words and express their own thoughts and ideas. If they are using a concept, thought or idea that is not their own, they must acknowledge that person/s.

If they fail to acknowledge another person's concept, they are claiming ownership of something that is not theirs. It is like the theft of a physical object from another person.

We have to reward those who can independently express their own thoughts and ideas while giving credit to those who have shaped their thoughts and ideas and also have gone to the effort to locate, select and present their information.

We also have to send a message that passing off another person's work is harmful and does not reflect the persons true knowledge.

There will be some people (including some parents) who may not agree with the deduction of marks especially zero marks. But consider this - did the person who plagiarised their assessment task bother to spend the time to locate, select and communicate their information? In assessing students, we may be assessing knowledge, but also we assess the effort that is put in.

The effort a student puts into their learning says alot about the progress of a student. A student may lack the knowledge of a topic, but if they can present their own work communicating their own thoughts and ideas, the long term gains for the student will be better. The teacher will know how the student is progressing and can lead them in the right direction.

Pandering to parents because it might affect final grades is not the way to approach it. It sends the message that plagiarism is allowed but also discourage the students who have undertaken the effort to present their work from doing so.

Book Week & Early Childhood Studies

Some schools offer Early Childhood Studies as part of the HSC Course in NSW and can be studied by those who wish to follow a non-ATAR pathway.

This week, I presented a Book Week workshop with students undertaking the course in Year 11. The lesson involved students reflecting on their book week experiences, either in pre-school or in primary school before providing an overview of book week itself and the importance of picture books.

I then asked the students to select a picture book and work in pairs to create an activity program for an early childhood centre for each day during Book Week.

I will admit I had to do alot of reminiscing as I provided strategies to suggest to the students e.g. art & craft, story telling sessions, visit to the local library and running a book fair and encourage parents to buy books to read to their children. I personally remember doing this in Book Week whether it was in pre-school or primary school.

I suggested for the 2019 theme Reading is my Secret Power to focus on Superheroes given the interest in super heroes that infants and pre-schoolers will have. I actually had to do some research as this years theme can be open to interpretation. I did apply the superheroes theme for our Book Week display for our students

As students will also do placements in early childhood centres as part of their studies, I told them that they can borrow picture books to use in their placement.

Walking around and helping them was fun too as they got into the spirit of reading the book to their partner and then creating their own activities. I even helped them with their storytelling skills so that they can engage the kids effectively when doing it for real.

Today in the staff room for a weekly morning tea and briefing, there was suggestions floating around of getting students to wear a costume or outfit and that the students had talked about it. Might be considered for 2020!!!

Apollo 11 Display & Newspaper front pages

Normally, I don't mention about displays but decided to try something a little different with a display.

Recently, the world marked fifty years since the Apollo 11 lunar mission which saw man set foot on the moon for the first time.

Given that the event is about space travel and space, my library assistant and I managed to find some books while I took advantage of my library of scanned newspaper articles (associated with my ongoing work at Fab Sydney Flashbacks) to create a daily news stand featuring newspaper front pages from each day of the lunar mission. They encompass daily newspapers here in Sydney.

Below are some photos of the display as taken on a "point and shoot" camera.

I also made some booklets featuring the front pages that are on display. You may want to do one for your city or town.

ClickView Challenges

I have been a fan of ClickView for years now in providing excellent video libraries for schools and being able to easily source TV recordings from TV Networks and Foxtel. In addition is the ability to modify and create content for your school.

In recent times, I have been concerned with the amount of technical support that is being provided. The main concern for those that I work with any myself has been the streaming speed of video's on ClickView with frequent buffering, even after updating software.

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem and in previous schools have not encountered this problem.

In June, I was locked out of ClickView one morning simply because too many people had logged on across all schools, but I raised the matter with other schools and it felt like I was the odd one out. Everything seemed fine elsewhere.

Sometimes it seems the problem is resolved, but then a week or two later the cycle starts again.

I have responded at a school level by asking colleagues to keep a log of problems and emailing it to me This can create a paper trail to support the problems that I have.

Being a Commerce trained teacher, I do have awareness of consumer rights and at the end of the day, I will always fight for to ensure what is paid for and is delivered.

Has your school had this problem lately too?