Academic Dishonesty

Little Kat has been doing well in college this semester. There is no other option. Momoko and I are watching him like hawks. I am effectively auditing his two computer classes, quizzing him each week and forcing him to better learn the material. Going into the last week he had all As. Then he got a zero on a Python programming assignment. Not good.

The instructor told Little Kat to call him. Apparently the instructor accused Little Kat of cheating. He had two options: take a 0 for the assignment, or fight the accusation. Little Kat chose to take the 0. Initially Little Kat said he got a 0 because he used Google to find some materials outside of class. That did not make any sense. I actually know the instructor. He is not some crazy dude who would say that.

Upon further investigation, I found that Little Kat could not figure out how to complete his programming assignment. So he Googled around. He found some code that he did not understand. That code solved the assignment. So he submitted it. This was a fail. Even if Little Kat did not copy the code directly, there is no way an outside investigator could tell the difference between a copier and a guy like Little Kat who had no idea what he was doing.

Hopefully we got some lessons learned from this episode. Dig in and get help from instructors, parents, tutors if you cannot figure out your homework. Use Google, but make sure you understand what you read so you can produce your own material that you can defend. And in the worst case, just take the lower grade by not completing an assignment you cannot figure out. Let's hope the lesson sinks in.