Cheating.

If you're a teacher, I don't need to tell you how much cheating is taking place right now.  The students are sharing answers with each other and using math apps to do all the work for them.  I know, I know....I should just change my questions to be more open ended.  But I don't have the time for rewriting everything and the thought of that grading work is making me dizzy.  Plus, these questions are important too.  I can't just eliminate them from the curriculum.  So, what's a math teacher to do?

First, I want to say that I don't know the answer to the math app problem.  But I have tried a few things.  I noticed that if I give the students a problem like this, the math app assumes that it is a system of equations and will solve for the variables.  This is just too easy for the students to cheat.


However, when I rewrite the problem in sentence form, like below, the math app wasn't sure what to do or even how to read it.  I'm in the process of changing my exams to look more like this.  Can the students rewrite the problem in order to have the math app solve it?  Of course.  But I'm not going to make it easy for them.  


Second, if there were a way that each student could get a test with different questions, they wouldn't be able to cheat from each other.  They can't text their friends the answer anymore.  Yes, this is time consuming too, but Desmos computation layer at least makes it doable.  Today I created an exam and a review for the students with systems of equations.

The review allows them to get right/wrong feedback to both the teacher and student, an "infinite" button so they can practice forever, and a predicted score on the coming exam.  Each problem has random numbers to help discourage cheating.  I tried to scan the problems into the math app and it was unable to read them.  

LINK TO THE REVIEW

The exam does not have the button to generate a new problem and no longer gives right/wrong feedback to the students.  I do hide the last screen (the score) from the students, but did include the screen that lets them know if they are currently passing.  The students really seem to benefit from that screen.  

LINK TO THE EXAM


Please help yourself to the above desmos activities.  Feel free to check out my FREE Algebra 1 Curriculum by clicking on the link on the righthand side of the screen.  Or just CLICK HERE.  There you will find note guides, quizzes, tests, desmos activities, test generators, and typos.  That page is a work-in-progress and will continually be updated.

Want to learn more about desmos computation layer?  I have a few videos to get you started.  Check those out HERE.


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