Student faces Facebook consequences
"Freshman hit with 147 academic charges for online study network at Ryerson University"
"Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation." We find new ways to learn and what do they do. Anyone else used Facebook for studying?
6 Responses to “Thou shalt not study on Facebook.”
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Wow… That is just absolutely ridiculous. I can’t help but wonder sometimes if academic institutions are missing the fact that the whole point of education is to learn. If a student doesn’t know how to solve a problem, how is it better for him to do poorly on the assignment than to learn how to solve the problem?
I can understand why the university would feel the need to respond to this. While it was more like a virtual study group, there is the risk of answers just sitting online so that students will copy them down, though it doesn’t appear that was the case. I think the university needs to attempt to use its best judgment in this case rather than strictly adhering to the letter of any policy. Expulsion would be a poor decision in this situation.
Yeah, I agree Cody. In college, learning is mostly autodidactic (self-learning) In order to understand how to solve something, it is often essential to know the end result and work backwards. Homework is only a suggested means to an end (understanding).
A student can just copy answers but if he doesn’t understand the material, in the end he is just shooting himself in the foot, especially when it comes time to take the test. “Cheaters”, end up with what they deserve.
The teachers shouldn’t care how the students do the homework, so long as the students understand the material and can perform well on tests without study aids.
I agree with Cody as well. It is ridiculous that students are not allowed to use one another in order to learn. As Blake said – who cares as long as we’re learning.
Obviously, you should be expected to know the material, and do your own work when taking tests.
I’d like to point out that one of the first things that I was taught in my basic business classes was that you are more likely to succeed if you take from a pool of ideas. Yes, you have the geniuses that can figure things out for themselves. However, it might be the idea or thought process of another that opens the door for you to get there.
For a society that thrives on progress, I think its interesting that we put our own well-being before anything else. These things that people are trying to learn – NOT SECRETS! It’d be one thing if students were learning original ideas, etc. But this is a math problem, that is in a text book, that hundreds of students across the country are answering! Or its a book. And when discussing the hidden “symbolism”in a novel, there may be differing opinions as to what it is. Someone might say that the tree symbolizes this, while I might argue that I think its honestly just a tree. YOU DON’T FIND OTHERS’ VIEWPOINTS UNLESS YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO! And taking away students’ right to work together is doing just that.
“I know how to do the homework problem, but i can’t explain it to you because that means that you are cheating.” Get real. I enjoy how students failing comes above helping one another out strictly because one professor views it as “wrong”.
I also think this is ridiculous. If there are study groups on facebook, then what is the difference between students emailing different stuff for their group or even using im. What are students that have internet classes suppose do for help also? I think that schools should have guidelines for this use.
@wileyjb1 you’re totally right about what we are “taught” in business classes and for most of them that advice is swept under the rug for classroom use. Seems there is a big disconnect between the way things are done in the real world and in the classroom.
In the real world if you need help learning something you find someone else to help you. Or you get a group together to solve a problem (learning).
In reality most students will not tolerate other students that are overly mooches. No one likes to be used. If a student is just taking from my hard work and I get nothing in return, I am not so likely to keep “studying” with them or more like keep teaching them.
IMHO in college all work outside the classroom students should be allowed to collaborate on. Testing tells all about the effectiveness of the student’s efforts.
Well this shows that College in general is just a means to an end. That is why I think in College it is so important to take classes like this, E-Commerce, and Organizational Change and Consulting. In taking these classes you get actual experience dealing companies in the real world and working out their problems.