(OK EVERYBODY - ANOTHER MISSING PIECE HAS CAUGHT UP TO ME. HERE'S AN OLDIE, TO BE FOLLOWED BY SOME NEW STUFF. MOM)
When I give a quiz, here's the process. I tell all the students to leave any extraneous material in the front of the class and use only two pens and bring a new piece of paper. I then dismiss them for a couple of minutes, put up the questions and check to make sure everything has been accounted for by their desks.
I then allow them to enter, collecting each piece of paper as they enter. I have them maintain silence during this time (or try to at least) and I redistribute the papers. This is because they sometimes write answers on the papers they're going to use, either plainly or faintly so that only a trained eye can see it. And since I can't supply paper for everyone, it has to happen this way. Then, I uncover and explain the questions.
And when I see talking or looking at another's paper, I mark 5 points off for the participants. As tests here are only scored out of 20, 5 points is huge. If I see it again, I throw them out. Through three tests, I've thrown out about 12-15 kids.
If they are using a cheat sheet, a notebook, or really anything else, I will throw them out immediately. This happens fairly often as well.
And because there's almost always another student at the same desk, I don't notice most of the cheating while it's happening. But I DO notice it after I collect the tests.
When I collect, I fold one test inside another for every desk so I can keep track of who was sitting where, because they are most likely to cheat with their neighbor. After I have everything graded, I check the similarities. Depending on the turma, about 50% (in many cases AT LEAST 50%) of the students have some evidence of having cheated - I threw them out, gave them minus 5, or answers are identically incorrect. But since I can't give a 0 to all of them, I mark down when they have a decent grade, and mark down depending on how pervasive the cheating was.
Next time, I'm going to do a group test.
Peace
John
