I said this on reddit so I'll just quote myself: This professor invested way too much in trying to understand why his students were cheating and giving them a second chance. While it's good to catch the cheaters and document the cheating, creating an entirely new syllabus and assignments is way beyond the call of duty. Catch the cheaters, call them on it, give them failing grades, and let that be the lesson that they learn. When they actually want to learn the material, then help them. The vast majority of the students he quotes from are trying to play the game of passing, not actually trying to learn.
Sure-but what do you do when this percentage of the class cheats - 80% or something here?
Do you fail everyone?
The percentage here is really, really disturbing. I don’t recall seeing what kind of class it was, but cheaters are usually the exception, it’s assumed.
…or maybe the whole world has been cheating a lot more than we all think.
The author sounds like a major "Karen." Just because policies say you have to report something doesn't mean you can't pretend to have never saw anything in the first place. That would have been the correct move here seeing as this is academia and the stakes are so low.
I hate this take on cheating. Not taking cheating seriously cause stakes are low , and the person is only cheating "themselves", is a bad take. Because not only does it undermine the overall value of your degree/course, but it actually is highly discouraging for the ones who do not cheat. Since not cheating become a major disadvantage.
A good system shouldn't reward bad behavior and punish good behavior.
This attitude does a lot to explain the quality of pedagogy to me. Why waste everyone's time and money with the course if students won't engage with the material? Plagiarism (or outright fabrication) in academia is a serious problem and can bubble up into things like the "modern" anti-vaxxer movement.
If it's low stakes all the more embarrassing to the students for risking their personal and professional reputation so trivially