MAILING LISTS

Hi

We have had various cheats with ifats

We do large classes.....typically 25-35 teams of six in their lecture theatres

Cheat 1: really bright laser pointers can actually see through opaque ifat coating...followed red dot on ceiling back to offending group...that happen 7 years ago...no repeats

Cheat 2: students were using a really fine pin to slighty score the opaque coating across all distractors to find star...one team about 5 years ago....no repeats

Cheat 3: in tiered lecture theatres ifat forms are big enough that nearby team can pretty easily see another teams form...we now ask teams to turn over forms when not scratching and we spend more time circulating around watching

NOT a Cheat 4:  we had a team that part way down an ifat form started to only scratch off coating only over star....we assumed it was cheating (since scratch looked so precise and calculated)....but actually turned out to be the intersection of a particular pattern getting handed to a left hand scratcher....it took awhile to figure this one out...and it wasn't until the instructor tried scrtching with his left hand we figured this out

My big advice....don't stand at the front for the team test...keep moving around and watching....it also probably send a message to students is so important thst the instructor is paying attention :-)

Jim Sibley

Sorry for brief message -sent from my iPad

On 2011-11-19, at 7:35 AM, "Erica Hunter" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I have an interesting situation and could use some advice from other IF-AT
> users. I've been using TBL in large courses (18-20) teams for 4 years and
> this is the first time I've noticed this.
> 
> I was looking over team grades and one team had the following IF-AT scores:
> 7,9,10,10,10 (RAT is out of 10 points). 10's before appeals are not super
> common in my courses (most earn 8-9.5 before appeals) but I noticed is that
> this team has very low iRAT scores - mostly in the 3-5 range. I looked at
> the last two RATs and compared the iRAT answers from individuals to the team
> choice and on both there were 2 questions where no individual picked the
> answer the team went with. In many cases, several would (for example) pick
> "C" but they would scratch "E" (correct). This seemed strange to me. I
> pulled some other team's sheets and did not find this - that other teams
> with high gRAT scores had 1 or 2 higher scores on the team and they had the
> right answer on their iRAT sheets.
> 
> Does this seem fishy to anyone else? Or do you find that sometimes the team
> "comes together" and develops a new path for the gRAT together?
> 
> Individuals on the team are low performing on exams/other assessments and
> the midterm peer helper scores suggest a team with slacking issues (no one
> earned above 90 on the PHS).
> 
> I'm also thinking of ways to combat issues like this next semester. I'm
> thinking of have them submit a scratch-order grid thing (one to me - one to
> keep for reference) before getting the IF-AT. Or have more proctors. Other
> ideas?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
> Erica