How to Stop Students from Cheating Online

It has always been a challenge for teachers to know when their students are cheating. Unfortunately, modern technologies make cheating even easier for students to do and, in some cases, harder for teachers to detect.

Are you wondering what teachers can do to stop students from cheating online? Continue reading for a brief overview of current methods and the best ways to counter them.

Why do students cheat?

There is no singular reason that explains why all students cheat, and there is no accurate profile of the type of student who will cheat. Almost all students have cheated in some way at some point in time.

Some students may cheat because they are lazy and don’t want to do the work, while others don’t see any value in doing the work themselves. Some situations cause extreme pressure to push an otherwise honest student to cheat. For example, this may happen when someone desperately needs to pass a grade level or specific course.

An excellent student may feel pressure to cheat “just this one time” to protect all of the hard work they did all of the other times. Many times, students will even feel justified in their actions.

What are strategies that help reduce cheating in online remote learning classrooms?

Online remote learning classrooms present a whole new opportunity for learning, but they also offer a new and unique opportunity for cheating. The more used to online learning that students become, the better they become at manipulating the system, including cheating.

The reality is that online learning is what you make of it, and that applies to both the teacher and the student. Like in face-to-face classrooms, the effort a student puts into learning the subject material is directly proportional to what they will get out of the class.

For the teacher, the classroom is what you make it. If you have relaxed rules and treat online learning as unimportant, your students will too. You must create a classroom with the same code of ethics as your in-person classroom.

Have an official policy about cheating that defines it and explains the consequences

It is essential to be clear and upfront about your policies. Your students should understand the definition of cheating. Make sure that you enforce this policy consistently and fairly. This helps your students predict the outcome of their behavior and understand that there will be consequences if they cheat, no matter the situation.

It is also important to make sure that your students understand the difference between cheating and collaboration. They should also know how to cite the work of others properly.

Discuss ethics and integrity in class

Create a class culture of growth rather than achievement by having an open and honest dialog with your students about ethics and integrity in the classroom and why it matters. Make sure your students understand why learning the material matters.

Lower the stakes by making one large test into smaller quizzes

Sometimes, the pressure of a significant grade brings a student to cheat. One of the best solutions for this problem, primarily if you work in a highly competitive academic environment, is to lower the stakes of the test by either reducing the weight of its value or breaking it into a few smaller tests or quizzes.

Develop questions that emphasize higher-order thinking over memorization

Students know when they are being asked to memorize and repeat back information. This will cause many students to disengage. To keep this from happening, make sure that your students see the bigger picture and dig for deeper answers, not just memorized responses.

Have students turn on the computer camera while testing

Identity theft is a big thing these days. However, you may not have considered that students would intentionally have someone else use their identity to take a test for them. It’s always good to remember that cheating comes in many forms, especially as students learn to game the online learning system.

Create interactive worksheets with TeacherMade

Creating interactive worksheets as part of your lesson plan is different from engaging your students. It requires them to think deeper and engage with you. Digital worksheets are a great way to stop cheating because the more engagement you have with students, the harder it is for them to get away with cheating.

With TeacherMade, you can turn any PDF or worksheet into a digital assignment. You simply upload your document into TeacherMade. From there, you can add a variety of question types. You can also set up auto-scoring. Auto-scoring can help with maintaining the integrity of your classroom by allowing you to view student results instantly. You can quickly notice any patterns in scoring that require teacher intervention.

Take a look at the teacher review screen below.

Preview & Edit Answer Key

You can click on the Preview or Edit Answer Key buttons to quickly preview and make edits to your assignment!

Review of the Assignment Details Screen

Here’s a quick review of all that the Assignment Details Screen has to offer!

TeacherMade always gives you more options! Click on either of the “…”s to do even more with your assignment!