Student cheating

Sitting Alone
Originally uploaded by naraekim0801

This past week I had my first experience with students cheating in my class. Four of my more "energetic" students thought it would be a good idea to hand in the same drawing assignment. How do I know it was the same assignment? Well the geometry that the students had to create had the exact same blatant errors on all the drawings and since they handed them in all at the exact same time it was pretty easy to recognize the pattern. It kind of shocked me. I always kind of expected at some point in my career that I would come across students trying to get away without doing the work, but it was still disappointing.
I chose to call all the students to my desk and explain the situation. They didn't really deny it or fight back. I gave them all zero on the assignment. They didn't seem to concerned with the consequences of their actions. I didn't know if further action should be taken, such as a phone call home, but I figured if my son or daughter did something like this at school I would want to know. I made the phone calls home and each parent was thankful for the call and one parent even asked if I could send the assignment home with the student so she could make her son still do the assignment even though he would not receive any marks for it.
As a result of this incident the students involved seem to take the class and myself more seriously. Also, this has provided me the opportunity to make contact with the home and start to develop a relationship with my students home life. It was a real positive experience speaking with the parents and I felt as though I had an ally on my side as I tried to show these students the right and wrong of their actions.
This experience has reinforced to me just how important parental/guardian involvement is to the success of a student.