Yeah I've seen something similar. I've also started including a syllabus statement and mentioning in class that if a student starts getting the urge to cheat on an assignment, that if they reach out to me about that I'll do whatever I can in terms of extra tutoring/extension to make sure they can earn they grade they hope to achieve legitimately instead of cheating. It's only been invoked a few times, but I was always happy with how those situations resolved.
This is brilliant, I really love this approach. I think the coldness of higher education (at least, relative to school) is a huge part of why students lose faith in the system and give up on trying to pass honestly. The class sizes mean there's inherently much more distance between teachers and students, and students are constantly being told that they're adults now and must handle their own problems, so I don't think anybody has a right to be shocked when they fall into difficulty and take matters into their own hands.
Last semester, with online teaching, my tutors and I tried this weird new thing (at least, compared to my faculty's typical teaching culture) called "actually giving a shit". Like, if students didn't submit something or had a steep decline in their marks, we'd just ask them if they're ok. And wouldn't you know, it turns out that students dealing with depression/ family problems/financial stress/ all the other things they might have to cope with outside of their work are way more likely to open up and seek help if you come to them first in a compassionate way.
Yeah I've seen something similar. I've also started including a syllabus statement and mentioning in class that if a student starts getting the urge to cheat on an assignment, that if they reach out to me about that I'll do whatever I can in terms of extra tutoring/extension to make sure they can earn they grade they hope to achieve legitimately instead of cheating. It's only been invoked a few times, but I was always happy with how those situations resolved.
This is brilliant, I really love this approach. I think the coldness of higher education (at least, relative to school) is a huge part of why students lose faith in the system and give up on trying to pass honestly. The class sizes mean there's inherently much more distance between teachers and students, and students are constantly being told that they're adults now and must handle their own problems, so I don't think anybody has a right to be shocked when they fall into difficulty and take matters into their own hands.
Last semester, with online teaching, my tutors and I tried this weird new thing (at least, compared to my faculty's typical teaching culture) called "actually giving a shit". Like, if students didn't submit something or had a steep decline in their marks, we'd just ask them if they're ok. And wouldn't you know, it turns out that students dealing with depression/ family problems/financial stress/ all the other things they might have to cope with outside of their work are way more likely to open up and seek help if you come to them first in a compassionate way.