I've read the story of a failing teacher, who set up his class in a way which normal sharing of experience and information among classmates would fall under the technical definition of "cheating". In order to "not cheat", students had to artificially isolate themselves, alienate themselves from their classmates. For a person of an earlier generation, who did not take online examples when also being in a group chat on their phone, that may seem like not much of a requirement (and even then I'm not sure.)
The responsibility for this debacle lies squarely on the teacher's shoulders - perhaps with some responsibility on the department/faculty for lack of oversight and guidance regarding expected dynamics for different ways of evaluating student achievements.
Rule of thumb: When most people fail, the failure is systematic.
One must also wonder about the maturity of these students. I'm wondering if, over the past couple of decades, a more childish attitude and behavior is not presented as acceptable for a longer period of time. Suddenly these, well, judging by the chat messages, children, come up against the wall of having to obey a semi-arbitrary rule, or else. It seems like they have not been directed along a path where they could take gradual steps to scale this wall. This is perhaps less of the teacher's responsibility, but he must still realize that's the kind of student cohort he is facing.
I've read the story of a failing teacher, who set up his class in a way which normal sharing of experience and information among classmates would fall under the technical definition of "cheating". In order to "not cheat", students had to artificially isolate themselves, alienate themselves from their classmates. For a person of an earlier generation, who did not take online examples when also being in a group chat on their phone, that may seem like not much of a requirement (and even then I'm not sure.)
The responsibility for this debacle lies squarely on the teacher's shoulders - perhaps with some responsibility on the department/faculty for lack of oversight and guidance regarding expected dynamics for different ways of evaluating student achievements.
Rule of thumb: When most people fail, the failure is systematic.
One must also wonder about the maturity of these students. I'm wondering if, over the past couple of decades, a more childish attitude and behavior is not presented as acceptable for a longer period of time. Suddenly these, well, judging by the chat messages, children, come up against the wall of having to obey a semi-arbitrary rule, or else. It seems like they have not been directed along a path where they could take gradual steps to scale this wall. This is perhaps less of the teacher's responsibility, but he must still realize that's the kind of student cohort he is facing.