I gave my students a take home exam over spring break. (This is normal where I teach) One of the questions was particulary difficult. It came down to a factor of three in the solution. That factor inexplicably appeared with no justification on many of their exams. I intend to have the students I suspect of cheating come to my office to solve the problem on the board. What would you do?
Edit: I gave them the Tuesday before spring break until the Thursday after. I didn’t want it to be right before or right after.
When I say normal I mean giving take home exams.
Wait. How do you think they got this “factor of three” and what rule did they break in doing so?
A take-home exam implies open book, open internet, open ask-another-student, etc. It’s not really for gauging how well the students have the concepts down. It’s for giving the students incentive to go review the material again to hopefully make it stick better. Wherever they got the answers is fair game for a take-home exam.
If they didn’t show their work and you’ve made expectations for showing their work clear, then mark off points for not showing their work. But this isn’t a “cheating” thing.
If you sent this test home with them with the instructions that it’s not open book and you think they used the book or internet or whatever, then… well, that was kinda… a bad idea. Don’t do that again. And if you really think it’s necessary (but only if you really think it’s necessary), you could create a new test and give it in person in place of the take-home exam or just remove that test from consideration of the grade for the whole class. It might make you unpopular to pull a stunt like that (and, honestly, if it all went down the way it sounds like… you kinda deserve it if you punish them for your misstep) but definitely don’t punish the class for your mistake any more than that.
This is the big question: was it made clear what resources were allowed
I mean, even if the teacher specifically said “this isn’t an open book test and only use the knowledge in your head” when handing it out, this teacher is still entirely out of touch with reality and needs to a) never do that again and b) not punish the students. If it’s in person and the teacher says it’s not open book (or even if the teacher doesn’t say it’s open book) and someone is getting answers from the internet on their smartphone or from the book or their notes or whatever, that is 100% a cheating situation and should be handled as such. But honestly I’m not sure how someone can hold “take home test” and “the students cheated” in the same brain at the same time.