Cheating, revisited

I read some more test responses this week and finally figured out a way of handling the "cheating" issue. I find if I wait for awhile, I am usually able to come up with a way of addressing a problem that is in line with my philosophy of education. So here is the e-mail I sent to everyone in the course:

Hello everyone,

Pretty soon you all will be reading about assessment in your Ed Psych books and in the interest of encouraging certain approaches to the tests in this course, I would like to discuss my philosophy of assessment.

I believe that assessment is a representation--it is supposed to represent an ability. That's why reading tests involve reading and math tests involve math. However, I believe that tests are a particularly poor form of representation of a person's skills. If a math test involves reading (e.g., word problems) then a student who is good in math but poor in reading cannot demonstrate his or her skills. Therefore, because I don't believe tests are a good representation of people's abilities, I don't give tests in most of my classes.

However, the Educational Testing Service disagrees with me and the state of xxxxxx requires you to take a test, the Praxis II Principles of Learning and Teaching, which basically covers the material that is in this class. Therefore, in the interest of helping you to gain the skills necessary to pass that test (I'm talking not just about knowledge but about test taking skills themselves, such as being able to write constructed responses), I have developed tests for this course.

What may not be clear, because you probably have never had a teacher like me, is that I am NOT using these tests as assessment--I am using these tests as practice--guided practice, where I am available to give you feedback, particularly with the constructed responses. This is why it is possible to take the tests more than once.

More than one person seems to be looking at the answers that are given as part of feedback and then paraphrasing the answers on the constructed response, a strategy designed, I'm sure, to get a good grade. I really don't care about how you choose to take a test in this class because I don't believe those tests tell me a lot about you as a teacher. That's why I have those discussion board things for you to respond to. But I would like to suggest that you attempt to write your own answers because I think I can help you to learn more that way.

I'm sending this out to everyone, partially in the interest of sharing with my fellow teachers (you all) an interesting if problematic response to on-line learning, partially to share a view of assessment that is not foregrounded in your book, and partially to communicate with the folks who have made the choice to paraphrase answers in the most general way I can so no one is embarassed. I welcome any responses to this.