r’!W V

the new skills issue—

Nurturing

LiCoIlaborati

econdary schools have prioritized the impor

tance of classroom collaboration as a 21st-

century skill. Group activities allow students

to learn from each other by pooling a range

of skills to create work that is — at its best —

stronger than any single student could create

alone.1 These activities also encourage stu

dents to develop important inter- and intra

personal skills that will help as they transition

to both college and the workplace.2With so

much to gain for students, the classroom, and

the community, it is not surprising to see this

form of pedagogy used extensively in schools

around the country.

BY ALEXIS BROOKE REDDING, CARRIE JAMES, AND HOWARD GARDNER

ILLUSTRATION BY LARA HARWOOD

UI.

on

58 INDEPENDENT ScHooL

Fr

F

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F

the new skUls issue

While the benefits of student col

laboration are clear, however, it is a

mistake to assume that this approach

is always helpful in achieving positive

educational outcomes. As we have seen

in schools from New York’s Stuyve

sant High School to Harvard College,compromised collaboration — or cheating —

can just as easily occur.In these, and manyother instances, studentaction undermines theeducational goals of theschool community. In a2012 study, the Josephson Institute of Ethicsfound that 51 percentof high school studentsadmit to cheating on atest while 74 percentcopied their friends’homework. Given thisreality, when we thinkabout collaboration inthe classroom, we cannot simply think abouthow to get students to work together

productively. We must equally focuson the goal of guiding students to worktogether ethically. To do so, we need tounderstand three aspects of student

behavior that undergird the current

cheating epidemic: (i) pressures that

tempt students toward cheating;

(2) community-wide cheating that

becomes part of the ethos of a school

community; and (3) unreflective digital

collaboration.Here we offer some suggestions for

how schools can address this pervasive

problem.

COMPETING PRESSURESThe growing pressure to achieve at

any cost, particularly for students who

are focused on selective college admis

sions, can trump any inclination to

follow the rules and complete work

ethically.4 Despite frequent assump

tions to the contrary, high-achievingstudents actually appear to cheat at the

highest rates. Some estimates put the

self-reported rate of cheating among

students with an A average at 8o percent. In studies conducted by Who’s

Who ofAmerican High School Students,5

students explained that their actionswere “no big deal” and frequently justified their decision to cheat by the overwhelming pressure to achieve.

In the Josephson Institute ofEthics study in which 51 percent of

high school studentsadmitted to cheating, 55percent also admittedto lying. Paradoxically,of this group of morethan 23,000 teens fromaround the country, 93percent reported beingsatisfied with their ownethical character. Findings like these suggestthat students who cheatoften do so with littleconcern over these ethical lapses. Instead, theyare likely to preservetheir positive sense ofself by justif,ring theiractions — claiming thecourse was not interest

ing, the teacher was beingunfair, or the pressure toachieve was simply toogreat.6 These kinds of neutralizing attitudes7 allowstudents to preserve theirbelief that they are ethicalactors or “good kids” byreducing cognitive dissonance. These

types of rationalizations are powerfulmethods of protecting one’s sense of

self in the face of unethical behavior.

A CHEATING ETHOSIn June 2012, students at the highly

selective Stuyvesant High School werecaught cheating in a scandal that madeheadlines; more than 70 students “col

laborated” on the state-wide Regents

Exam using cell phone cameras

smuggled into test rooms. Students

agreed to share answers in subjects

in which they excelled in exchange foranswers in disciplines in which they

were weaker.8The goal of the exchange

was to ensure that all of the students

performed at a high level across thesesubject-specific tests, regardless of

their actual abilities.

In many respects, we should nothave been surprised by events atStuyvesant High School. In his 2004

book, The Cheating Culture: Why

More Americans Are Doing Wrong

to Get Ahead, David Callahan hadalready taken a closer look at Stuyvesant and uncovered a culture in whichunethical collaboration was the norm.In particular, Callahan found thatstudents regularly shared answerswith each other and even coordinatedschedules so that stronger studentswould take earlier periods of a classand pass off test answers to the weakerstudents taking the same tests later inthe day. This practice had become soingrained in the school culture that itwas jokingly referred to as “the law ofrising test scores.”

This pattern of unethical collabora

tion — a form ofreciprocal altruism —

actually has negative performance consequences for some of the participants.Indeed, the kinds of arrangements

students made often meant that thoseoffering answers did worse than the

weaker students receiving them. Yetthe pressure to excel in every classmeant that this kind of tradeoff wasperceived as being “worth it” to therange of students because it ensuredthey would get help in other areas ofthe curriculum when they needed it.

The Stuyvesant case sheds light ona phenomenon previously unacknowl

edged in the cheating literature —

students willing to sacrifice aspectsof their own performance to bolster

that of their peers. This goes against

many popular assumptions about

students being hyper-competitive ina high-achievement environment.This collaborative effort at cheatingaside, however, what is clear is that anoveremphasis on grades and achieve

ment “seems to breed dishonesty.”bo

This attitude is best summed up by

A

A’A. LJ:JL

LEAR IS THAT A[

SIS ON GRACEMENT “SEEt

ED D IS HON E STY.”

60 INDEPENDENT SCHOOL

a student in an 2010 editorial in The

Stuyvesant Spectator, the student news

paper: “We as a student body are con

sidered to be some of the ‘best and the

brightest’ in New York City, if not the

nation, and yet, often our high grades

reflect not our hard work and academic

aptitude, but rather our willingness to

cheat, lie, and game the system.”

DIGITAL COLLABORATIONDigital and web-based technologiesprovide new opportunities for collaboration, both in and out of school. Mostrelevant to our discussion here are digital tools for collective knowledge construction and sharing. Coauthorship issupported by wikis and collaborativeplafforms such as Google docs. Openencyclopedias such as Wikipedia allowfor collaborative knowledge building.Text messaging, online chat, and discussion forums are further venues forsharing information and exchangingideas. While these contexts and toolscan be (and often are) used in ethicalways, there is abundant evidence thatsome students leverage them for illicitpurposes.

Cell phone cameras were instrumental in the collaborative cheatingscheme that unfolded at Stuyvesant

High School. A 2009 Common Sense

Media survey exploring “high-tech

cheating” among teens found that 25

percent admit to using text messaging

to share answers during tests and 17

percent report taking pictures of testquestions to sharewith friends whowill take the sametest later.” Otherforms of digitalplagiarism —

such as using cellphones to look atstored notes or online information

sources during a test — were alsoreported. More recent studies showthat “copy-and-paste plagiarism” isrelatively common.’2

Young people’s attitudes aboutdigital content are a crucial dimensionof this problem. Indeed, data show thatnearly 40 percent of college studentssurveyed consider digital plagiarism“either not cheating at all or just trivialcheating.”3 Such casual attitudes arguably contribute to the use of digitalmedia for unethical collaboration.

Youths’ attitudes — and ethicalblind spots — about the ethical dimensions of digital property and collaboration are informed by a variety of factors. Peer norms loom large here. Butadults play an important role, too. Ifparents, teachers, and schools are notengaging youth in discussions aboutthe ethical dimensions and dilemmasthat surface around digital content andcollaboration, then perhaps it’s unsurprising that youth falter. Indeed, datashows that school-based conversationsabout citation of sources and cheatingtend to emphasize negative consequences for lapses over discussion ofethical principles underlying attribution.’ And, of course, the pressures tosucceed only compound the problem.

COM BATTING THECHEATING EPIDEMICTo counter both dishonest actionsand tremendous achievement pressures that can make cheating appeara viable option, it is imperative thatwe think critically about what “ethical

collaboration” looks like. Beyond this,

we need to target the apparent gap

that exists between knowing what is the

right thing to do and actually doing it.

By helping students develop the skill

of taking ethical action, we can equip

them with the strategies they need

so that they can behave appropriatelyin even the most high-pressuredsituations.

To teach the skill of collaborating

for the 21St century, we need to accountfor the pressures facing students andacknowledge the tools that help themdo dishonest work. In a 2013 article,

one of us (Howard) outlined three

steps for addressing threats to ethicalbehavior in a community: (i) verticalsupport; (2) horizontal support; and (3)wake-up calls.’ The three equally apply

to the question of addressing unethicalcollaboration in school.

Vertical Support

The role of a mentor or moral exemplar is a powerful deterrent to cheating in schools. It is important to haveadults who not only explicitly statewhy cheating is wrong but who alsolive those messages by prioritizinggenuine learning over the mark ona report card. Leaders in any educational community need to take astrong, clear stand about what is and

is not acceptable and why. In high

school, this means having explicit

guidelines about ethical behavior and

enforcing rules when a violation has

occurred. Too often, rules about cheat

ing are clear but actual enforcement isnot. Practices may differ from teacherto teacher or punishments may beunpredictable and even unjustly doled

out. Any signs of deviation fromschool policy undermine it subtly but

conclusively.

DATA SHOW THAT NEARLY 40

PERCENT OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

SURVEYED CONSIDER DIGITAL

PLAGIARISM “EITHER NOT CHEATING

AT ALL OR JUST TRIVIAL CHEATING.”

WINTER 2016 61

the new skills issue

Further, to create vertical supportsthat encourage ethical student behavior, discussions about why cheating

is wrong need to be much more thantalking points that are highlighted inone assembly a year or posted on aclassroom wall. These need to be a living, breathing part of the curriculumwhere mentors offer frequent opportunities to discuss, reflect on, and takeethical actions. Students need to seewhat the long-term consequences arefor a culture that condones cheatingand the consequences for the moralfabric of their community. They shouldalso be asked about the practical implications of living in society that doesnot actively combat cheating — forexample, would they want to be operated on by a surgeon who had cheatedin medical school or drive over a bridgedesigned by engineers who had falsified their credentials?

Horizontal Support

The role of the peergroup is key in thelife of any adolescent. When it comesto cheating in highschool, our challenge isto encourage studentsto band together towork toward an ethicalcommunity — insteadof the lamentable pattern seen at schoolssuch as Stuyvesant,where students worktogether for the opposite purposes. Makingall students fully andequally accountable tothe rules is key. It isalso important to create alignmentbetween teachers’ expectations andstudents’ understanding of boundaries

in order to encourage good collabora

tion. In cases of deliberate cheating,students should ultimately face consequences, and these penalties should betransparent and consistently enforced.Knowing that faculty will take actionwhen unethical behavior occurs isequally important in creating a scenario in which the long-term costs for

cheating far outweigh the potentialshort-term gains. It may also empowerbystanders who witness cheatingamong their peers by giving them boththe confidence and language they needto speak up.

For schools with an honor code,students should have a stake in theprocess by holding seats on the honorcouncil, helping revise the rules annually, and sharing new and evolving concerns with faculty.u Even in schoolswithout an honor council, studentvoices should be considered whencreating and revising school conductrules. The students, after all, are the

best informed about

0the kinds of cheatingthat are occurring inthe school environment and also playa key role in genuinely transforming theculture.

The challengewith horizontal support is also its biggeststrength — studentsdon’t want to hurt theirown standing by behaving ethically when theysee those around thembehaving in a compromised way that simultaneously gives them

an edge. If we create a culture in whichstudents do not benefit from colluding,but in which we recognize genuineacademic effort, we can de-incentivize

this kind of collaborative cheating.Donald McCabe and colleagues, in their2012 book Cheating in College, reportthat high school students are not actually comfortable with their cheatingbehaviors — they see these transgressions as a necessary course of actionto survive — and students believe they

.- - zwill stop cheating as soon as they get toco1lege.’ We need to move that timelinefàrward and to give students the toolsto put an end to cheating promptly andpermanently.

Wake-up Calls

Both horizontal and vertical supportscan foster opportunities to have candid conversations about group normsand even debate scenarios in whichthe “right” answer is not always clear.This helps students not only to developtheir own ethical muscles but to doso in the context of the communityin which they live and learn. Whenspeaking of wake-up calls, we refer toevents that capture the artention of thecommunity: they can be cases of cheating, or, more positively, cases in whichstudents behave with exemplary integrity. Ideally, these wake-up calls shouldinvolve all stakeholders — students,teachers, administrators, and parents;including parents is key because creating a community in which normsof student behavior differ from whatstudents learn at home will inevitablyundermine the gains made in school.We recall a situation in which a parent berated an adolescent publicly forcheating. The adolescent responded,“Well, when I brought home a paperwith a B+, you said, ‘I don’t want tosee anything but A’s!” In cases likethis, students may feel torn betweenthe achievement thresholds set in theirhomes and the ethical boundariesestablished at school.8

The best way to approach thesewake-up calls is to convene a “cornmons” — a space where ethical issuescan be discussed and debated candidlyand where tacit assumptions can bechallenged. With all four stakeholdergroups participating in a commons,a school community can develop a

WE ARE CHALLENGING DEEPLY ROOTED PROBLEMSTHAT EXiST iN SOCIETY AT LARGE AS WELL AS INOUR SCHOOLS AND WE ARE CONTENDING WITHATTITUDES THAT, LAMENTABLY, HAVE BECOMEINGRAINED OVER DECADES

62 INDEPENDENT SCHOOL

the new skills issue

shared view about ethical collaboration in which students, educators,and parents not only speak the samelanguage but are on the same page. Anideal way to facilitate the kinds of richdiscussions that help counter real challenges to embedded notions of successand shared definitions of ethical workis to have these diverse groups workthrough vignettes as mixed teams.

The Good Project’9 an ensembleof research projects designed to understand and promote ethics, excellence,and engagement — offers a GoodWork Toolkit where these kinds ofactivities can be found.20 Since 2007,

educators around the globe haveused this collection of activities andvignettes, which offer nuanced ethicalchallenges that are prime resourcesfor facilitating rich discussion. Allowing all members of the communityto grapple with problems that occurin the gray areas — where what isright and wrong is seldom black andwhite — will foster the kind of dialogue that genuinely promotes thedevelopment of ethical reasoningskills and encourage the scaffoldingnecessary to grapple with real-worlddilemmas when they do arise. Withits combination of group activities andopportunities for personal reflectionon individual values, schools can starta dialogue to help to address the issueswith the competing pressures, cheating ethos, and digital collaborationsdescribed above.

As noted, these wake-up calls ariseorganically when an ethical issuearises in the community. But it isprudent to be preemptive as well. Thetoolkit approach establishes patternsof communication and norms for navigating these challenges in advance.Members of the community have theopportunity to practice these skillsthroughout the year so that they havea shared language to use when issuesdo arise.

Taking action to promote an ethical community is not easy and thereis no quick fix. Similarly, creating acommons is not a panacea. We arechallenging deeply rooted problemsthat exist in society at large as well as

in our schools and we are contendingwith attitudes that, lamentably, havebecome ingrained over decades. However, taking these actions is an important first step toward resisting the disturbing trends we’ve seen in schools.Using the Good Work Toolkit withinyour school community is one promising way to begin the candid conversations, personal reflections, and groupnorm setting that is needed to leveragechange. Ultimately, these actions —

among others — can help create thekind of classrooms and schools whereethical collaboration takes place and

students can genuinely thrive. In time,if there are enough students who canwalk the ethical talk, the entire societywill ultimately benefit.

Alexis Brooke Redding is an advanced doctoral studentat the Harvard Graduate School of Education. CanieJames is a research director and a pu ncipal investigator at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School ofEducation. Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor ofcognition and Education atthe Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Notesi. Brigid BarTon and Linda Darling.

Hammond, “Powerful Learning: StudiesShow Deep Understanding Derives fromCollaborative Methods,” Edutopia, October8, 2008, Accessed August 3, 2055. www.edutopia.org/inquiry-project-1earning-research.

2. National Education Association, 2008.

3. Josephson Institute of Ethics. ReportCard on the Ethics of American Youth.”Character Counts (2012). Accessed August

3. 2015. http://charactercounts.org/pdfreportcard/2012/Report Card-2012-DataTahiesHonestylntegrityCheating.pdf

.Alexis Brooke Redding, “Extreme Pressure:The Negative Consequences of AchievementCulture for Students During the Elite

Admissions Process.” journal of CollegeAdmission 221 (2053): 32—37.

.Educational Communicadons, Inc. “Annual

Sun’ey of High Achievers.” Who’s WhoAmong American High School Students (1995,2000).

6. Eric Anderman and Tasnera Murdock,Psychology ofAcademic Cheating. San Diego,CA: Elsevier, 2007.

7. Greshans Sykes and David Matza,“Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory ofDelinquency,” American Sociological Review

22(6) (1957): 664—670.8. Robert Kolker, “Cheating Upwards:

Stuyvesant Kids Do It. Harvard Kids Do It.

Smart Kids May Especially Do It. But Why?”

New York Magazine (2012). Accessed August

3, 2055. hsttp://nymag.cons/lsews/jeotures/

cheating.2o12-9/. Vivian Yee, “StuyvesantStudents Describe the How and the Whyof Cheating,” Neiv York Times (2012).

Accessed August 3, 2015. WwLV.llytinles.

com/2o12/o9/26/education/stuyvesant-high-school-students.descnbeo’ationale-for-clseating.htmr=o.

9. David Callahan, The Cheating Culture: Why

More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get

Ahead. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2004, p. 205.

so. Stephen Davis, Patrick Drinnan, and TriciaBertram-Gallant, Cheating ill School: What

We Know and What We Can Do. MaIden,MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. p. 72.

II. Common Sense Media. “Hi-Tech Cheating:Cell Phones and Cheating in Schools.”MSNBC Media (2009). Accessed August 3,2015. http://nlsnbcllzedia.;lLso.coln/i/MSNB/Sections/NE WS/PDFS/201o_PDFS/1002o2._CellPhoneSchoolCheating.pdf

12. Donald McCabe, Kenneth Butterfield, andLinda Treviflo, Cheating us College: WhyStudents Do It and V/hat Educators Call Doabout It, Baltimore, MD: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 2012; Josephson Institute,2012.

53. McCabe et al., 2012, p. 69.

54. Carrie James, Disconnected: Youth, NewMedia, and tile Ethics Gap (The John D. andCatherine T MacArtliur Folllldatioll Series

on Digital Media and Learning). Cambridge,MA: MIT University Press, 2054.

15. Howard Gardner, “Reestablishing theCommons for the Common Good,” Drrdalus142(2) (2053): 599—208.

i6. Donald McCabe and Linda Trevifio,“Academic Dishonesty: Honor Codes andOther Contextual Influences,” Journal ofHigher Education 64(5) (1993): 522—538.

57. McCabe et al., 2012.

i8. James Michaels and Terance Miethe,“Applying Theories of Deviance to AcademicCheating,” Social Science Quarterly 70(4)

(s989): 870—885.19. Our research has been generously

supported by the Argosy Foundation and theEndeavor Foundation,

20. See www.thegoodpi’oject.org/toolkits.curricula/the.goodivork.toolkit/.

64 INDEPENDENT SCHOOL