Jonathan Fast

The Downside of Cyberspace: Cheating Made Easy

This article explores the actual and potential misuses of the World Wide Web in regard to access to “paper mills” and other information sources that make plagiarism relatively easy. The authors describe their experience accessing such paper mill products and present results of a quasi-experiment in which participants graded three papers: one an actual student submission and two purchased off the Internet. Findings suggest reason for concern about student misuse of the World Wide Web. The authors argue that different strategies for the design of class assignments must be considered by all educational programs to diminish enhanced opportunities for “cybercheating.”

Teaching to teach: An ethnographic exploration of a course in social work education

A large proportion of social work doctoral students are interested in pursuing a career in academe. Despite this career aspiration, few have any notion of what is involved in teaching. This article presents a dialogue about the experiences of both a teacher and preparing teacher/student during a doctoral course in social work education. Using an ethnographic approach, the article is written as a set of observations about a shared experience. Its aim is to highlight the process of learning to teach, the struggles of students to learn a new role, the perceptions of the teacher and student about how well the role is learned, and the learning opportunities this type of course affords to would-be educators and even an experienced educator. Codification of these experiences in preparing future educators for their role provides a basis for curriculum protocols that may be used by other social work education programs.

The Disposable Blog: Using the Weblog to Facilitate Classroom Learning and Communications

This article describes two case studies: one is from a graduate course in social work practice evaluation taught by the second author; the other is from an undergraduate political science course in media and politics taught by the first author. These cases describe the way blogs, created by students and the professors, facilitate communications within the class, reduce paperwork for the professors, and let students practice their “public voices.” While the cases are specific to two courses — Masters-level social work and undergraduate political science – the concepts are easily transferred to others. The article begins with a history and literature review of blogs used pedagogically; next, the reader is walked through the creation of a blog using currently popular online tools; the next two sections are devoted to the two cases; and the final section attempts to draw some generalizations about using blogs in the classroom.

Melts in Your Mind, Not in Your Hand

Abstract Research and statistics are a vital part of the social work curriculum. However most social work students have difficulty grasping the basic concepts of these topics for a variety of reasons. Maria Montessori, the noted child psychologist and educator, is credited with formulating the concept of manipulatives: objects that can be used to concretize abstract processes in order to improve learning and retention. This article describes techniques for teaching the principles of hypothesis generation, sampling, statistical regression, and tests of significance (t-test and ANOVA) using small colored candies as manipulatives. Suggestions are provided for stimulating class discussions.

Unforgiven and Alone: Brenda Spencer and Secret Shame

On the morning of January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer fired at the elementary school across the street, killing the principal and the janitor, and wounding eight children on their way to school. The case is of special interest because it was among the first school rampage shootings, and because the assailant was a girl. Ms. Spencer’s notorious comment, “I did it for the fun of it—I hate Mondays…,” became the refrain of a song that was frequently played on the radio. The author considers the case as an example of how secret shame (that cannot be confessed or “discharged”) turns into violence. He argues that Ms. Spencer accumulated shame as a victim of undiagnosed epilepsy, parental divorce, and repeated physical abuse and sexual molestation by her father beginning at the age of 11. Her skill as a markswoman, her experiences hunting with her father, and the positive presentation of violent females in the media during this decade (e.g. Patty Hearst, Charlie Manson’s female accomplices) played a part in Ms. Spencer forging a criminal identity for herself, which in turn led to her externalizing her expressions of violence in the form of a rampage killing.