Y'all, I think I might have my very own Fake Jake!
He doesn't look anything like his roster photo. In his school ID / roster photo, he looks like a Chris Pine/MBA type. In class, he looks like a Johnny Depp/demon barber type. He mentioned on day 1 that he was from Houston, but then today didn't seem to be able to answer any of his classmate's questions about the city. ("I'm from the West part." "Katy? Sugar Land?" "Uh, no, like, you know, west.") And now I receive an email from him, asking if he missed anything in class today. If he wasn't there, then who put his name on the class exercise?
I'll keep you updated as I look into this.
I was just thinking of him (was it Anthroid's student on the old forum?) the other day, reading elsewhere, about someone whose student had changed radically from the beginning to end of the semester, and turned out to have a doppelganger....at least Elizabeth Warren's lookalike isn't asking for money to pose as her on the campaign trail!
It also put me in mind of the way Carol Burnett and her double (Vicki somebody?) both benefitted by turning it into a base for the Mama-daughter skits.
Or Twain's "Prince and the Pauper," as well.
Parallel--or skewed--or diced, minced, and sliced lives, it would seem...
M.
<Pops popcorn, and settles in for the ride. Go, pseudo-Jake, go!>
For those who need context for the name Fake Jake: https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,126029.0.html
It's a good saga.
Quote from: polly_mer on August 23, 2019, 05:59:00 PM
For those who need context for the name Fake Jake: https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,126029.0.html
It's a good saga.
Thank you. It's a great lazy Saturday morning read. And Larry's third post--
QuoteChat with your chair immediately. If these two know they are busted, who knows what bullsh*t they are hatching right now.
--is good advice for the ages and widely applicable.
I don't think I'd really have any way of knowing if one of my students was not who they claimed to be. We don't have any pictures for the rosters. I suppose this kind of thing is probably quite rare just because it does take some real commitment. Its one thing to write someone's paper for them, but actually coming to class for a whole semester and taking exams and presumably studying? Ethical issues aside, you'd need to pay me a lot of money to make that seem worth it.
Quote from: Caracal on August 25, 2019, 06:25:56 AM
I don't think I'd really have any way of knowing if one of my students was not who they claimed to be. We don't have any pictures for the rosters. I suppose this kind of thing is probably quite rare just because it does take some real commitment. Its one thing to write someone's paper for them, but actually coming to class for a whole semester and taking exams and presumably studying? Ethical issues aside, you'd need to pay me a lot of money to make that seem worth it.
This class is a gateway class in our department, and there's a departmental attendance policy. The majority of my students who fail this class are the ones who exceed their allotted absences. I could imagine that a student who didn't want to show might hire a ringer to simply be a warm body. Since the work is submitted electronically, the actual student could be doing actual work. But if that's the case, why hire a seat-filler who looks half a decade older than everyone else?
Ugh, I teach fully online and I really would have no idea if I had a ringer. I don't do proctored tests (I teach humanities and quantitative testing isn't the best way to assess anyway) so I just accept it as a risk.
But if they showed up to a physical class I probably wouldn't notice either, due to a combination of a degree of face-blindness and poor eyesight at a distance.
Quote from: polly_mer on August 23, 2019, 05:59:00 PM
For those who need context for the name Fake Jake: https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,126029.0.html
It's a good saga.
Thanks, polly!
I'd missed that whole thread the first time around. What an adventure!
Begs many questions years later - Where is Jake now? And more importantly, where is ptarmigan now? On these new fora under a different name? I can't seem to search for recent posts on the old fora. ...
Ptarmigan is well but I don't think she's migrated to the new fora.
Quote from: backatit on August 25, 2019, 07:12:16 AM
Ugh, I teach fully online and I really would have no idea if I had a ringer. I don't do proctored tests (I teach humanities and quantitative testing isn't the best way to assess anyway) so I just accept it as a risk.
I had a suspected set of ringers for one student ID based on IP addresses and very different voices participating in the discussion boards for various courses and yet another voice during email with me. The situation resolved itself when the student officially withdrew from the whole program instead of sending in the official transcripts from other institutions attended prior to being enrolled into the next academic term.
I still don't know what was going on there, but that's the only student who withdrew upon being pushed for transcripts instead of being contrite that the transcripts were still pending into the second 8-week term of attendance and/or asking for help navigating the transcript process at other institutions.
Vicky Lawrence, wasn't it? On Carol Burnett.
Thanks, yes, I was thinking that but questioning whether I had her mixed up with someone else...
;--}
M.
Subscribing. I'm not missing this one, the first time around!
Quote from: citrine on August 25, 2019, 08:48:02 AM
Ptarmigan is well but I don't think she's migrated to the new fora.
Too bad, but it makes sense. I don't think ptarmigans are migratory birds anyway.
Update on Jake
For the last few classes, Jake has arrived late. He takes no notes -- indeed, he doesn't seem to have any material with him. Today he sends me an email asking about the first assignment, which is due Monday. Apparently he does not know what he's supposed to do for this assignment. He also writes that he's late all the time because he's got a class on the other side of campus and it takes him about 20 minutes to make the walk. Now I'm curious, and I pull up his class schedule. He does have a class before mine, but it's hardly on the other side of campus. What stands out for me, though, is his schedule; other than my class, a freshman-level foundational, he's enrolled in 3 other 500-level courses. He's classified as a senior, first enrolled in 2014, but he's also classified as a transfer (rather than a redamit or something else). So, did he enroll here initially in 2014, leave, then transfer back for grad courses? How could he advance so far without taking my course, which I would have thought was a prerequisite for most other gen-ed courses? I guess if he's 5 years older than everyone else, then that would explain the discrepancy between his roster photo and reality. I think I've got more questions than answers now.
I wonder... is this a Fake Jake, or a Flake Jake? So sad to see the quality of stand-ins decline.
I think I'd at least mention it to someone.
The discrepancies are...weird...
M.
A student showed up to class with her hair dyed crimson. Classmates said "You look completely different!" I said, "next semester you'll look nothing like your roster photos and your profs will wonder why." Fake Jake looks up and says, "Yeah, I got that a lot since I got my nose job and cheek implants."
And then the class devolved into a discussion of plastic surgery. So now I know why he looks nothing like his photo. Now I need to learn why a grad student is in a Freshman class.