Computer science student refuses to work on project with assigned group, submits AI-generated project that he can’t explain, professor forced to fail him, despite multiple warnings that he wasn't meeting any requirements: 'Complete lack of understanding'

Advertisement
  • 01
    Professor helping his student with class work.
  • Advertisement
  • 02

    Student made demands regarding a project and found out the hard way.

    One of the degree modules I teach involves students working on a group programming project. Nothing too elaborate, but the aim of the module is to develop skills they will need if they go on to work in the IT field.
  • 03
    After all if you're doing a Computer Science degree, you must be thinking of going down that route?
  • 04
    This one student is an absolute entitled nightmare. He uses GenAl for a lot of his work and it really does show.
  • Advertisement
  • 05
    He always pushed back on the written remarks on his work but every time I sit him down and ask him to explain the code he produces, he struggles and often has no idea how the code he submitted works.
  • 06
    In this project he came up and told me he cannot work with others in the group and must work alone.
  • 07
    I explained that there are specific group activities and efforts I would be marking and that I needed to see his input within the group.
  • Advertisement
  • 08
    There was no way I could excuse him from the group activities in the module, however I could see he was not going to budge and therefore complied with his demand to work on the project alone.
  • 09
    Group working on a team assignment.
  • 10
    All the students in my class had been assigned to their groups and I did check in with all of them on a weekly basis.
  • Advertisement
  • 11
    This one guy was steadfastly refusing to work with the rest of his group and as I had complied with his request, he was working on his own project alone.
  • 12
    In my interim feedback at the end of each stage I repeated that he really should work with the group or he risked a failing mark for the module.
  • 13
    I made sure this feedback was sent to him both in hardcopy and also via email with read receipts which I kept.
  • Advertisement
  • 14
    Cue the end of the module and the submission for marking. Sure enough, the one student submitted a project based just on his own work and had not engaged with the group he was asked to work with.
  • 15
    There were several issues with his project, first and most important was it didn't meet the brief.
  • 16
    The code simply didn't do what we asked for. He lost marks for that aspect of the project.
  • Advertisement
  • 17
    As he had not worked with others in the group, he was not awarded any of the group marks allocated for the work.
  • 18
    Because his code was so far away from the specification, I called him in for a Viva Voce to explain the code and he demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the code he submitted, more marks dropped.
  • 19
    Young adult using AI on his computer.
  • Advertisement
  • 20
    His eventual mark for this assignment was a hard fail. He must now resit the entire module.
  • 21
    There is of course one real downside of this whole thing that affects me. I've got him in my group again for the resit of the module.
  • 22
    R3D3-1 My favorite such story was where the not-lazy one had enough good marks to pass without the project, so when everyone else did nothing, so did he. They failed, he passed, based on previous work.
  • Advertisement
  • 23
    OP Tubist61 If this student had followed the brief set for the project, he could have passed if what he delivered was his own work and of a sufficient quality.. It would be a bare pass as most of the marks in my mark scheme were for group work.
  • 24
    Vuirneen This is a guy that should fail. He doesn't understand the material, at all.
  • 25
    Myrandall And of course he'll blame you when anyone asks him why he eventually dropped out of Computer Science, and not his own laziness/incompetence.
  • Advertisement
  • 26
    OkStrength5245 I had one like this. We all saw it at his defense of thesis. He obviously didn't know what was writing in. I asked the vice dean how we should proceed. He replied: " if you are to fail him, fail him good so there is no doubt he can usecto win a complaint. It is what we did. Nobody in his class was surprised
  • 27
    Mississippi Joel I had an Art Appreciation class where I was actually looking forward to taking the lead on the group project. I could tell the rest of my group was just there for the required electives. So I made it easy on all of them and said "Tell you what. I'll do everything. I'll just show everyone my receipts, and you all can pay for the materials, and just be sure to be here on presentation day." I don't know if they all didn't believe me or what, but they all (3 or 4) dropped the class
  • 28
    theoldman-1313 I really felt that OP has a firm grasp of the worst outcome from this situation - that he will have this person in his class again next semester
  • Advertisement

Tags

Scroll Down For The Next Article