Any teacher will tell you that it is a good idea to get parents working with you rather than against you as their child’s teacher. This post from the Washington Post explores what parents should know about plagiarism. This blog has explored a myriad of issues concerning student plagiarism–how to instruct about, how to help prevent or limit, how to deal with student cases, how to create temptation free classrooms, how to train fellow teachers, etc.–but how to help parents understand the issues hasn’t been covered. Please read the article and think about ways a teacher can help parents understand the gravity of plagiarism and how to help their student understand and avoid it in their work.

Many of the teachers that come to this site teach in an International Baccalaureate (or IB) school. The IB has rigorous academic honesty policies for their classes. For example, all IB teachers must sign off on the originality of each of their students work. For this post, I have collected a couple of IB resources that discuss effective practices and principles to utilize in your classrooms to encourage academic honesty. By no means are these documents limited to IB teachers, all teachers should find them useful.

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So, I created this presentation for a PD session I did in an attempt to provide an example for plagiarism education. I encouraged the teachers in the session to see it as an example of how to teach students about the issues around plagiarism.

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Check it out.

Here’s a great website I found care of “The Learning Network” from The New York Times:New York Times Learning Network: Plagiarism Education

The site has all sorts of lesson plans, tools, tips, videos, and more that can help you instruct your students about plagiarism. As they put it, “The middle and high school years are an opportunity to shape healthy attitudes in a lower-stakes environment. But for many students, poor habits are formed ahead of college.” This website can help you instruct your middle school and high school students in the good habits of avoiding plagiarism.

A great, great, great discussion about originality in the world today (music, fashion, technology, etc.) from the folks at TED.

Of particular importance is how (or if) originality can be achieved in today’s world. My view is that students need to learn how to use prior sources and ideas to build upon. That is their original contribution.

Here’s the podcast: What is Original?

For you history buffs, check out this article which talks about the meaning of the word “plagiarism” and its first century Roman origins:

Plagiarism and the First Century