Why are you giving students the answer?

Question

I have a question, I notice in this section homework helps that quite a number of people give the answer to students who should be figuring it out by themselves or researching for the material to write an essay. As an educator I find this very distasteful and I need to understand why people out there do it. Any and all comments are appreciated

Answer 1

Hi there, I'm also an educator. Honestly for me it depends on the student's question. IF I think it's a legitimate question, they're having trouble on it and that they might need a redirect to help them find the "answers", I gladly give it. IF a kid copies/pastes everything the teacher assigned for their homework that night, I tell them to stop wasting my time and do their own work.

Answer 2

I very, very rarely will give an answer. It has to be a single request, very obscure and difficult to find. Generally my "answers" tend to be in three categories ...

1. I'll give a good, credible website to begin research.
2. I'll edit posted work.
3. I'll warn, warn and warn again about using wikipedia.

I will NOT ...
1. Answer history questions that are obviously typed from the test or homework.
2. Do a kid's math.
3. Write an essay or research paper (perhaps I'll suggest topics however).

I personally feel that those who give long, detailed answers are enabling students to cheat. One thing I've done is to make sure teachers I work with know about Yahoo Answers. I DO think this is a great idea; but think it should be limited to HELP.

Answer 3

You seem to be saying that you don't approve of a Homework Help section in Yahoo Answers. Nevertheless, as long as it exists, there will be people using it. Homework questions can be and often are posted in other sections as well. I therefore feel it would make little difference if the Homework Help section were abolished.

Shortly after I started answering questions on this site, I noticed that the number of mathematics questions in Homework Help declined substantially. It is now evident to me that many of them have migrated to the Mathematics section. I have tried to ascertain through the Yahoo Forum whether other people providing help treat the same question differently, based on the section in which it is posted; but the recommendation I received was to give a full explanation of the solution, regardless of the section.

As far as I know, there are no guidelines on this matter, and I therefore give as much explanation as I feel ought to be necessary based on the level of difficulty of the question and my perception of the asker's competence level. It is evident that some even have difficulty asking the question.

Now I have made my opinion known to you, I would be grateful if you would drop me an email on how you feel questions here should be treated. I would also be interested to know why it seems so many 'bad' or ambiguous questions are given as maths homework. Is this all down to the pupils' inability to transcribe the homework questions accurately, or are homework questions nowadays of much lower quality than the ones I encountered during my schooldays?

Answer 4

Rarely do I give a student tips on checking an answer, and then only when it's obvious he's tried to do it himself, Otherwise, I suggest ways of doing the research himself, rather than relying on others to do his work for him.

I don't mind that other posters suggest websites; that at least encourages students to show some initiative and do the work themselves. However, to give a complete answer actually does the student a disservice.

BTW, I also discourage people from using Wikipedia. Since anyone can edit any article at any time, you can never be sure that someone hasn't deliberately posted false information. From what I understand, teachers don't regard it as a reliable source of information, either.

Answer 5

You will notice that a lot of the questions do not ask for a direct answer. They simply ask for ideas, help editing what they are writing. Just getting an answer is a way for a student to understand the why and where of the answer. I help a lot of people with their writing skills and English because with all this internet language, and text messaging, English is quickly becoming a lost art. I feel that helping others is a way of giving back.

Answer 6

If I personally see a question I believe is someone wanting answers for a homework problem, I do not answer them.

However, if its a simple question that I can share my expertise on for maybe an essay or something, I dont mind as much for that, because I give them my source and they can further research it themselves.

But yes, I agree that it is distasteful for people to give blatant answers to students.

Answer 7

It's annoying to see so many ask! But it is the internet....

One thing I wonder about is how they could possibly think that a random assortment of people would know the answers that the book has for the questions at the end of the chapter they just read.

But what would happen if the assignment were to be, say, to read so many pages of Homer--and to come back to class and be prepared to discuss it? One can't fake being able to make a compelling argument. But then what would happen to all those horribly uninteresting and over-priced Houghton-Mifflin books?

Sigh. If it's a ditto you want, a ditto you'll get...just takin' a chew at the root of the problem.

Answer 8

If I can help someone with a problem they are having, I will do so. At some time in my past school history I can remember more than one time that someone had to give me the answer. That didn't mean that I wasn't studying, it meant that I needed help. How sad a world we live in when we can't help a fellow person get a better understanding of a question.

Oh no, I just answered your question. Why didn't you get the answer by yourself?? Could you not figure it out?

Answer 9

that's the reason i don't answer questions of the form "I need the answer to this 80 problems". But if they ask about a particular problem, I tend to give very explicative answers on how to solve it, so they learn how it is done. In a lot of subjects, specially mathematics there's a big threshold for students who just don't know how to approach some exercises. So, an explained example could help them.

Answer 10

hi
sometimes when im studying i cant find an answer to a question. i ask my parents and older brother but they dont know the answer. they know how to help with ideas but the answer isnt there. we have to research the answer, when we research we find what we are looking for, the problem then is to put it in our own words.
its not that people are giving us the answers its just they will say a particular sentence that will help us start our answer to our difficult question. we all need help. would u rather we copy it from a book? at least we discuss and maybe even learn the theory while we ask other people.
i love asking people questions...so i can get a view on their perspective.
how did u learn?