Teaching and learning promotes understanding and the practice of academic honesty.

Why is academic honesty an important function of teaching and learning? What are the causes of having to learn and practice academic honesty?  

Academic honesty is an important function of teaching and learning because it is an important life skill.  Collaborative group work and individual creation are vital to self-assessing and recognizing ones strengths and weaknesses. The trouble is – especially with the digital error – it is quite easy to document another’s work as one’s own. Copy and pasting thoughts and ideas from articles, websites, and online encyclopedia’s such as Wikipedia.com whether it is an entire paper or simply just one sentence without naming the source information is wrong. The process is called plagiarism – cheating - and it carries a large array of consequences when committed. For example, there is failure of the class, repeating said class, increased watchfulness and being eyed with suspicion, or expulsion and termination if it is in the workplace. These consequences are important for people and students to know and understand as they continue to act as positive global citizens.  

How can we avoid plagiarism? Why should students be responsible to avoid plagiarism? 

With the proper guidance, students will continue to be exposed with tools on how to avoid plagiarism while nurturing foreign work for their own self-awareness and growth. Specifically within the MYP program, students are required to create projects which include researching and investigating a minimum number of various social media pieces. Students can freely document what they have learned by quoting materials and “citing their sources” within the text and creating a formatted “works cited page” at the conclusion of the essay. The students also have set time prior to the essay submission for peer review and teacher guidance. Ultimately, this is all in effort for the students to demonstrate that they have learned the proper techniques and understanding of academic honesty but also the guidelines of Islamic moral and ethical integrity.