"

Chapter 1 Learning Activities

Stevy Scarbrough

The purpose of these activities is to help students identify why they are in college and define what success means for themselves. Students will also learn about their college’s policies regarding academic integrity and dishonesty and practicing how to avoid plagiarism. These are important to learn in the beginning of the term, because students are expected to know these policies and practices as soon as they have enrolled as a student. These activities will help students meet the following learning objectives:

LO1. Discuss student resources on location at (insert college) and on the (insert college )website.

LO2.  Describe why you are attending college.

LO3. Define what success means for you.

LO4. Identify examples of academic dishonesty.

LO5. Demonstrate how to paraphrase, cite, and reference sources accurately.

Activity 1.1 Your 5 Whys

Using The Five Whys table in the Exploring College chapter as a guide, complete the five questions below. Use the previous question’s answer to form the next question.

1. Why are your attending college?Answer:2. Why do you want to ___________________________________________________________________?Answer:3. Why ___________________________________________________________________________________?Answer:4. Why ___________________________________________________________________________________?Answer:5. Why ___________________________________________________________________________________?Answer:

Activity 1.2 Your Definition of Success

Please address the following questions to help you define what success means to you. Follow formal writing conventions using complete sentences and checking spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
  1. What people do you consider to be successful and why?
  2. What is your definition of success?
  3. What will you do to achieve success?
  4. What is the biggest change you need to make in order to be successful in college?
  5. How will you know you’ve achieved success?

Activity 1.3 Academic Dishonesty/Integrity Policy

Review the college’s policy regarding academic dishonesty [Instructors should provide link to their college’s policy in the activity and tailor the sections below to the specified number of behaviors and sanctions]

Dishonest Actions/Behaviors

List the actions/behaviors that are considered dishonest in your school’s policy.

  1. …
  2. …
  3. …
  4. …

Sanctions for Academic Dishonesty

List the possible sanctions you may receive for engaging in one of the dishonest actions/behaviors listed in the policy?

  1. …
  2. …
  3. …
  4. …

Activity 1.4 Types of Cheating

Read the following scenarios and state what type of dishonesty is displayed and why it is unethical.

Scenario 1

You are taking an online course that has open note, untimed exams. You complete most of the questions, but are stuck on few of them and decide to text/email/contact another student in the class to discuss the questions you are stuck on.
What type of cheating is this and why is it unethical/problematic?

Scenario 2

You are taking five classes this term and realize that you have taken on more classes than you can keep up with and have forgotten about an essay you have to write for your English literature class. It is due tomorrow and you have to submit it otherwise you risk your grade dropping significantly in the course. You look online and find a prewritten essay and download it, put your name on it, make a few changes in the body of the paper to make it more relevant to your assignment and turn it in.
What type of cheating is this and why is it unethical/problematic?

Scenario 3

A friend of yours is taking a math class that you passed last term and is struggling with completing their homework assignment and needs help. Instead of reminding them that the tutoring center can help them, you decide to send them a copy of what you turned in for the assignment which they put their name on and turn in.
What type of cheating is this and why is it unethical/problematic?

Activity 1.5 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is one of the most common types of cheating that confuses students and sometimes students are unaware that they are engaging in it. Please complete the below exercises to demonstrate your understanding of what plagiarism is.

Read the following passage from Phillips et al. (2015):

“Insum,theabovementionedreviewhighlightspromisingapproachesforincreasingthe postsecondary preparation and enrollment of youth in foster care and disadvantaged youth, including those with disabilities (e.g., on-campus summer programs and college visits, mentoring from college students with lived experience in foster care, higher education and career exploration, and assistance with financial aid and postsecondary school applications). However, intervention approaches with proven efficacy for increasing the postsecondary preparation and enrollment of young people in foster care with mental health challenges have been non-existent.” For each of the following passages, determine the paraphrasing error in each.
Use the space following each paraphrasing attempt to make notes about what is missing and how you would revise it.

Incorrect Paraphrase 1

Although we know a lot about how to help foster children in general succeed in college, we do not know much about how to help foster care children with mental disabilities succeed.

Incorrect Paraphrase 2

According to Phillips et al. (2015), we need more research on how to help young people in foster care with mental health challenges succeed in college (p. 52).

Your Paraphrase

Use the space below to write/type your own correct and complete paraphrase of the passage from a scholarly article shared on the previous page.

Activity 1.6 In-Text Citations and References

Students often struggle with how to appropriately cite their sources in the body of their papers and write their reference/works cited sections at the end of their papers, which can lead to unintentional plagiarism. Please practice formatting the peer-reviewed journal article below into APA (common to Social Sciences and STEM courses) and MLA (common to Arts and Humanities courses). Open this peer-reviewed journal article (it is free to access): Absolut memory distortions: alcohol placebos influence the misinformation effect

APA Style

Please reference the Purdue OWL website for current 7th edition APA formatting guidelines.Write/type out an in-text citation that would appear at the end of a sentence for this article:

Write/type out the reference that would appear in the References section at the end of your research paper:

MLA Style

Please reference the Purdue OWL website for current MLA formatting guidelines.Write/type out an in-text citation that would appear at the end of a sentence for this article:
Write/type out the reference that would appear in the Works-Cited section at the end of your research paper:

Activity 1.7 Student Resources Discussion

This activity is written to be part of an introduction discussion board for an online course, but it can also be modified to be done in a face-to-face modality.

Go to (insert college) website and browse the available student resources: (insert the student resource page link here)

In your initial post, provide a short introduction about yourself and then talk about the resource you looked up. What is this resource for? When should students use it? Is this resource also available physically on campus, if so, where is it? Provide contact information for this resource and a link. You may not post the same resource as another classmate. Please make sure you are not sharing resources that another student has already posted about.

Read the initial post of three of your peers, then add your reply by clicking the reply button. Please make sure you follow the Netiquette guidelines post that you read in the Course Info page. Your replies should be thoughtful, encouraging, and between 50-150 words in length.

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Chapter 1 Learning Activities Copyright © 2025 by Stevy Scarbrough is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book