Is he a professor, postdoc or a TA? Regardless, you need to report him to his department and also let the person at CMU who originally prepared the assignment know. He won't lose his degree but will probably be reprimanded. It might also affect his career advancement in the future but I'd say this is an appropriate outcome given his conduct.
Dear (professor),
Is it possible you gave permission to a TA at (school) to use your assignment (assignment #) from class (class #)? I was tutoring students from (school) and noticed they were using the exact same assignment as your class.
Just wanted to make sure that no one was distributing your resources without your permission.
Thanks,
(your name)
nah mate I just wanted to help
best to just go ask the professor first and follow whatever their decision is. if they don't care someone is using their stuff, no need to pursue it. if they do care, you can answer whatever questions they have abt who is doing it
It’s possible (perhaps likely) that he has permission from the course instructor. (Note instructors generally own course materials they create — CMU likely does not own them and can’t take action on material the university doesn’t own). But unless the instructor is separately publishing and selling the course materials (e.g: in published book), it is very common for profs to allow former students to use their course materials. Professors tend to be flattered when other academics want to use their materials and will often grant such permission.
Speaking from experience, teaching is much harder than it looks, and to my knowledge CMU does not have an education department, so I’m sure he’s never had classes on curriculum development or pedagogy. That certainly doesn’t excuse it, but he’s probably in way over his head. He’s not qualified to be a teacher.
I *do* think you should report it. The question is who do you tell? I think I’d go directly to his department chair at the school where he’s employed. It’s likely he’ll lose his job, but it’s possible they’ll just pair him with a more experienced teacher and get him some help developing his own curriculum. Either way, you can’t plagiarize like that. It’s unfair to the professor who wrote the assignment and the students at both institutions.
For the pedagogy part, you’re right. Considering the way he gave them the assignment, to prove a point just because he was pissed off by a student; do you think he should be an instructor?
I saw from your other comment he’s a TA. I thought he’d actually copied an assignment for the course curriculum after he’d been hired as adjunct faculty or something. I wouldn’t be as concerned about it if he’s not the primary faculty member on the course. You could still go to the course instructor so he knows to monitor the TA a little closer. He probably shouldn’t be instructing other students. It doesn’t sound like he has the maturity, but no one really expects TAs to know what they are doing.
That’s the department for faculty support… I meant that there’s no education majors. CMU doesn’t train people to be teachers but they do support the current faculty in learning to be better educators.
Is he a professor, postdoc or a TA? Regardless, you need to report him to his department and also let the person at CMU who originally prepared the assignment know. He won't lose his degree but will probably be reprimanded. It might also affect his career advancement in the future but I'd say this is an appropriate outcome given his conduct.
He’s a TA.
In that case I'd notify the course instructor rather than escalating it directly to the department chair.
I don't think it's even allowed for TAs to give separate assignments.
He’s not a TA at CMU. In the other university, he’s an equivalent of a TA
Dear (professor), Is it possible you gave permission to a TA at (school) to use your assignment (assignment #) from class (class #)? I was tutoring students from (school) and noticed they were using the exact same assignment as your class. Just wanted to make sure that no one was distributing your resources without your permission. Thanks, (your name)
you already have a template for it? Damn!
nah mate I just wanted to help best to just go ask the professor first and follow whatever their decision is. if they don't care someone is using their stuff, no need to pursue it. if they do care, you can answer whatever questions they have abt who is doing it
That’s true. It’d all depend on the one who created the assignment
It’s possible (perhaps likely) that he has permission from the course instructor. (Note instructors generally own course materials they create — CMU likely does not own them and can’t take action on material the university doesn’t own). But unless the instructor is separately publishing and selling the course materials (e.g: in published book), it is very common for profs to allow former students to use their course materials. Professors tend to be flattered when other academics want to use their materials and will often grant such permission.
Given the context and the course content, it’s unlikely he had enough time to go through such a process
Speaking from experience, teaching is much harder than it looks, and to my knowledge CMU does not have an education department, so I’m sure he’s never had classes on curriculum development or pedagogy. That certainly doesn’t excuse it, but he’s probably in way over his head. He’s not qualified to be a teacher. I *do* think you should report it. The question is who do you tell? I think I’d go directly to his department chair at the school where he’s employed. It’s likely he’ll lose his job, but it’s possible they’ll just pair him with a more experienced teacher and get him some help developing his own curriculum. Either way, you can’t plagiarize like that. It’s unfair to the professor who wrote the assignment and the students at both institutions.
For the pedagogy part, you’re right. Considering the way he gave them the assignment, to prove a point just because he was pissed off by a student; do you think he should be an instructor?
I saw from your other comment he’s a TA. I thought he’d actually copied an assignment for the course curriculum after he’d been hired as adjunct faculty or something. I wouldn’t be as concerned about it if he’s not the primary faculty member on the course. You could still go to the course instructor so he knows to monitor the TA a little closer. He probably shouldn’t be instructing other students. It doesn’t sound like he has the maturity, but no one really expects TAs to know what they are doing.
Just sharing, there is an education department! https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/
That’s the department for faculty support… I meant that there’s no education majors. CMU doesn’t train people to be teachers but they do support the current faculty in learning to be better educators.
This is interesting. I didn’t know it was prohibited to reuse like that. Makes sense