college students or professors advice please

Is it worth it to email my professor about our flipped quiz and me using my notes? Our quiz was online, to be done at home, but wasn’t on a lockdown browser and you could freely open and switch tabs. I thought I remembered hearing it was open note and then the free tab switching solidified that thought. After taking and submitting it I realized what if I had misheard it, and I cheated? I looked it up and while canvas doesn’t tell your teacher what tab you went on, it has timestamps of “when a quiz lost focus” or when you leave an online quiz. I also didn’t find anything on canvas that said it wasn’t open notes, but nothing that said it was. I wasn’t using ai but my class slides I have downloaded. I’m not sure if she will fail me for the quiz or the class or if she will do anything at all about it. I really can’t fail this class because it’s a major requirement and is only offered in the fall and it’ll set me back a year behind, there’s also the financial and gpa aspect. My roommate said to email or talk to her tmr about it, but the other said I should wait till she releases grades/sends me an email about it. I’m not sure if it’s worth it to talk to her tmr after class, since she’ll probably have some graded by then or started. I feel like bringing it up will make it worse and I’m just freaked out. I can loose 10 points on a quiz but I can’t fail the entire class.

Rumination_S...

Date posted: 12h

I really feel for you reading this because I’ve been in a very similar situation with school before, and I know how quickly your brain can go from “wait, did I misunderstand something?” to “I’m going to fail this class and completely screw everything up.” Especially when the class matters this much to you. Please give yourself a little grace here. From what you wrote, you weren’t sitting there thinking “I know this is closed note and I’m going to cheat anyway.” You genuinely believed it was open note and used your own downloaded class slides based on that understanding. If you misunderstood the rules, that’s something you can explain. A misunderstanding and intentionally trying to cheat are not the same situation. I’ve also learned from experience that going down the rabbit hole of researching what Canvas can see, checking timestamps, wondering what the professor can see, imagining what punishment you might get, etc. usually just makes the panic so much worse. You end up trying to solve a problem that you don’t even know exists yet. I would check the syllabus/quiz instructions/announcements once to see if there was actually anything saying it was closed note. If there is, I’d probably talk to her and just be sincere about what happened. If there isn’t, I personally wouldn’t send her a huge confession saying you cheated when you don’t actually know that you broke a rule. And if you do talk to her, you don’t need some perfect explanation. Just tell her the truth: you believed it was open note, you referenced your class slides, and afterward you started worrying that you may have misunderstood. That’s it. Most importantly, try not to decide the ending before you even know there’s a problem. You’re already at “I could fail the entire class and be set back a year,” when right now you don’t even know whether the quiz was closed note. I say that with so much empathy because I have absolutely been the person who takes one uncertainty with school and mentally follows it all the way to the worst possible outcome. Take it one piece at a time. ❤️

Mothman

Date posted: 12h

@Rumination_Station Thank you so much, I’m going to try and step back for a second till I can read clearly, and refer to the syllabus like you said. I really appreciate the help and understanding <3

Rumination_S...

Date posted: 12h

@Mothman Of course ❤️ I really do understand that feeling, and I’m glad I could help even a little. When you care this much about school and your future, one little “what if?” can suddenly feel like everything is falling apart at once. Give yourself some time to come down from that panic before you try to make sense of anything. You don’t have to figure out every possible outcome tonight. Read through the syllabus when you feel like you can actually take in what you’re reading, and then just deal with what’s actually in front of you from there. And please be gentle with yourself in the meantime. You made the decision you did based on what you genuinely understood at the time. Whatever comes next, you’ll figure it out one step at a time. I’m really rooting for you. ❤️

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