Thursday, 26 January 2006 - 10:10 AM EST

UPDATE -- to post in addition to replying to posts, You DO have to login and sign up for tripod.

Thursday, 26 January 2006 - 10:18 AM EST

Hello! This is my first blogging experience, and I am very excited.

For me, the biggest challenge of teaching an online literature course is that I am never sure if my students are "getting it." I've designed assignments that can show me if they are understanding key concepts, but I miss the face-to-face ability to INSTANT LY recognize a struggling student or one who is starting to make headway. I don't have the same problem in 102 online, incidentally. That's probably because it's much more task oriented (?).

Amy

Friday, 27 January 2006 - 2:18 PM EST

I have never blogged either. It should be fun. Thanks Mary!

I have sort of the reverse problem. Let me qualify that. In on-line classes, I find I have two extreme kinds of students and then those in the middle. The ones who do very well are very computer savy and are very very motivated. They excel in the on-line environment. They meet the deadlines and almost always go well beyond minimum requirements. On the opposite end are the students who are not very computer savy and are not motivated enough. They probably shouldn't be in an on-line course-- but it seemed easy and convenient, so they signed up. They struggle, and often can't make it. Then there are the students in between-- who do fine to okay. So I have both sorts of students in the literature courses (221 in the fall and 245 in the spring) and in the 102. But in 102 it seems worse. 102 is such a struggle anyway for students-- the huge jump from ten 500 word essays to a 10-12 page research paper. There are lectures on collecting information and note taking and plagiarism. I mean not too much each week--but all the information is there. Further, every Monday in both classes (literature and 102) I send a class e-mail reminding students of the assignments for the week--even though these are listed on the syllabus and on the Timeline. And some students just won't pay attention. You are right in live class, you can see who is not paying attention or who is struggling, and I really do miss that with the on-line classes. On the other hand, I just don't know how much more clear I can make somethings on the on-line classes.

I'll give you an example. Both the 102s and the 245s had to take a quiz on their syllabi. One 102 student e-mailed me and said, I took the quiz and I got one question wrong. The question asked about what happened if you plagiarized in the course and your syllabus says that plagiarizers will be put on file with the department--but it doesn't say that you will fail the course [my paraphrase of the student]. The student read only part of the description about the final paper requirements. There are at least three places on the syllabus where it explicitly says that if you plagiarize in the course, you automatically fail the course-- including in the description of the final paper requirements-- so I copied all three references back to her, and I haven't heard anything since.

I guess if they are going to take an on-line course and they fail to read the lectures, syllabus, and class e-mails, there is little else we can do. I mean do you have any other suggestions? Does anyone? I am assuming this is common problem. I have heard it raised by on-line faculty when we have had occassion to be together.

Friday, 27 January 2006 - 2:26 PM EST

I have students read CCP's mission statement and write about how the goals listed in the mission statement related to them for a diagnostic essay (it was included with the English 098/099 syllabus-- but I use it for 102 too). I like it as a diagnostic. It is short thing to read, so it gives them the opportunity to write a reading-based essay, but it isn't too oppressive-- especially for first day essay. Further, very few students have ever read CCP's mission statement, so it usually surprises them.

What do other people do for the diagnostic essay?

I don't give a diagnositc essay in the literature classes. Do you?

Wednesday, 1 February 2006 - 9:48 AM EST

The first week in both on-line 102 and 221 or 245, I also have students introduce themselves. They are supposed to tell me three things about themselves and why they are taking the course in an on-line format.

Wednesday, 1 February 2006 - 9:52 AM EST

I require students to complete an open ended course evaluation at the end of the course. It is not graded, but I tell them the feedback is essential to the course's development.

I think there is talk of developing an on-line instructor/course survey-- but "they" have been talking about it for years-- since the on-campus dot-dot instructor/course evaluation is just so poorly suited to the on-line courses.

Does anyone do student surveying? What kinds of questions do you ask?

Thursday, 16 February 2006 - 12:09 PM EST

You know, I've come to believe that an entire generation of students can't really read anyway. Let me clarify. What I mean is that they don't actually read what's on the page (or the screen, in this case). They skim for pertinent information. The problem is that they are also not so smokin' hot at knowing what is and is not pertinent! Absent an internal sense of how sentences and paragraphs go together to order information, they bring their assumptions (and wishes) in to frame their skimming. So, then they wind up doing crazy stuff like claiming that there's nothing on the syllabus about failing due to plagiarism when there clearly is and in triplicate or telling me that Phillis Wheatley's poem is about how slavery must be abolished, when for her to have said so blatantly in 1760 would have been disastrous.

Thursday, 16 February 2006 - 12:13 PM EST

I don't use a diagnostic in lit, but I do have a set of "practice" questions attached to a reading that lets me know where they are.

I am finding that my students are responding VERY well to the forums. When I teach lit online again next Fall, I'm going to include more forums and fewer study questions.

Grading the study questions (10-20 per session for 31 students) is weighing me DOWN. I'm finding out what my students get and don't get, but it's way too much with such a big class. I'm always a little behind, and I hate that.