Emily Harnden, University of Illinois:
[Many of our classes post] lecture notes, labs, assignments, paper topics, vocabulary lists, extra credit opportunities and even online office hours …
[Although we all laugh] at what a “joke of a class” these technologically inclined classes may seem, in reality [it’s not] that funny. Because guess what? We’re all paying for that “joke of a class.” Whether it is you personally or your parents, sooner or later, we’re going to realize the joke’s on us. For even though I love to joke around about how easy some of my classes have been, the fact of the matter is the only thing it is helping is my GPA…
… By forfeiting their right to teach students face-to-face, professors who rely heavily on online-based coursework are giving us an easy out for our education…
On the bright side — it’s a step up from a diploma mill. It’s accredited.
April 13th, 2010 at 9:37PM
I hate to always be the person who mentioned this, but…
A lot of students have essentially demanded these empty, joke technoclasses. And instructors who don’t do comply often find themselves jobless because of bad feedback (and its attendant dejection) at the general unwillingness of most students to want to learn.
Until schools and tenured faculty start making public stands against these empty technoclasses (love the term), there will be nothing more but more of them to come.
So, hat tip to Ms. Harnden. Bringing this to her community’s attention might be a good first step to spaking the activism needed among those with influence.
April 13th, 2010 at 10:18PM
Couldn’t agree more, Cassandra. Technoclasses are often cheap and cynical, and I’m as glad as you are that students are beginning to get the picture.
April 14th, 2010 at 3:37AM
True. I have seen the evil side of techno-courses. However, I have also seen the benefits of online-based courses for people who live too far away from colleges, cannot move closer to a college nor access them and do want that education. This includes poor people in very rural communities, soldiers stationed abroad, perhaps even prison inmates. For many, this is all they can get at a given point in time, and it is better than nothing. Perhaps we should concentrate on making it as good an experience as possible, and dedicate it as a resource for those who cannot make it to an actual classroom. I am currently out of the US and taking a Yale Open University class on Milton. It’s all video, but I am still finding it an enriching experience, even though I miss being able to ask question and get feedback from the professor, as well as comment with classmates. I miss all that, but still get a lot out of the course.
April 14th, 2010 at 5:48AM
Trudy: Well said, and I agree. Online is what you do if you can’t attend a physical college or university. You can get a lot out of it, even as you realize that, as you put it, you’re missing a lot.
Students should never fall for the line one sometimes hears from cynical professors and administrators that online is actually BETTER than direct human interaction. I feature student writers like this one on my blog because they know better, and they say what they know.
April 14th, 2010 at 7:23AM
I use a course management program (Moodle) as a supplement to live courses and here are some advantages I’ve found:
Submitting assignments online makes it easier to detect plagiarism — just run the electronic copy through Turnitin.
You can also set a deadline just like in-class submissions. This alleviates excuses like “my printer ran out of ink” and the like.
I post Powerpoint presentations AFTER the class in which they are used — but I also take attendance and grade on class participation. I don’t include everything, just an outline. So, if students don’t come to class, they miss important material and of course get a zero for attendance and class participation.
April 14th, 2010 at 9:32AM
Maybe I am just getting old…
I don’t believe that credit should be given for showing up, or participation. At least at the college/university level.
(One of my best students just sat there, listening in rapt attention. Didn’t take notes. Didn’t say a word, ever.)
Nor should there be extra credit. Master the course material.
Teachers have at their disposal a method for making class attendance a wise thing. Examinations.
Shoot me…
Bill
April 14th, 2010 at 1:00PM
In response to:
By forfeiting their right to teach students face-to-face, professors who rely heavily on online-based coursework…
Many professors are directed to offer the course online to increase tuition dollars to the department/school. No one I know enjoys it, and few have been given the choice…
April 14th, 2010 at 1:08PM
I’m very interested to hear that, Ima Bugg… I guess I mean I’m strangely pleased to hear that. If students and professors together protest the cynicism and nothingness of many of these courses, maybe they can force their universities to take up teaching again.
April 14th, 2010 at 3:56PM
I had a conversation with a very good philosopher and teacher at my school today and gleefully reported that I was getting wind of a good deal of student rebellion against edutainment technoclasses – mostly with your blog in mind, Margaret – and he was heartened by it. (BTW, his facebook status and such hasn’t been updated in a year, and he snears at the mention of PowerPoint.) I claimed, perhaps excessively, that the glory days of chalk and talk would soon return. Anyway, the thought made both of us happy; certainly as long as students voice their frustrations and cynicism, there is hope.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:23AM
Yes, what Ima Bugg said is true of my department. We have two faculty who, as we put it, “take one for the team” and teach the “mandated” online sections.
They don’t like it. It’s not fun. But we’re pushed to do it, because of the Benjamins. (Or maybe the Jacksons. I don’t think the online classes actually bring in THAT much extra money.)
April 18th, 2010 at 2:12PM
At some universities, the dollars follow the student, meaning that the tuition dollars go back to the department home of the student, rather than to the department offering the course. However, tuition dollars from online classes follow the department, and not the student.
A sad note… after many complaints from faculty, our department initiated a survey of students with recent online coursework experience. The results were unequivocally critical of the online experience. Students complained bitterly about the lack of depth in coursework, lack of classroom experience and especially, the lack of opportunity to engage in classroom discussion. After reporting these findings at the department meeting, the chair of academic programs dismissed the surveys, closed the discussion and moved on to other topics.
April 19th, 2010 at 10:23AM
[…] On-line teaching Jump to Comments There’s a neat article in the NYTimes Sunday Education Life section on good on-line courses, and about how professors make them work. These folks are amazing–I love great lectures. But I also note that none of the article’s winners were teaching skills as part of their content. If information is all that a course is predicated upon, the corporate model may work very well. I’ve not taught on line (yet), but those who have tell me that it takes an extraordinary amount of energy and time–much more than it takes to do it in person. The time it might take to teach a skill like writing on line, about literature or anything else, boggles the mind. There are two principles here: 1) Communication is the heart of teaching a skill. It’s necessary not just to get across a point, or to encourage, but also to discern a student’s individual problems with writing. I too often at present can’t uncover what makes a student tick until too late in the term. Depriving students and teachers of real contact can only make that harder. 2) Writing teachers don’t agree on much, but one thing they do know is that to learn it, you have to do it. It’s a practice. Larger classroom sizes lead to less writing, inevitably. If the course delivery method means that preparation and teaching take up more time than in the classroom, writing assignments will suffer, or be reduced to what can be delivered over a clicker. I wonder–will administrations, if they want us to do this, give us time to develop such courses? It’s not just the professors who are grousing about this (stole this from UD). […]