Chapter 11: The pot and the Kettle.
As I read chapter 11 I consantly found myself trying to classify people. I take 2 classes with Dr. Dawley which really exacerbates these issues. (I probably wouldn't do this again for that reason.) I feel like I am the "Noisy" student because I have a lot of questions times 2 classes. Every time the instructor opens up her e-mail I can see her saying, "Oh God, what is it now..."I don't know if everyone feels as self conscious about communicating with a professor, but it must scare the heck out of college freshman in their first online class. I don't have a solution for this.
My second problem is that I fit a group not found in Ko and Rossen. I'm the "amiable student who hasn't kept up." In one of the classes we were given a literature review assignment. It was a 4-6 page paper which for me usually means 4-6 hours. Reality was about 3 times that. The real issue was that the first draft was to be posted in a peer group area. When the first person actually posted theirs up it didn't look anything like mine. It didn't even look like the same assignment. I went back and reread all of the assigned text to discover that I really didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was stuck:
- If I send the instructor an email at this point and say "I'm lost" it makes me look like "the procrastinator" who didn't do the work and let their group down. Out of the question.
- If I leave my original draft and then try to justify it by explaining what I thought was important in the text I look like the mutineer. (After rereading the assigned text I don't know how I came to my original concept of what a literature review was.)
By this time I was so ridiculously frustrated, (and now behind in both classes) that I just sent the instructor an e-mail saying, "My draft was crap. I'm going to start over with a more useful idea that I actually have need of here at work." I also posted a water cooler thread about how much I hate APA (A little mutineer coming out.) At that point I went from being the "Would like to have an A" student to the "Lets just get it over with" student. I remember feeling like I was standing at the bottom of a mountain with a shovel in my hand.
My distance ed life lesson from this is that I didn't know what my classmates were thinking and that mattered to me. The instructor kept publicly saying "Don't get frustrated," but I still had the impression that everyone else was on top of this. The instructor did everything according to Ko and Rossen's collaboration guidelines. She also followed Palloff and Pratt's chapter 3 participation challenges checklist. It didn't have anything to do with the instructor or the lesson. She did everything right. Still, as I student I feel as if I have failed (maybe Ko and Rossen need to add a "Whiny Depressed Student" section.) I don't have a solution for this either.
In completing my now infamous literature review I learned that it is not unusual for the dropout rate on distance courses to be 50% (The Chronicle of Higher Education.) I thought that was crazy until I went through this semester. Once you get behind it is difficult to catch up and difficult to communicate what is going on without feeling very insecure (and I'm not an insecure person.) Because of the nature of competition in online courses I put too much pressure on myself. I would have probably dropped these classes if it had been undergraduate work. Now I just have to figure out how to fix it.
posted by Dallas Becker @ 9:12 AM
4 Comments:
Thanks. I needed to know I am not alone out there. I definitely have to learn how and when to contact the instructor in online courses. They aren't in the office when I do most of my classwork, but whatever. I think I just don't want them to know how dense I am sometimes. Do you get good answers to your emails?
Dallas,
What you've described is how I felt a couple of weeks ago; totally overwhelmed. Your analogy of being at the foot of a mountain with a shovel was spot-on! I can't believe it! Anyway, buddy, I just want to encourage you; perfection is not the goal here, to do the best you can under the circumstances you're in is. It would be nice if we had no life outside EdTech, but the fact is, we do and we'd better pay attention to things like marriages, kids, jobs, stuff like that!
Don't mean to go on, here, but I just wanted to do what I can to give you a boost! You're a class-act, Dallas; I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you through your blogs and e-mails.
Keep those cards and letters comin'!
Yes, I really appreciate your honesty and open reflection--especially as it relates to the readings. Personally, I like your questions. And to be honest in return, I never see an email from a student (including you) and think, "what is it now?" lol :)
I enjoy my job as a professor. I like working with students who have questions. I like challenging students--but I don't want to push people to the extreme where they want to drop a course or feel like a failure. So as much communication as we can have around that point, the better! Your feedback, and sharing your frustrations, helps me learn how to modify lessons both in the now, and in the future.
So let's keep talking...and learning...and help me understand how I can best help you :) Thanks again.
Some questions need time to be analyzed for the best answer. So, forwarding queries ahead the scheduled session is also a good practice to optimize the use of session time.To know how to make e- learning more interesting and effective, you may visit http://tutorskingdom.com/.
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