No Sleeping In Online Classes
Posted by Pamela Gustafson on March 31st, 2009
There was only one online instructor who I met face to face. The other online instructors only had an email presence. Interestingly enough I felt closer to my online instructors than most of my other instructors.
My freshmen year at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire was not the best for me educationally. At the same time I arrived at college, the drinking age turned to 18 and businesses in Eau Claire capitalized on this new set of customers. I stayed up late, drank more than I should, and slept in the chair of my eight a.m. classes. I was appalled when I met my 8:00 a.m. instructor in the hall one day, and he said, “Hello Pam.” I was embarrassed that he knew my name since I habitually slept though his class. The next semester I did not schedule any eight o’clock classes and learned from this embarrassment. After this lesson I realized that sleeping was not the impression I wanted to make on my college teachers and sought them out to give a more favorable impression.
I made it a habit to have a personal meeting with all of my instructors over the years, especially those in large classes. I thought it was helpful for them to equate a face with a name. In hindsight I guess it was a subtle way for me to let them know that I really cared about my education. E-mail in online classes make contacts with college teachers a lot easier. There was no calling to set an appointment and no appointment to remember. You send the email and wait until the answer arrives. Most of my instructors were prompt to respond. Some of the responses turned into longer personal discussions and some did not. Online instructors can tell how much you care about education by looking at your written responses or lack of responses.
The online teacher also is not affected by the way a student looks and eliminates a lot of bias in grading assignments and the written discussions.
There is no chance of an online instructor seeing you sleeping in their class. Depending on your other commitments, you may be completing your online assignments when most everybody is sleeping,including the instructor.
Tags: grading bias, relationships with college teachers
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Administrators and Faculty Members Online, Student Voices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
