No Sponges Allowed: Participation Key for Freshmen Online Students
Posted by Pamela Gustafson on January 25th, 2009
The first two online courses I took were the first steps to being certified as a Microsoft network administrator. It was a topic that was somewhat foreign to me, and fortunately it was a highly programmed approach to learning. There were modules of information presented followed by a quiz. You could take the quiz to see how much you remembered and if you didn’t like the results you could restudy the module and take it over again.
At first I found this refreshing because I could work until mastery. It was refreshing not to have to think at a higher level and synthesis information into papers that only my instructor would read. I even dreamed that these types of modules would be created to provide the necessary repetition to students who were struggling to learn to read.
The downside to this approach was there was very little interaction between other members taking the class. I did enjoy being in my own home and working at my own pace. Eventually I tired of the highly programmed approach and felt very isolated. I also found out I didn’t want to be a network administrator.
The next online courses were centered around teaching and there was a lot of interaction among the members of the class. The email was overwhelming but I dealt with it by creating folders in Outlook Express for each member of the class. I also noticed a pattern of responses among the class members. The first person who emailed or posted their responses to the other members of the class, usually received the most feedback. I tried to be near the front of the responding pack and also vowed to respond to every person in the class. One of the classes used an online platform and I didn’t have to download the email to my computer. I could just go to the class site and I liked this a lot better. Since this was 2001 in the infancy of online education this will probably not be a problem. I like how platforms like Moodle allow a student to post responses, but also offer the option of private email.
Online classes are different from onsite classes. No sponges are allowed. You can’t sit in the back of the classroom and soak up information, and choose not to participate in the discussion. You are expected to participate and your participation is measured. The instructor can store and count your number of responses to assignments and to other members You can’t hide. You have to be an effective sponge, you soak up the information and then squeeze your brain of the information and your reaction for all to hear and see.
Online instructors from the University of Milwaukee Nursing school have told me that online classes are more work for the instructor. This was in response to my question of why the University of Milwaukee charged more for online classes. They brought up my point about responding to all class members and not just the few who volunteer to talk in class.
My advice to prospective students is to remember you can’t be a sponge when you are in a online class. Your lack of responding and lateness are highly visible to the instructor. The tradeoff is a high degree of flexibility for a higher amount of accountability. No sponges allowed.
Tags: accountability, advice to online students, flexibility, participation comparison
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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Life as a Freshman Online Learner, 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.
