Online courses and degree programs are more demanding than most people realize. They require that a student be a capable independent learner who is self-motivated to complete projects, papers, and readings without someone constantly hounding them about it.
Online "classrooms" do not have the anonymity of a large lecture hall or even a moderate-sized class. The expectation (in most cases) in online courses is that students will participate. Your grade is partially based on your participation. Unlike traditional face-to-face courses, you must do the assigned reading. Because you are graded (partially) on participation, you don't want to be seen as uninformed and lacking in preparation for the week's discussion. It is fairly obvious who has read and prepared for the discussion and who hasn't. If the students can see it, then it is a safe assumption that the professor can as well.
Students must be comfortable with communicating asynchronously, as most online courses use discussion boards to hold conversations about the week's readings and assignments. As well, technophobes need not bother. Online learning requires that one be comfortable with discussion boards, chat rooms (in some instances), email, and digital distribution. In the next post, I'll talk about some of the advantages of online learning.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment