Tomorrow begins my fourth week of class. I was ecstatic when my teacher opened up the course on-line, a whole five days before the first day of the semester; this gave me time to print the syllabus, take a look at what was coming, mark my calendar with assignments due, and jump ahead with the reading for the first week.
Fast forward to today; it appears my teacher is M.I.A. The first week of class there was no welcoming e-mail, though teacher did post somewhat of a welcome message on the front page of our class portal; teacher also did manually grade one assignment. (Just for clarification, what I mean by manually graded, is that it wasn’t one of our weekly quizzes where our grades are automatically graded and posted to our grade book by the classroom software).
At first I thought that maybe teacher was behind on grading, as each week’s section was closed on time, at the end of our academic week, so there was some minute visible activity from teacher’s end. Late this week, it occurred to me; teacher could have set that up to happen automatically each week. The unanswered email I sent in the second week of class combined with this realization really made me wonder where teacher is. This weekend, another student posted to our common message board asking the same question; they too had ungraded assignments in their grade book, and an unanswered e-mail as well. What the heck?! I am paying for this?! I do not want to stir the hornet’s nest but I don’t think it’s fair that teacher has disappeared without a trace.
I’ve been lucky in my on-line learning, degree seeking quest to have had some really great teachers who enjoy, and are dedicated to, what they do. The teacher I had during my first semester back set the bar high, in his video lessons you could see he enjoyed his subject matter. When this teacher was diagnosed with Leukemia during my semester with him, he graded assignments and answered e-mails during his month long hospital stay. When his treatment became too much he had another take over the class. Every step of the way he communicated with us to let us know how our studies would be affected. My second year, I had a teacher whose 3rd child was due at any moment; she communicated with us, and graded our assignments in a very timely fashion. For three years I took this communication and dedication for granted; well I guess it was a good run huh?
I’m sure that critics of on-line learning would say that is what you get for not setting foot in a classroom. I completely disagree. One of the things I like most about my school is that they are dedicated to treat the on-line classroom as they do the bricks and mortar classroom. Almost every class I have taken at my school has a paragraph in the syllabus stating how many hours you can expect to dedicate to schoolwork each week and the warning that we will spend more hours a week on our schoolwork than a student who has opted to be in the classroom.
The lesson I have learned already from this semester, is that I will have to have a diligent attitude when it comes to finding the school I will finish out my Bachelor’s Degree at. I am lucky to go to a school where this teacher behavior has been an anomaly.
What about you? Have you had a teacher who has become M.I.A. during the semester?
