Sunday, December 6, 2009

Semester Overview

I don't think I need to tell anyone that this has been the worst semester for me since I started teaching. Revamping the entire course AND teaching online for the first time was not a good idea. The on campus section has gone relatively smoothly if not exactly how I would have liked, but the online class has been nothing short of a disaster. With the technical problems I faced at the beginning of the semester, realizing that the course was organized in a way that was confusing to most of my students, and finding that I needed to revise all of my course materials for online presentation, there is little wonder as to why I am in the predicament I am now with over 100 essays to grade in a few days. I made it through 60 in the last two days and hope I can get through another 40 tomorrow, which will leave me with only the research papers to get through.

I know that most of my online students are frustrated if not pissed. I don't blame them at all. I wish I would have been in a position to better serve them as their instructor. If I were grading myself on my performance this semester, I'd be the first to give myself an F.

With all of the online courses I've taken, I really thought teaching one would be easy. I can't believe how wrong I was. If there is a silver lining in all of this it is that I have learned more about teaching online from my complete and utter failure this semester than I ever could have otherwise. I will be using the winter break between semesters to revamp some of my lecture materials, so that next semester I can focus solely on responding to students writing in a more timely and efficient manner.

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