Hello, all, I have just started a DL program - and am starting wondering if I am right expecting our group online instructor to participate - to some extent - in our blackboard discussions... well, you know, how it happens in an actual classroom, when the instructor at certain points stresses the key arguments, asks for more details or alternative ideas, sums up the intermediate and final conclusions, etc., etc. Or in online classroom he/she is supposed to post questions and review/grade our assignments, but not to provide feedback to the students' discussions? Thanks, YSM
I teach online courses for two schools, and while neither uses the Blackboard platform, I can say that you may have much different experiences with different instructors, the same as you would in a classroom-based program. I've consistently received high marks from my students in quality control surveys, mostly because I'm so involved with the class discussions. Sometimes, I agree with the consensus of the class, but I'll play "Devil's Advocate" and argue a position I actually don't agree with myself, in order to stimulate further discussion. Good teachers will do that, whether online or in a classroom.
Bruce: Works great in the traditional class setting as well. I like to set up a little debate between two sides on an issue with me representing both sides, and have a good vigorous argument between my selves. Students think I'm nuts--but it holds their attention. YSM: Your instructor should at the very least participate actively in online discussion like Bruce.
I am an administrator at the online campus of a SACS-accredited college, and I teach undergraduate Economics online. Our instructors' participation in threaded discussions is expected to be about 20% of the comments posted. If instructor participation falls significantly below this benchmark, the instructor is written up and risks becoming a former colleague, if it continues. My wife has just started an online Masters program at a local state university. Her Accounting instructor has posted tutorials, videos, and practice quizzes for each of the sixteen weeks. The course's grading is based strictly on the sixteen weekly self-grading, multiple-guess tests. Her instructor's participation is effectively nil.
I teach several different courses for an online master's program; most of my discussion is behind the scenes -- personal replies to student comments and essays. When I have large enrollments, I tend to actively lurk, only jumping in when it gets quiet. Most of the time, I have only a large handful of students, and as doing an online discussion for 3 students is a bit, well, odd, the course turns into a one-on-one tutorial (this has the side benefit of allowing students to move at their own pace, and as a significant minority of my students are military, they sometimes need to be, uhm, elsewhere at inconvenient times in the course.)
I expect that your administration does not rate you, based on how much time you clock in the online classroom. I'd wager that administrative policies drive instructor participation. It would be interesting, as well, to compare instructor participation rates at proprietary schools with those at traditional schools.
