Question for those that teach graduate classes online

I disagree to an extent. If they've never taken an online class (or never been corrected), they might think it's okay to be unprofessional in the class. Of course you and I would be professional in school communications, but some people may not "get it."

But yeah, I think it's ridiculous to be in grad school (of all things) and submitting poor work.

 

Shouldn't the same academic standards apply for online vs. campus? The standard: learn to write in proper form. Sorry, just a little edgy. I hate to deduct points for "stupid" things and see grades suffer. I also get tired of saying the same things to the same people!

 

Yes, it should. But I can see the student's side -- that forums and email are normally casual and that horrible grammar isn't a big deal there (normally).

ALL communication for a class or relating to a class is supposed to be professional and correct. Some people just have a mental "line in the sand" when it comes to technology that they haven't overcome yet.

 

When completing an end of course evaluation I grade the instructor/professor based on an objective review of the questions asked in the evaluation. Every grade was earned in accordance with the published syllabus and my evaluations of courses and instructors are based upon their adherence to the grading rubic or other clearly denoted criteria.

 

For any graded course work there is no excuse for sloppy spelling and grammar. Once a deficiency has been pointed out to a student there is no reason for a continuation of the same deficiency in subsequent course work. At the graduate level repeated failures in spelling and grammar seem like the antithesis of higher education.

A quick email to the instructor asking for clarification on some aspect of the course does not have to be perfect. However, text-speak is unacceptable.

"i c u r @ home 4 sup. talk l8r" - how will linguists interpret such gibberish in the years to come?

 

Most students are mature enough to fill up an evaluation based on the instructor's performance. However, you have that 10% percent that always blame anything else but themselves.

The problem is that some schools require you to have a minimum of 85% score to maintain your adjunct status. This is too high and means that you cannot upset even one student as this can make a difference for future employment.

Not all the schools follow this policy but it seems to be consistent across for profits.

 

Maybe the instructor evaluations need to be aggregated cumulatively rather than on a course section-by-section basis to reduce the bias induced by minority positive or negative evaluations. A course section with 10 students and 3 low evaluations is 30%, whereas a course section with 3 students and 1 low evaluation is 33%; a 3% increase in lesser satisfied students. The instructor evaluations should be review quarterly or semi-annually to further reduce unintended the positive or negative bias. Than again the schools might be using the current scheme as a means to keep, in some instructor's minds anyway, the wages low through adjunct turnover.

 

I just got an A in a distance ed course and I still submitted a scathing but fair review on the professor. My teacher was fair and did grade professionally but they did not act professionally in my class. The fact I got a high grade had no bearing on my review.

 

I am an online adjunct for 4 universities. While I have never received a scathing review from students, I have had some students who felt that I did them injustice by following the university's policy on late work. All I can say is to follow the university's policies on anything related to academia and set a strong tone for professionalism up front.

I do not knock students on the grammar of their emails or if they do not utilize a proper email format, I really do not have time to do that, after all I also have a full time job! Normally if you communicate well with students, I am one who sends emails and who also posts the same emails in the course announcements and follow the policies set forth by the university, then you will do ok. Everyone is bound to have 1 or 2 students who feel they were slighted because you followed policy and did not say for example accept work thats more than 5 weeks old.

 

Sentinel: "For any graded course work there is no excuse for sloppy spelling and grammar."

Griffin: Agreed! But I was talking about ungraded emails such as "what are your office hours" or "can I get a 1-day extension on my outline?"

Sentinel: "Once a deficiency has been pointed out to a student there is no reason for a continuation of the same deficiency in subsequent course work."

Griffin: I also agree with that. I am just giving possibilities for the idiotic emails.

Sentinel: "At the graduate level repeated failures in spelling and grammar seem like the antithesis of higher education."

Griffin: Yeah, I'd be really embarrassed if I was doing that at the graduate level (I don't do that now, either).

Sentinel: " "i c u r @ home 4 sup. talk l8r" - how will linguists interpret such gibberish in the years to come?"

Griffin: Honestly, if they are half-decent linguists, they could just refer to existing definitions of the slang terms. But I do get your point.

 

There is no excuse for non-capitalization of the first word in a sentence. However, in your examples at least I would be lenient because proper sentence structure was employed. Sometimes though I wonder how some of these students, usually working adults, graduated from high school and if working in a semi-professional environment (office, law enforcement, military, etc.) how they compose written correspondence (memos, letters, emails, etc.).

 

Not an instructor here, but in my graduate-level writing course (University of Denver) students reviewed one another's papers. I was stunned by the generally low writing proficiency level; it was well below what one expects of baccalaureates, and not just because they were rusty.

 

I work for two schools that have high evaluation requirements. Both of them pay above average and for this reason I make an effort to keep up with their requirements. I have worked for other schools that pay very low and some of them don't even bother to evaluate instructors or if they do, they don't share the results with instructors.

 

To be fair, maybe they work for the Yahoo executive team.

 

ROFLMAO - Egad! I have been assimilated.

 

I am just guessing, but I bet the message from senior management was probably written on a Blackberry and sent out. Not that it's an excuse.