Saturday, September 1, 2007

Reflection on Week 2

The ENG 111 Online Class is going really well!

This week's Discussion Question regarding possible topics for Essay 1 was outstanding! My students not only thought of really interesting topics, such as the kindergarten birthday cut-off dates and how it affects children with disabilities in addition to policies regarding sexual predators, but also they responded quite intelligently to one another's ideas. It was fabulous!

Despite the progress reports I sent last week, still I have two students who are not pulling their weight and doing the coursework. I'm not sure if this is because they are first-year students and haven't taken an online class before or if it is because they don't understand the tasks I have asked them to complete.

I've been sending personal emails to both of these students to "check up" on them, but haven't heard a response from either. I'm concerned for them because I don't want to see them fail just because they didn't do the coursework but they did do the essays. As a last resort I have "First Alerted" them--a program we have a BGSU to inform advisors of students' behaviors during the first few weeks, so they can help the students.

Rough drafts are due next week, so I shall see...

The two most interesting facts about this week is that almost all of my students did NOT do the Wiki assignment I included in the coursework. I'm thinking my directions weren't clear enough or they could not access Writeboard. (I tried from many other computers and it was hard to access...As of now, I much prefer PBWiki!) I emailed my class to figure out the problem so I could right it and we could continue to use Wikis in our class. Also, 2/3 of the students did not post to their blogs this week.

Full moon or laziness?

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