Ask Questions
As a online instructor, I am often surprised by the lack of questions that I receive from my students. And I am not just referring to questions on course content either. I know, from personal experience, that there are technical and other challenges in the virtual classroom that need clarification.
Here are several recent examples that illustrate my point:
- Liberty just upgraded to Blackboard 7.3. Although this upgrade had more effect on instructors and course designers, there were several glitches during the upgrade install that had negative ramifications on students uploading files. You know what? Out of two sections for my course, I only received emails from three students about how to deal with this problem. And the funny thing about this was that this uploading issue came during the time in the term when I require a summary paper.
- This summary paper that I mentioned above has four specific requirements. As a result, I not only post examples of good/bad summaries on the Annoucement Board, but I offer to review summary drafts to make sure my students are going down the right path. Here is what is either startling, alarming or both. Again, out of my two recent sections, I only had one student take me up on my offer to review several of his drafts.
The lesson here is make sure you “raise your hand and ask questions” in the virtual classroom.” Email and call your professor with any question, no matter how trivial you think it is. Most online instructors really like that type of initiative. If for some reason one of your online professors is opposed to this, I guarantee you that, if the online school is worth its salt, that professor will not be teaching online much longer.