“Online = checked out”

Dr. Crazy's post about difficulties teaching online is very insightful about the challenges of engaging students online.  Student motivation is key. Attrition in distance courses is a widely known issue and Dr. Crazy's summary that students translate "online equals checked out" is right on the money. Or more like, online equals out of sight out of mind, and if I don't check the course site, it doesn't really exist.

But I am also curious about the course design. I'm not going to suggest that if students aren't showing up and they're not even doing the basic assignments required that the instructor can make miracles happen BUT I'm curious whether the course design builds an investment in each other on the part of the students.  I didn't really see reference to that on the list of considerations in the post. Maybe if the course started out with peer interaction as a required assignment and the requirement to contact peers in the course was imperative? If students were required to post an email AND a phone number where classmates could contact them for this assignment? Have there been or could there be optional synchronous sessions for the instructor to just take questions from students who might be lost or not know where to start? In the future offering of the course, could there be a required synchronous session to start out the course?

These are just some suggestions, and it sounds like Dr. Crazy has been doing everything she can to motivate students. SO, maybe the biggest motivator would be an email sent out to floundering students that says: "As it stands at this moment, you have only completed x % of the required work to date. As of this moment, the highest grade you could expect to receive is a "?" C? F? Please contact me as soon as possible to discuss." My guess is that some students have no idea they are failing the class to date and that might clarify things. But she did send emails saying they have 0s on assignments, one would think they could translate that to the big picture.

A faulty assumption might be that an email does the job, though I'm not suggesting every DL instructor can take the time to call students individually. It seems that at schools where students are part-time, their interest in logging into institutional email seems lacking. Again, we're back at "what is the student's responsibility."

So maybe administrative support on the front end is required. Is there an orientation for distance students so they understand the type of dedication that is required to be successful online?

I want to thank Dr. Crazy for the candid account of the frustration of teaching online. I do believe the biggest responsibility is on the part of students to keep up with the work, and I completely agree that students assume that "online" will just fit into their life because it is flexible, without realizing that it generally takes more effort than f2f classes and a lot more self-direction. A lot of the responsibility to mitigate these incorrect assumptions lies at a program-level, where administrative types need to recognize the importance of this problem, and provide proactive, pre-emptive strategies to make sure the right students are signing up for distance for the right reasons.