3. Online Students vs. In-Class
• Academic Advisor Relationship
• Classroom Community
• University Community
4. Negative Comments
• E-Portfolio (few overall comments)
• “One course topic I do not think was very beneficial was the
ePortfolio. To me, it didn’t seem very useful because I did not see
how it could benefit me.”
• “Busy Work”
• “The inquiry skills/library research, major/career exploration,
group work, and study skills assignments were on the busy work
side of things. I just didn’t learn a whole lot from these
assignments that I didn’t already know, or wasn’t interested in
learning.”
• Lack of Campus Engagement
• “I don’t think it has any way, shape, or form helped me
engage in education and campus life seeing that it is an
online class only for that reason”
5. Assignments
Instructors’ Point of View
Worked Well:
• Career services
• Faculty Interview
• Resume (Peer Mentor Review)
• Common Book
• Scavenger Hunt
Mixed Results:
• Group Project
6. External Communication
“The Library and CS lessons were supposed to be
coordinated and build on each other. From my class, there
seemed to be very little communication between the 2
departments. One did not seem to know what the other
was doing. My first library lesson was based on the Group
Project (as last year), rather than on Major and Career
Exploration. The Career Services Research lesson was
basically dropped into the lap of my PM…I was led to
believe that the PM was only needed to be there to take
role – again, another miscommunication. The librarian for
my 2nd library lesson did not show up for class.”
7. Internal Communication
“In general I felt like I was unprepared for many class sessions
because we did not get information or materials until the last
minute.”
“Information was often only provided when asked for…based on
the fact that not all our timelines were the same, it would have
been nice to have more “concrete” information on lessons early
in the semester. Seemed like we had to “stumble” across many
issues that we did not know were even issues.”
8. Recommendations
• External Communications
• Library and Career Services – what are our
expectations?
• Internal Communications
• Get the course ready prior to the beginning of
Fall – eliminate surprises
• Consideration of Amount of Coursework
• Can we reduce or streamline some
assignments and meet the same goals?
9. Recommendations
• Keep the Lessons that Worked
• Career services, resume lesson w/ peer
mentor review, time management, study skills,
scavenger hunt, group project
• E-Portfolio
• Making it a memorable part of the course
• Online vs. In-Class
• How can we engage online students in the
classroom and university community? How can
we help instructors become more comfortable
with online lesson delivery?
Editor's Notes
In general: Students enjoyed all of the lessons that exposed them to new resources. The Study Skills and Time Management lessons were consistently mentioned as very effective. Group projects were mentioned as either being extremely fun or tedious (because of group conflicts) but great learning experiences nonetheless. Pathways Planner was well received but some students expressed concerns that they had “no idea” what they wanted to do, and so they found the lesson frustrating.
In this area, it was interesting to note that there were some places where purely online students did not have any comments at all. No online students mentioned the creation of a strong relationship with their academic advisor, for instance, and mentions of the classroom and university communities were nearly non-existent as well.Instructors: Online vs. Face to Face theme
In the negative side of things, there were several comments that just frankly stated that Hokie Horizons didn’t allow students to become more engaged at all. There were few comments on the e-Portfolio at all – this shows that students really didn’t think of it as a major part of the course. The idea that a lot of the course is “busy work” is also a major theme, but some students actually felt that the high workload helped keep them motivated throughout the semester. Instructors mentioned this heavily in their comments as well – keeping students engaged in the course is difficult partially because of the workload the course involves
Most of these results are the same for students and instructors, actually. Students LOVED the career services lessons, the scavenger hunt, and the resume. The common book was less mentioned, but few of these assignments had overtly negative results. Students didn’t mention the learning as the problem with the group project, but mostly mentioned the problems of working with a group. Honestly, though, this is BENEFICIAL – and many student noted this – because it forces students to work with people who they may have a hard time working with.
- Did we make this clear? How can we help our partners work more fluidly with our course next year? Important questions to ask ourselves as we plan for 2012-2013.
