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[Anon]

I currently teach online for a few schools.  Some overwhelm me to the point of breakdown.  The deadlines are impossible to meet, and they expect you to be available to students 24/7.  

They want you to constantly police the students, give feedback upon feedback, post reptitive announcements (because the students don't read them).  It seems like I am fostering student irresponsibility, rather than discouraging it.

Is anyone else experiencing this?  And then, we have meetings where other faculty members suggest doing even MORE to retain students.  I sit there in disbelief, thinking, when am I going to have time to call every single student every week?  

Is this lunacy or is it just me?

[melba]

It is lunacy. Although frequent contact is desirable, they are pushing for too much. I also teach online. We are definitely not pushed to be there 24/7, but to at least let students know what our typical online hours are.

[Anon(original poster)]

Melba, we are supposed to be responding to all emails within 24 hours.  All grading within three days.  Replying to every single post a student posted.  Is this because corporations are controlling things?  When did it get so crazy?  I feel like I am slowly unravelling.

[Melba]

'Is this because corporations are
controlling things? "

Yes, I suspect that is the case. I am at a public institution, (and with a faculty union) and we do not have the customer-service sort of pressures that you are talking about.

There has been a movement on campus to establish some minimum standards for online classes, but they are faculty driven and quite reasonable, in my opinion (things like the class needs to be set up before the semester starts...).

[E. F.]

I would suggest that too many of the administrators and other supervisors in many college systems have no clue how online classes operate or how much time online classes take to manage. They have never taken an online class, much less taught one. They seem to think that online classes are like traditional classes, except the instructor doesn't go to class and can just sit at home drinking beer while chatting amicably with students on discussion boards.

This ignorance (it's actually incompetence, but let's be nice here) breeds bizarre policies. I would tell anyone who expected all grading within three days to go take a flying f---. This expectation is simply irrational, assuming you are actually giving worthwhile assignments.

As long as you give students clear expectations of when you will respond to their emails, students are fine. For example, I refuse to turn on my computer on Sundays or after 5 PM on weekdays and Saturdays. I do answer all emails by noon the next day, but more to keep my sanity than any service-orientated goals. Believe it or not, the level of communication is exactly the same as when I had the 24/7 mindset thinking I had to be super-teacher.

Of course, try to tell some people this . . . Sometimes we have to educate our supervisors, but this is a difficult task.

[anon2]

This is an interesting thread. I have at times been tempted to pick up an extra online class in addition to my normal adjuncting, but this is really making me think twice.

[Jeffrey Deutsch]

Hello all,

It may depend on the particular university. The OP is quite correct in seeing a corporate connection.

I interviewed for an online teaching position with Colorado Technical University. They expect responses to all student questions within 24 hours (which judging from my other experience may be industry standard) and all assignments back and graded within 72 hours - with a student cap of 35 (thirty-five) per class. All this on the princely sum of $1,200 for an undergraduate class, $1,500 for a graduate one.

I asked for, and received, a few days to think about the opportunity. I did my homework. CTU is owned by Career Education Corporation, which has been under fire on various grounds. They've been quite credibly accused of using unethical means to recruit and retain students, including putting pressure on faculty.

This reinforced the impression I received from them. They are out for one thing: maximizing tuition dollars and profits. They pinch pennies for paying professors. They spend, at most, one-third of what I would expect to pay quality instructors for quality classes.

I'm not saying that all or even most for-profit schools - online or otherwise - are greedy or crooked or unethical. But, also judging from my experience elsewhere, they at the very least have a different atmosphere from non-profit schools.

Jeff Deutsch

[Original Poster]

You are right about that, Jeff.  It's one of the ones I work for.  They load you up with students and expect you to be there all the time.  It's like they are reinforcing the student attitude that it's the professor's fault and responsibility if the student isn't doing well.

They never take care of the plagiarism I report, either.  It is utterly rampant; I had one student plagiarize three time in a row in my classroom and they left him there!  

I just feel like I am drowning at times.  In order to make a decent wage, you end up taking more classes than you should.  It's never-ending, and the class cycles are ridiculous - some places start every five weeks.

[anony]

OP - find some other way to make a living. Not to be harsh, but it sounds like a bad situation. Can you adjunct at a local university or community college?

[eternal adjunct]

I start my first online teaching experience in about 6 weeks.  Since responding to emails in a timely manner has always been an issue for me, I've been practicing just sending acknowledgements (which I think meets the requirements).

When I did the online training for the online teaching, the instructor was pretty clear that there were certain standards, but that, with practice, they were not unreasonable or burdensome at all.  But those requirements are a bit more flexible than the OP's.

Of course, one of the things about this whole situation that is of particular interest to me is the following.  Administrators, who increasingly have corporate instead of educational backgrounds, introduce what (to them) are entirely reasonable practices (imagine if you left a message for someone in the corporate world, asking a question about a presentation, and you never got a response, or waited 48 hours to get a terse "ask someone else for the notes!").  What they don't get is that, in order to implement these "reasonable" practices, wholesale changes often need to be made in how material is presented and assessed.  These same administrators will often speak (out of the other side of their mouths) about the need to maintain standards.  But it is hard to imagine that this is actually the case.  I also imagine that, if forced to choose beetween quality level A with happy enrollment level B, and quality level B with happy enrollment level A (where A is greater than B), they'll go for the latter every time.

So my class will be designed to maximize efficiency while meeting whatever preset criteria or outcome whatevers are there for me to meet.  This means clear rubrics that speed up grading, autoresponses to emails, etc.  I figure that the actual content delivery will suffer, but the customers (er, I mean, students) will be happy.  And if I get good enough, I can teach dozens of courses a year from home (wasn't there an article a few years back about some woman who teaches 20 classes a year from home and makes something like a 6 figure salary?).

And drinking beer (mmm, beeer) while doing it!

[OP]

Does anyone remember this article?  I'd like to read it.

[Prof. Ron Auerbach]

You're not alone by far when it comes to overworking us relative to online teaching.   Maybe I've been fortunate because the majority of the schools I teach at aren't too burdensome.  I am expected to answer student emails within 24 hours, but an extra couple of hours to a day is usually OK.  The KEY thing they really want from us is just knowing we out there actively logging in and interacting with students.

The worst thing is to have a prof who simply posts lessons and discussions, rarely checks in, hardly ever posts or updates grades, provides little if any student feedback.  Do these and you'll get horrible evals, and won't last long!

Sometimes I respond individually to students, but most times because classes are so large, I will post general comments in areas where I noticed problems.  So far, no complaints from my students.

Prof. Ron Auerbach, M.B.A.
Edmonds Community College
Florida Community College

[anon]

Overall I've had a positive experience teaching online.  I think the push for timely responses to e-mail is that faculty "presence" is important. Personally, I log in several times a day to check on e-mails or do other small tasks.   I might do something small in the discussions each day, but I usually make the bulk of my comments on a few days.  I grade my discussions the day after they close, but I take a week for serious midterm, final or project grading (which is my time frame in traditional classes as well).  I do send out or post many reminders, announcements, etc., but they are all things I use every semester.  I keep everything (even my discussion responses) and re-use them with minor tweaking as necessary. We also have very clear guidelines for quality assurance, that spell out many issues that are expected for faculty. I found it very helpful to know how I would be evaluated.

I think the problem is that many people think that online teaching doesn't involve any effort.  I get paid the same for online teaching as for traditional teaching.  So I figured out the hours I spent with a traditional class I taught last fall (which involved minimal prep because I had taught it before), and all in all it was 10 hours a week (including driving to and from campus, walking to and from car to office and office to class, minimal class prep, actual class time, and office hours).  And that doesn't include any grading time.  I can tell you that I spend about the same (or more) on my online classes that I've taught before.

But ultimately,  my opinion is that they get what they pay for, and frankly the money isn't that great.  I'm a reasonably committed and thoughtful teacher, but if it got to the point that they became even more demanding (like 3 day turnaround for grading), then I'd quit and find other outlets for my desire to teach.  It sounds like the OP should consider this as well.

[Fiona]

I've never taught online and probably never will, but I'm wondering how you grade your discussions? What expectations and standards?

That's difficult with face-to-face classes, so I'm really curious.


anon wrote:

>  but I usually make
> the bulk of my comments on a few days.  I grade my discussions
> the day after they close, but I take a week for serious
> midterm, final or project grading.

[%sig%]

[Zarkov]

I can't speak for anon, but usually it is a matter of doing the math. Say a requirement is to post 10 substantive messages over 4 days, then students who do that get the discussion points for the assignment.  (With substantive being at least a paragraph, say, not just "I agree.")  

The role of instructor, as I see it, is more to keep the discussion focused, and to point out -- say -- cases where students are making assertions rather than arguements.  "That's an interesting point, but explain why you believe xyz. What evidence do you have for that idea?"