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[yemaya]

when your university grossly over-estimates the abilities of their students?  I teach at a non-prestigious, but non-diploma mill private university.  Its online courses have gone to a canned format.  It includes a pretty intense work load and material that's way over the head of their average student.  I'm talking about assigning scholarly articles in a survey course where many of the students read at about a middle school level and are generally not all that bright or motivated.  (Though there are exceptions.)  We all run into students who grossly over-estimate their own abilities, but what do you do when you're and adjunct and your university thinks that its students are a lot smarter than they actually are?

[macaroon]

when your university grossly over-estimates the abilities of their students?  I teach at a non-prestigious, but non-diploma mill private university.  Its online courses have gone to a canned format.  It includes a pretty intense work load and material that's way over the head of their average student.  I'm talking about assigning scholarly articles in a survey course where many of the students read at about a middle school level and are generally not all that bright or motivated.  (Though there are exceptions.)  We all run into students who grossly over-estimate their own abilities, but what do you do when you're and adjunct and your university thinks that its students are a lot smarter than they actually are?

You are relatively new at this institution, right?  Discussing this matter with your chair might be very helpful.  Is the hope to retain the average student?  If so, then something needs to be done to prepare your students for your course.  If not, then your chair may be able to validate that you just flunk 'em.

In my uni, retention is super important, so students with weaker reading / writing skills have to complete some intensive workshops before being allowed into a class with primary lit. 

[yemaya]

Yes, I am.  I'll have to discuss it with the chair, though I'm not sure how how well-received it'll be, no matter how diplomatically phrased.  I think that part of the problem is that many of the administrators are non-academics (people with MBAs, M.A.Ts, etc) who earned their own degrees from this institution and have an exaggerated sense of their own abilities. 

[antiphon1]

Print out a copy of the grader report or whatever your CMS calls the report showing the grades for all students.  You may also want to print a break down of correct and incorrect question responses for an exam, too.  Ask your chair what he/she would do in this situation. 

[zharkov]

Are the online students mostly drawn from a pool of adult learners?  That is, are they generally a separate group from the regular day students?

I ask because I've seen cases where the "regular" day professors develop courses for the online (or evening) students, but never ever actually teach online or in the evening.

In any case, I'd consult the department chair or your contacts who are running the online operation, perhaps sharing actual student assignments with them.  Perhaps find out who to ask about academic and learning maters, not administrative/operational ones. 

[polly_mer]

Yes, I am.  I'll have to discuss it with the chair, though I'm not sure how how well-received it'll be, no matter how diplomatically phrased.  I think that part of the problem is that many of the administrators are non-academics (people with MBAs, M.A.Ts, etc) who earned their own degrees from this institution and have an exaggerated sense of their own abilities.  

Ouch, that's always a tough one.  I remember having a conversation with a program coordinator (a proud graduate of that institution) who pointblank asked me "How are students supposed to be able to do that kind of math, when I'm working on my doctorate in <social science field> and I have to keep asking for help in that area?"  

I gave myself the STFU award of the year for not responding, "That's material that is part of a standard high school math curriculum and I'm somewhat horrified to learn that it counts for college credit here, but I teach it in this class because it's on the common syllabus."

Can you do a very minor comparison of things like average readability score (whatever scale you like) of the texts versus average readability score of student work?  I would think that the discrepancy would leap out at people.

[yemaya]

Yes, I am.  I'll have to discuss it with the chair, though I'm not sure how how well-received it'll be, no matter how diplomatically phrased.  I think that part of the problem is that many of the administrators are non-academics (people with MBAs, M.A.Ts, etc) who earned their own degrees from this institution and have an exaggerated sense of their own abilities.  

Ouch, that's always a tough one.  I remember having a conversation with a program coordinator (a proud graduate of that institution) who pointblank asked me "How are students supposed to be able to do that kind of math, when I'm working on my doctorate in <social science field> and I have to keep asking for help in that area?"  

I gave myself the STFU award of the year for not responding, "That's material that is part of a standard high school math curriculum and I'm somewhat horrified to learn that it counts for college credit here, but I teach it in this class because it's on the common syllabus."

Can you do a very minor comparison of things like average readability score (whatever scale you like) of the texts versus average readability score of student work?  I would think that the discrepancy would leap out at people.

I will try, though I'm not sure that I have enough data yet.  The online portion of the school is somewhat different adminstratively from the regular campus, and I think that's part of the problem.  Even the regular day students aren't particularly bright or motivated, though.  It has a justified reputation as a party school.  I've taught at several state schools (including a non-flagship) where the students would easily blow these students out of the water academically.

The other problem is that the classes are primarily designed by "instructional designers" like your program manager, Polly.  They are largely BAs in education or MATs from online diploma mills, who have absolutely no background in my field.  There is limited and late feedback from some of the regular day faculty (some of whom teach online, but not all).  And not even all of the regular day faculty have discipline-appropriate credentials.  For example, there are full professors of math with a terminal M.Ed. but no graduate-level credentials in math whatsoever.  In a humanities field, with a glut of highly-qualified people on the market, there's really no excuse for that, but hey, I don't make the hiring decisions.  I've already had to point out a huge number of major interpretive and factual errors (of the type that any halfway decent junior or senior in the other places I've taught would catch) in the university-supplied lectures.  The overall design of the course is mind-numblingly disconnected, and even without the problems of including material that's completely inappropriate to the level and students' abilities (or lack thereof).

[polly_mer]

Wow, Yemaya.  That's a tough situation.  I hope you find a graceful way through it.

[yemaya]

Thanks, Polly.  I'm looking for other local adjuncting gigs, but I'm only going to move for a TT offer.  I've got a second adjunct gig at a non-flagship state u. where the dean loves me and the students are a genuine delight to teach - curious, hard-working, etc.  The pay, unfortunately, is low for adjuncting and I can't afford to teach for them exclusively.  I'm just trying to grit my teeth and focus on the good students.

[zombie_librarian]

I don't have any good advice. In fact, I could also use advice.

Our material, if anything, is too easy. Frankly, I think most of the students would benefit from being challenged a bit more on individual assignments rather than facing the crushing load of busywork they are to complete.

The assignments are often for things like a single sentence or one paragraph freewrites. There are assigned paragraph topics, too, but the rubric that they provided and that I must use has no entry for content. So, if a student writes, for example, about what they watched on TV last night instead of writing a compare/contrast paragraph, they can still get all of the credit? This week alone they have: two chapters to read (~55 pages), three discussion posts, two freewrites, submit research sources, submit intro paragraph for research paper, write a (maybe on topic) paragraph, a quiz, and a survey. There are videos to watch and optional worksheets, too. The assignments are mostly asinine and a whole bunch of busywork.

I guess this is the flip-side of "instructional designers;" they have no idea how long it takes to write or grade this amount of material. If we are going to practice writing paragraphs, do they really need four this week? Maybe we could get by with one or even two. You know, so students' could concentrate on doing them well rather than racing to get them done? It's no wonder that only three of my students have actually turned in everything.

On top of this, I have 48 hours (if I don't sleep) from the students' deadline to when I have to turn in grades, progress reports, and counseling emails. If [other school] gives me more classes next term, I'm not renewing at [busywork school].

[yemaya]

Zombie_Librarian - I'm afraid I don't have any advice for you, but these are my observations on instructional designers and the resultant courses:

1.) Rarely, if ever, have college-level teaching experience.  Often, they have some sort of education or project management-type degrees, and typically from either diploma mills or really subpar schools.

2.) Design courses with no subject knowledge.  They might, for example, ask faculty what the better journals in X or Y field are, but with no real knowledge of the journals.  So they assign materials that are completely inappropriate for both the course level and the students they have. 

3.) Lots of busy work - that is assignments with no real purpose, like your paragraph exercise.  Because, of course, they're not the ones to have to grade it. 

4.) Instructions and course materials that are poorly-written.  For all their lecturing about clarity of expectations, these designers cannot write instructions worth a damn.  Syllabi, etc, are full of errors in basic spelling and grammar. 

[polly_mer]

3.) Lots of busy work - that is assignments with no real purpose, like your paragraph exercise.  Because, of course, they're not the ones to have to grade it. 

I bet this is a direct result of having training in K-8 pedagogy, not college pedagogy or field-specific pedagogy.  I'm ok with having lots of little assignments for frequent feedback to keep people on track in unfamiliar subjects.  However, as I tell my students, if those assignments truly were busywork, then fewer people should fail them or be "confused" about the material on them later.

[envisioneer]

these are my observations on instructional designers and the resultant courses:

1.) Rarely, if ever, have college-level teaching experience.  Often, they have some sort of education or project management-type degrees, and typically from either diploma mills or really subpar schools.

2.) Design courses with no subject knowledge.  They might, for example, ask faculty what the better journals in X or Y field are, but with no real knowledge of the journals.  So they assign materials that are completely inappropriate for both the course level and the students they have. 

3.) Lots of busy work - that is assignments with no real purpose, like your paragraph exercise.  Because, of course, they're not the ones to have to grade it. 

4.) Instructions and course materials that are poorly-written.  For all their lecturing about clarity of expectations, these designers cannot write instructions worth a damn.  Syllabi, etc, are full of errors in basic spelling and grammar. 

I'm an instructional designer and was trying to decide whether or not to be offended by your post. I've decided not to be, because frankly I do see some related issues with a few of my colleagues, although most are well-educated, engaged, and competent people.

I know that your courses are already designed, Yemaya, and so this bit of advice is a little too late, but in my current position we have TT professors who pair with instructional designers to develop online courses and that seems to work well. I'm not sure whether the TT folks are given overage pay or course release or exactly how that works, but essentially the subject matter expert determines how instruction should be chunked and sequenced, and the types of activities that make sense for the particular learner group, and then I take the skeleton course created by expert and actually write it up, making sure that all of the units map back to the overall course objectives, that grading in any single week isn't too onerous, and that the course meets quality standards (such as Sloan-C or similar).

As an adjunct you might not have the ability to suggest these kinds of partnerships, but it might be worth a mention to someone in your department (or the teaching and learning center, if courses are centrally developed).

And BTW, I do have six years of adjunct experience, 1 MA degree from a state flagship, and 1 MA from a CSU campus. I don't know anyone who does what I do without similar credentials (admittedly most designers I know have only taught a class or two).

[zharkov]

I know that your courses are already designed, Yemaya, and so this bit of advice is a little too late, but in my current position we have TT professors who pair with instructional designers to develop online courses and that seems to work well. I'm not sure whether the TT folks are given overage pay or course release or exactly how that works, but essentially the subject matter expert determines how instruction should be chunked and sequenced, and the types of activities that make sense for the particular learner group, and then I take the skeleton course created by expert and actually write it up, making sure that all of the units map back to the overall course objectives, that grading in any single week isn't too onerous, and that the course meets quality standards (such as Sloan-C or similar).

I've developed a few courses, mostly as a "subject matter expert" working with an instructional designer,  so I'm familiar with that approach.  Given that, I'm skeptical about how a TT prof who only taught traditional age undergrads during the day, and had never taught an online course, could ever be "expert" enough to co-develop an online course.  What work is having the "expert" teach the online course at least once or twice as a sort of pilot, ironing out any wrinkles.  It is also important to identify someone as the course lead or "owner," ideally a faculty member (full time or adjunct), who would be the person to whom yemaya would direct her observations. I have also found that it is important to refresh or redesign online courses about every two years.  They have a shelf life.  Finally, schools need to pay experts enough for their time.  Some schools pay $1000, others $3500, and since my going rate is $1000 per week, don't expect more than a week's worth of my time if all you are going to pay me is $1000.   

[yemaya]

Envisoneer, thanks for your suggestion.  Perhaps I should have clarified that those were my observations from the university where I work.  My university does allegedly have these instructional designer-content expert relationships.  The problem is that the proverbial buck stops with the (grossly unqualified) instructional designers, and they absolutely refuse to listen to people who have actual classroom teaching experience (including with non-traditional learners) or relevant subject expertise.  It would be nice if the university I work at would hire designers who actually had credentials like yours and a willingness to cooperate with faculty who know the subject matter if they're going to insist on these canned courses, but unfortunately, they don't.