Comments on: My worst online class

By: Jerry Loveless

Jerry Loveless — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 17:45:04 +0000

This is hilarious, and quite informative as well :o) Very engaging writing style and I love the pic too, great job Heather!!! Oh, and nice tip Peter (insert thumbs up emoji here).

By: Kathy Carrigan

Kathy Carrigan — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 02:53:43 +0000

Thanks Heather, this was a fun way to read about why all those items you noted are important in all online classes.

By: Diedre Cain

Diedre Cain — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 23:30:05 +0000

My husband had to take what I suspect is the same online course you described because – get this – he got a ticket for not putting his foot down on the ground (even though he had come to a full stop) at a stop sign while. riding. his. bicycle. So… A supposedly bad bicyclist had to take a course for supposedly bad car drivers. Needless to say, we who are instructors need to make sure that our students see some relevance in taking the courses that we are teaching.

By: Peter Seaman

Peter Seaman — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 22:43:54 +0000

Thanks, Heather, for the entertaining and enlightening post!

Someone who is very near and dear to me had to take one of these online “punishment” courses a few years ago. She described how the pages had lots of meaningless (seemingly meaningless) text, and something clicked in my brain that caused me to advise her to copy the text from each page and save it on a separate document. Then she had a ready reference for the quiz, which I guessed (correctly) would surprise her at the end.

The bottom line is that students will always find ways to “game” online courses that are poorly designed. It’s incumbent on all of us who design, develop, and teach online classes to create meaningful and relevant learning experiences and assess learning in authentic and meaningful ways. Your post did such a good job of making this point. Thanks again.