I Feel Like A Failure (Again!)

One of the things that I hate about this time of year is the grading. Not simply the grading itself, which is universally felt as drudgery, but the feeling that I have somehow failed these students if they fail. I know that some of this is internalized messages about "if the student fails, the teacher has failed." That's really unfair on the teacher, since we can only do so much. We can give them every opportunity to succeed. They just have to be willing to take those opportunities.

But still.

The case that has me putting on my hair shirt this time is, of course, an online class. I teach two every semester. Two different courses (let's call them A and U), too -- what we would call "preps" if they were regular classes. In general, my online classes do not do as well as my classroom classes. In general, A students do not do as well as B students, despite the fact that they tend to self-select into A, where as U is the universal requirement. This is true for both online and regular classes. I also think that I tend to teach A better than all of my other classes because it is more specialized. In any case, the class that has me putting on the hair shirt is A, online.

This semester, my requirements for the online course included weekly quizzes over every textbook chapter, four "unit" assignments (each essentially the equivalent of a take-home essay test), a paper that is a written analysis of a museum exhibit, a running bibliography, and an annotated bibliography. I did not give a mid-term or a final because the logistics of that became a nightmare and I was on the hit list at the testing center. That was the reason that I included the two bibliography assignments, to make up for the lack of exams.

I may have overdone it on the bibliography assignment, which was a bit of an experiment this semester. I adapted it from an assignment that I had in library school. For each chapter, they were required to conduct a search on a particular subject from that chapter and compile a bibliography of five sources. They did not have to read these sources, just find them using the school library's databases. Then, they would write out those five sources in bibliographic form, and write a narrative describing how they found them. I was looking for their use of databases and search terms. The purpose was to get them familiar with the databases and with the various ways to find things in a database. I came up with it as I discovered that most students think research is "I put this term into Google and these were the first five hits."

So, they do that for each chapter of the text for a total of 13 chapters. Then, for the annotated bibliography, they choose five of those sources, read them, and summarize them. I even gave a template and examples for the way to do an annotation. The purpose of this was to expose them to something scholarly, and to get them to read about something -- anything -- in greater depth. That may have been too much for them. They are essentially freshman-level.

The length of the running bibliography and the depth of the annotated bibliography may have demoralized them, I think. I think also that I should have had them turn in the running bibliography each week, or more frequently than mid-term (for chapters covered to that point) and final (for chapters covered after).

Still, over half of the class did not turn in the mid-term version; and, of those who turned in the final, only two did any annotation. It was clear some of them tried to throw the whole thing together in the past week; but most of them put in a good faith effort on what they did turn in.

I feel like I inadvertently set them up for failure with this assignment.*

That's part one of my feeling of failure. Part two comes when I scan across the grade book. Starting with about week 8, the number of people taking the quizzes begins dropping off. On the unit assignments, not one time did I have everyone turn in their assignments. On units 3 and 4, only 50% turned in assignments. Only 60% turned in a museum assignment (and don't get me started on what passed for a "revision"). Seven out of 18 turned in mid-term bibliographies, and 6 out of 18 turned in final bibliographies (and only 2 did annotated bibliographies). It's not just the bibliography assignment, it's the whole semester.

What am I doing wrong? I respond to e-mails and questions in the open discussion board. Is it because I am a slow grader? Possibly. Am I expected to e-mail them when they don't check into class for a while? I'm not entirely sure how that is supposed to work because, if they aren't checking into class, they aren't going to check their class e-mail. I can't MAKE them do the work.

I worry about this for two reasons. First, I feel more and more helpless in this online mess. Online can work, but it requires a huge chunk of time to work, and fewer students because they require so much more individual attention. I am overwhelmed with students, online and otherwise.

Online has also become sort of the "cure all" for all institutional ills. Need more space? Go online! Or hybrid! Need more students? Open an online section! I often feel that the people who make these decisions have never taught online. On top of that,they want more and more control over the content of these online classes with this "Common Course" thing that they are trying to shove at us. I can't help but feel that it is not really education going on -- at least not at the rate and in the quantities that they demand.

Also, I really really do not think that the people who gravitate toward online classes know what they are getting into. Some people can do the work, but others should consider that, if they don't have time to go to class, maybe they don't have time to spend on class. If their writing skills are weak, they are going to have to face that and work on it. A lot -- at least in my classes. I can't do anything about that. What other assignments can I give that allow them to demonstrate their understanding of the material and don't require me to teach them a new software program? Many of them are not as computer savvy as you would expect. Even then, at some point they are going to have to write and to put in the time. That's the nature of the beast. That's the nature of education.

I'd be open to more creative assignments, that's for sure. Ones that might even be fun. I'll take suggestions. Our teaching/learning center sure doesn't help in that regard.

All of which leads to my second worry that other people will judge only me as being the failure. High student failure rates indicate something is going wrong. As half of the equation here (the students being the other half), that doesn't say much for me as a motivator. Again, maybe I'm just overwhelmed and wouldn't be so demoralized if I had only one class online. Maybe I'm just not a good online teacher. Maybe I just need help in figuring out how to be a better motivator. I don't know; but I do know that saying, "they made their choices and chose not to do the work" is not going to be an acceptable explanation higher up -- nor does it help me feel any better about the job I'm doing. When half of your class fails, you certainly feel like you failed at something along the way.

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*When I realized that they were overwhelmed, I altered the assignment, in addition to extending the deadline to the last possible moment. Any annotation would be considered extra credit. That way, they could focus on the first part, which was worth more points and would probably have more impact on their research skills.