Online Classes Aren’t Self Sufficient (Kim, Hong, Bonk & Lim, 2011)

My biggest take away from this article was that online classes cannot run themselves. Though I appreciate professors that are engaged in their online classes, I think that many will create the original course, set reminders for announcements and then let the course flow. As I said in my earlier blog post, I often give my students guidelines for an assignment then turn it over to them. Though the medium of the teaching in this article was for online classes, I could see the parallels in group work in the classroom. If you do not give the students within the group specific assignments, some would end up doing the work for all. The authors’ suggestion that group work should be graded by individual effort one that I go back and forth on. I tell my students that in the workplace that often times when a multi-staff project is required, the supervisor is looking for a completed project, at whatever costs it takes. An employee can take their complaints against a coworker to their supervisor, but often times nothing will happen. There are always employees that have to pick up the slack of others. I also do not want to promote this behavior but I also want students to have experience in these situations. I still believe that students should take the responsibility of delegating how the work should be divided. I think a good medium is for teachers to provide the tasks, then students should meet to decide who will do what task and then provide a document back to the instructor. This can also be implemented in their workplace in the future. This way the supervisor (instructor) will know who is responsible for what and if in the end the work is not completed, one specific person can be held accountable. I do not think that the instructor should be responsible for assigning specific step by step task in an undergraduate or higher course. The instructor can have regular check ins with the group to make sure they are on track and to smooth out any issues along the way.