Conflicted

I'm planning out classes for the fall, and once again, I find myself conflicted about something.

You see, our campus offers an "online presence" for courses that meet in-person. Note that this "online presence" is NOT the same as offering the course "online." Many, if not most campuses have this now - WebCT and Blackboard are the two big packages a lot of places use.

What it is, is a place for the faculty member to post announcements (v. useful if you have to cancel class on short notice), put up handouts (so the person who was out sick can get them without your having to lug the extra copies around forever), and put up course material like outlines.

And it's the last bit that I'm feeling the most conflicted about.

In most of my courses, I use Powerpoint for a lot of the stuff. It's useful to me because I can take graphs and charts - either downloaded, or grabbed off the CD that comes with most textbooks, or even scanned - and have nice neat depictions of research data to show with the case studies I discuss. Or I can put terminology on there. Or I've even done a few very simple animations in Powerpoint.

I like using it because my handwriting is poor (ask any of the students), and besides, our chalkboards are gray. Yes, they put pale gray chalkboards in our classrooms. It's horrible because white chalk really doesn't show up on them, and with yellow chalk you have to write HUGE and be sure all the lights are on and have the blinds drawn over the windows. And even at that the students in the back can't see the board all that well.

So I use Powerpoint, which has the drawback of being "canned" and not being something you can add to on the fly in the classroom (we are SUPPOSED to get those "digital blackboard" things you can write on and have it projected, but I'm not holding my breath).

Anyway, when we started using Blackboard (the computer program, not the crummy gray blackboards we have), students asked me: Are you going to put your Powerpoints up online?

And at first I thought: what a great idea! I would have loved that when I was a student!

One of the things I remember from my TA training was this: it is the atypical students who wind up as professors.

So my interpretation of Powerpoints online would have been: Great! I can print them out and bring them to class with me and take notes on them!

So I put the Powerpoints online.

And I began to notice something.

My attendance levels were lower.

Not just in the non-majors classes I teach (where crap attendance is often the norm), but also in my Majors classes.

Okay, first an aside: I do not like the idea of mandatory attendance. I don't like the idea of taking off points for poor attendance for a couple of reasons.

First of all: these people are adults. They should be able to realize the importance of coming to class without being forced into it.

Second: it's actually a problem that kind of "takes care of itself" in that most of the people who fail, and I mean Epic Fail (like get 30% and such) are the people who chronically skip. The people who attend every day or nearly so? They AT LEAST pass. (I will give an example in a moment).

But third, and most importantly: I do not want the paperwork. I do not want to have to deal with the myriad doctor's notes, and letters-from-lawyers verifying that said person was testifying on said day, and the obituaries listing them as a pallbearer and all that sad detritus. Because I am not that organized. And it chafes me to think of spending even 15 minutes a day having to do that kind of clerical work (and it would more likely be 15 minutes per class, or 45 minutes to an hour a day).

HOWEVER, often when people skip class a lot, it's partly because they're immature. And the problem with immaturity, is there's the tendency to blame others for one's own failures.

Hence, I have the problem of people showing up all sad to my office at the end of the semester (when I'm already stressed, trying to grade and write exams and plan to maybe get out of town for a few days of R & R once the semester is over). And they want to know why they are failing. And they want to know if there is anything they can do. And they want to know if I give extra credit assignments. And then they want to know just WHY I am so mean as to not make extra credit available.

And it is something with which I'd rather not deal.

I have the situation in one of my classes this summer - the vast majority of students are polite and funny and nice and kind and they show up to class and of the ones who show up to this class they are averaging (AVERAGING) 85% on the tests.

But there is one guy who never comes. Except on test day and on lab day. I guess he's figured it's not important to him. He is averaging a 50% on the tests.

But what bothers me more than that is his attitude.

The last lab - which was a field lab - he waited outside in the parking lot while I explained to the class the sampling method they were going to use. (I had assumed he was skipping, since I didn't see him in the room). As we were leaving, I said, "Is this everyone that's here today?"

One of the young women said, "Oh, Jack's here. He's waiting outside."

$%*$%&$(*&$%(*&$%!

"So, he won't know the sampling techniques, then" I muttered to myself. And true to form, Jack didn't. He had to ask for help, he had to "mooch" off the knowledge of the other people in his group (and why they let him is BEYOND me. He never pays attention, he rarely does much of the work...and yet they let him. I've made some little comments here and there but I'm not aggressive enough to go "Jack - you need to get on task. You need to stop being a sponge.")

And then? Jack complained that there was poison ivy at the site. (Well, duh. This is the South. Alllllll of the forests around here have had disturbance. It is a fact of life.)

"I didn't KNOW" he whined. "I have medication I'm supposed to put on when I go out in poison ivy!"

I was fuming at that point. I didn't trust myself not to say something really regrettable, so I refrained from commenting, "I MENTIONED EVERY DAY THIS WEEK AT THE START ***AND*** END OF CLASS THAT WE WERE GOING OUT IN THE FIELD WHERE THERE WAS POISON IVY!!!!" But it's true; I did. One guy who had a high level of sensitivity to it brought a set of coveralls with him and put them on for protection. The other students - most of whom come to class in shorts- were all wearing jeans and boots that day.

So I was not happy with Jack. And if he got poison ivy and bitches to me about it next week, I'll just happen to mention that I announced it, and it's not my responsibility if someone's not present to hear the announcements.

(Interesting that he can mooch off of his labmates for everything else, yet they didn't bother to tell him about the ivy...or maybe he wasn't listening).

At any rate, this long complain-fest has as its upshot: I am thinking of not doing the WebCT thing this fall. I am thinking of NOT posting content online because it seems to enable people who want to skip class to do so. And then it makes headaches for me - both in dealing with their 'tudes when they don't get some important announcement, and in dealing with their sadness and anger when they earn a poor grade because they missed most of the discussions in class. (And missed the new material I bring in - I'm always reading and if something comes up in the news or journals that pertains to class material, I make a point of discussing it. Even if it's not on the Powerpoint.

The thing is, though - and this is what stays my hand from completely deciding to drop the online presence of my courses - I've seen some of the better students in the class show up with printouts of the Powerpoints. And seen them take notes on them. Just like I would have done had they been available in my day.

So on the one hand, I'd love to save myself headaches from dealing with the students who somehow believe they're entitled to an online course even if it's not really offered as an online course, but on the other, I don't want to penalize people who are using the online stuff as it was intended to be used.

And I have to admit that not having to carry old handouts to class with me is nice; it's good to be able to tell people who skipped (or were out sick), "Go to the Blackboard site to get the handout" instead of having to lug folders of stuff with me to class.

So I don't know. I suppose I will continue to do the online stuff, because I hate it when a few rule-breakers spoil something that the rule-abiding people benefit from, and that happens way too often. However, I'd like to be able to enforce something like a "If you don't show, you can't whine" policy. Because really, I think someone who's present at 1/3 or fewer of the classes has abrogated their right to complain that I am a "bad" teacher. Especially since the people who are always there do well in the class, and many of them at least give me the impression that they think I am a good teacher.