Since this is a new semester, I'll begin this blog with the "story of Fall 2009." As I began my tenth year of online teaching, I was excited about my classes and the possibilities that new students bring to the classroom. I was scheduled to teach a class based on my first book, Action Research Essentials, and was eager to find out if the book would be helpful to students who were just beginning the research journey. I quickly found out that there would be a permeating "absence of civility" that would eventually define the semester. I can honestly say that Fall 2009 brought out the WORST in students for some strange reason. Maybe it was the economy, maybe it was the awful start of the mighty Tennessee Titans...who knows?! What I do know now about the semester is that:- There was a general lack of disrespect for learning, course content, the professor (...me), the degree program, graduate school, and the university.
- The view of "I deserve an A no matter what" was a constant theme.
- The aura that "I have the worse situation in the world, so...cut me some slack..." seemed to surround 90% of the students.
- The lack or absence of civility emerged in emails, online forums, and within discussion groups with little to no concern for the use of words, insults, and general snarkiness.
- The outright refusal to purchase any texts for any classes (my own book included) combined with the demand that I provide all of the textbook information (without the purchase) for their sole convenience.
- Has online learning--which was once a very cool, innovative concept for those who were in an exclusive "learning club"--become the arena for venting, snarking, and throwing around disrespect?
- Has the online learning classroom become the "closet" where students feel they can engage in incivility without others putting a "face with the comment?"
- Is it the course design or content?
Which leads to another thought... what is really going on in public school classrooms today that would prompt such action in graduate classes?
I think back of my own graduate school experiences. I did not have the opportunity to attend graduate school without having a full time teaching job. I would teach all day and then make a mad dash to the car and drive to campus almost every Monday night for almost 8 years while completing my MAEd, EdS and EdD. I looked forward to my classes and to the interaction and dialog that took place among other professional educators.
I continue to ponder the differences between my experiences and my current students' experiences in the online classroom...
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