my brother asked me tonight (after we'd covered the chemo and the kids) -- and I was taken aback. I couldn't say oh, the online is great and the f2f is awful or the opposite. indeed, I think I've gotten so used to both methods that they are now just classes.
one of the online classes is fabulous -- the children's lit -- after 3 semesters of trial and error, online and f2f, this group of students is taking everything I have to offer and giving me back triple. they are interested, invested, challenged and challenging. I love the whole conversation.
the other online class, well, it's the first time I'm teaching it, I'm not convinced that these are great textbooks, it's more social science and I'm not so fond of the social sciences as I am of lit (my BA and MA are in political science, there was obviously a reason I went humanities in the phd). they're ok students, doing a minimum plus, but not much more, and I haven't tweaked the questions up well yet.
the two face-to-face classes are actually hybrids: we meet 1/3 online and 2/3 in the class. one of them does the work, the other not so much. one class has 22 people who have taken the quiz due for tomorrow (essential for doing the assignment well), the other class has 2 who have done it as of 8:52pm Sunday night.
so it's finally not about delivery systems but about the students (primarily) and somewhat about my degree of preparation (new classes are rarely smooth from the beginning).
this is good to think about as my sabbatical proposal underwent major changes today and now while part A is about the program I've applied to, part B is just about researching and revising online classes in light of retention (maybe teacher retention as much as student retention). the dean says ok to the concept and I think will ok the final version tomorrow. thanks for the help, PhilosopherP and Julie.
bonus: plus the wash is done and delivered. :-)
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