{"id":189,"date":"2009-02-19T22:29:43","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T06:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/?p=189"},"modified":"2025-08-18T13:08:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:08:05","slug":"shocked-by-the-slacking-another-tale-of-woe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/shocked-by-the-slacking-another-tale-of-woe\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocked by the Slacking: Another Tale of Woe"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ve heard angst from me already, last month<\/a> and in December<\/a>, so if you can’t take anymore, leave now — there are some really cool videos over at YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I posted a question on Facebook today:<\/p>\n

“To what extent do students care that they miss or fail tests? and has this changed over the past decade or so? “<\/em><\/p>\n

and, having received no input inside five hours, added this:<\/p>\n

OK, I may have found a clue. According to the new Survey of American College Students: Use of & Satisfaction with College Tutoring Services (http:\/\/www.primaryresearch.com\/<\/a>):
\n“Half of students with a full time job have used the college tutoring services while less than 27% of those that do not work at all have done so.”<\/em><\/p>\n

What does this have to do with online teaching? After the first quiz in each of my online classes, I email those who missed it, reminding them of the schedule (a quiz every two weeks, due Monday at 5 pm) and the grading significance (10% each), asking if I can be of any help and offering the password to take the quiz late for partial points if they do it within a week. As expected, most students contacted me for the password.<\/p>\n

But this week, Quiz 2 was due in two of my online classes, and Quiz 2 was given in my on-site class. More students missed the second quiz than the first (in my online Western Civ, a shocking 12 didn’t take it). I figured it might be the holiday, and sent a reminder inside my announcement. Only two students have contacted me to take it late, out of 19 who missed it.<\/p>\n

At the same time, one student did<\/em> contact me, having taken the second quiz, saying he couldn’t figure out the gradebook and how was he doing? He had 45% on the first quiz and 50% on the second, so I informed him he was failing thus far, and pointed him toward help: my comments inside the quiz, the correct answers marked there, the sample essays written by his colleagues posted at the site. He responded that he hoped he could still get an “A”, since his goal, after all, was transfer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In my on-site class, the average on the second quiz (a C) was almost identical to the first test, but that doesn’t tell the story of essays so bad that I want to forbid them from leaving the 18th century to proceed to the 19th until I know they understand the former. It feels downright un-American to allow students to mosey on into industrialization when they have demonstrated an appalling lack of understanding regarding the basics of political and economic liberalism, even as it relates to our own American Revolution.<\/p>\n

\"\"All of them have transfer as their goal. The college has excellent support systems, tutoring and student success workshops. I am available online a lot of the time to help. And yet several students arrived at the quiz without writing implements, a couple without Scantrons for the objective portion, several without their documents book (it’s an open document book test, as I expect some quotations for support and don’t want them memorizing).<\/p>\n

As I’ve mentioned before, I do understand<\/em>. I understand about illness, and family members dying, and job responsibilities. (I even understand car troubles, having been offered for the first time this week a note from the student’s mechanic for missing the quiz — you may have to be from southern California to get that one.) But I am aware that many of the students not doing their work do not have these problems. They just don’t do the work, and less than a third without an outside job access any help, according to the survey (and that’s at four-year schools with residential students — I’ll bet it’s even less at community\/commuter college). I appreciate their optimism about their college career, and I’m always very honest with them about the quality of what they’re doing. I do not get angry about it, because maintaining a safe and comfortable environment for them to learn is more important. But when they’re not learning, it’s harder to know what to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’ve heard angst from me already, last month and in December, so if you can’t take anymore, leave now — there are some really cool videos over at YouTube. I posted a question on Facebook today: “To what extent do students care that they miss or fail tests? and has this changed over the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-teaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10053,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/10053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}