Do professors actually care?

[Exfactor]

This semester I decided to take an online course, as I would be spending most of my time working on my thesis in another class on campus. In this online class the professor was rarely active. However, some road blocks were projected as for some course work directions were limited. Yet, the professor would only show up in the course every 2 or 3 weeks. Yet, during the whole entire time, no work that was submitted was graded (discussion boards, essays, midterms, finals ect). However, a couple weeks back I emailed the professor stating to him how I uploaded the wrong paper as an attachment for an assignment, and if he could clear it out so I could re-upload, never received a response.

Grades for the course were due this Tuesday by 5 pm, so something tells me to log into the grade book, and I noticed he's finally doing grades an hour before they are due. Once I noticed he was signed into the course I emailed him again, as I did weeks prior about re-submitting a paper that was uploaded by error. Within 10 seconds, and a couple refreshes in the browser I had a grade for 20 assignments in the course; even the paper that had nothing to do with one of the assignments, which I continued to email him about had a grade lol.

But not only that... He was rushing to turn in grades that he failed to grade 3 assignments that I turned in.

Refreshing my browser, and just watching this professor throw grades out; has really made me think different about the whole process of education.

Do any of you feel that professors actually care about the work you turn in, or are we as students just turning in work for the sake of it?

[davewill]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Three of my TESU mentors were pretty good, one of the others was mostly AWOL like yours but wasn't that bad about grading work.

[mednat]

It varies alot. I'd suggest being honest on the evaluation. Some people are happy as long as they get an A, but I feel like if I'm paying a ton of money to take a class I expect more than I can get on my own. In the case you described, I would likely have already reached out to the department dean. I don't mind pissing people off though and demand that I get more attention than you've received.

Ratemyprofessors is a good way to prescreen as well. I usually check it out before enrolling.

[TrailRunr]

IMHO, instructors for online classes in general are worse than those that teach in-person regardless of whether it is TESU or the local community college. This extends to courses from IT vendors as well. I have my theories on why it's like that, but I'll keep that to myself. When my employer pays for a class, I always look for an in-person class in my area and avoid the live webcam online sections.

Because I don't have infinite time and gas, I've taken a bazillion courses online or did credit-by-exam while I avoided on-campus sections. I've had a number of AWOL instructors, most so-so, and very few good ones. I feel like most of the time, I'm teaching myself the material rather than instructors teaching me.

This past year, I decided to take foreign language classes in-person rather than online. I don't care if my classmates are generally below drinking age. Oral activities are pretty critical when learning a foreign language, so I ditched my usual preference to go with online. There are a few other subjects I would do the same thing as well. The vast majority of my best and memorable classes were in-person while earning my first bachelor's degree.

[videogamesrock]

Many are very lazy. In this day and age it really isn't necessary to have a lot of teachers and they can be easily replaced with technology. I'm willing to bet the future of online college will be run by a handful of teachers.

They are very lazy in many cases. Slow to respond sometimes flat out unhelpful. Really really lazy.

[cookderosa]

I think the online platform allows lazy teachers a way to fly under the radar. My experience hasn't been dissimilar to yours, that said, I've had a few really good teachers too - so, it depends.

My husband is in an interesting situation. He teaches for a university (face to face) and is also enrolled in their online MBA program. His teachers - many of them he sees in the halls (!) are lazy at best. They don't follow policy, they lie about glitches that are clearly laziness. ex. teacher announces the class wasn't open in time or tests weren't uploaded or essays weren't graded because of the "computers" or this or that.... when my husband is logged in as faculty (ha ha) and sees that the donkey hasn't signed in for weeks...tisk tisk... my husband's degree is paid nearly in full by his employer. He's checking the box. Clearly these guys -his coworkers- are also checking the box.

[ladylearner]

IMHO, instructors for online classes in general are worse than those that teach in-person regardless of whether it is TESU or the local community college. This extends to courses from IT vendors as well. I have my theories on why it's like that, but I'll keep that to myself. When my employer pays for a class, I always look for an in-person class in my area and avoid the live webcam online sections.

Because I don't have infinite time and gas, I've taken a bazillion courses online or did credit-by-exam while I avoided on-campus sections. I've had a number of AWOL instructors, most so-so, and very few good ones. I feel like most of the time, I'm teaching myself the material rather than instructors teaching me.

This past year, I decided to take foreign language classes in-person rather than online. I don't care if my classmates are generally below drinking age. Oral activities are pretty critical when learning a foreign language, so I ditched my usual preference to go with online. There are a few other subjects I would do the same thing as well. The vast majority of my best and memorable classes were in-person while earning my first bachelor's degree.

I loved taking foreign language classes online. They were advanced level, though, so everyone already knew the language. We had a lot of oral activities requiring a webcam, voice recordings, etc. We had to do a weekly oral session with the professor's assistant (who had a PhD in the target language). My exams were all oral and we had to do presentations with oral components. I was really impressed with the level of interaction. I was told the lower level classes had similar oral requirements but I don't know how that works. I also have no idea how this works in other colleges.

[TrailRunr]

I loved taking foreign language classes online. They were advanced level, though, so everyone already knew the language. We had a lot of oral activities requiring a webcam, voice recordings, etc. We had to do a weekly oral session with the professor's assistant (who had a PhD in the target language). My exams were all oral and we had to do presentations with oral components. I was really impressed with the level of interaction. I was told the lower level classes had similar oral requirements but I don't know how that works. I also have no idea how this works in other colleges.

That sounds like a pretty good class. Typically, the lower classes have five hours of on-the-fly oral/listening per week with homework and prep for oral presentations on top that. You get instant feedback. You hear other students being corrected. It's nowhere near as good as living in the target country, but way better than say..... learning from a book or SL. This is likely why almost nobody without previous language experience succeeds in earning credits via the language CLEP exams. This is why I don't try to learn foreign language online or on my own. What's really hard about taking the onsite class is finding an instructor who is both good and willing to let go of the occasional absence/tardy. Sometimes work does get in the way with so many hours in the classroom and commuting to the classroom.

[TrailRunr]

Now I remember one of my TESU mentors saying my PDF file was corrupt. I re-downloaded the submission and it opens fine in Adobe Acrobat reader and the browser PDF previewer. I decided to just re-upload the same file and call it a day. It was finally graded a couple of weeks later.

At the time, I started thinking about the idea of uploading a corrupt file or "accidentally" password protected file on purpose to give myself a free extension on an assignment with no penalty. Students can be lazy too.

[Life Long Learning]

I find CC Instructors excellent,:hurray: but I find University professors lazy.:toetap: