Teaching Online

[downer]

I've been pleasantly surprised to see that some students who really struggled in the f2f situation are doing better online. (No access to friends to work with on the homework? No closed-book test anxiety? Access to the instructional videos as many times as they need? Or simply that the course itself isn't as difficult.... who knows ....)

Can anybody else speak to this phenomenon?

Are you certain that the enrolled students are the ones actually doing the work online and not having "helpers" (e.g., friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, paid help) do the work for them?

Of course, that's an issue for f2f courses too. I'm sure that a portion of work that I grade every semester is done by people other than the student who submits it. I haven't seen any reason to think this sort of plagiarism occurs more in online courses than it does in f2f courses.

[Tamiam]

I've been pleasantly surprised to see that some students who really struggled in the f2f situation are doing better online. (No access to friends to work with on the homework? No closed-book test anxiety? Access to the instructional videos as many times as they need? Or simply that the course itself isn't as difficult.... who knows ....)

Can anybody else speak to this phenomenon?

Are you certain that the enrolled students are the ones actually doing the work online and not having "helpers" (e.g., friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, paid help) do the work for them?

Of course, that's an issue for f2f courses too. I'm sure that a portion of work that I grade every semester is done by people other than the student who submits it. I haven't seen any reason to think this sort of plagiarism occurs more in online courses than it does in f2f courses.

I don't think that friends/others are doing the course work for them in this particular case. I do know that it happens, of course, but I know these students pretty well. And I'll debrief with them in the fall.