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Lenore, I teach our senior seminar (history of psychology) using an online format. The population of students is essentially the same as it was using an in-class format, and I don't see any difference in quality of term papers. However the posts to the group discussion boards often amount to short essays and some are quite good--better than the quality of comments in live face-to-face discussion were with the traditional format. Maybe the difference you perceive is a function of the instructions and prompts you provide using your new format. My students are very interested in detailed description of what is expected on the term paper--hence good written guidance helps to maintain the high quality of the papers they turn in. You mentioned that your online students might not be doing the required reading. I found a way to solve that problem: My students all do the reading, in part because they have to turn in responses to questions over the reading as weekly homework and in part because I give several midterm exams over the reading. For what it's worth, you might find some ideas in my syllabi for two online courses: http://www.humboldt.edu/~campbell/p485.htm http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~campbell/p100.htm --Dave Frigo, Lenore wrote: I have a new class online and am finding that the student work (essays) is on average inferior to the face-to-face class. (Although I should note that in both classes there has been both extremely good and poor work.) I suspect that the weakness lies in that the students need the lecture info to do well and that many of the online students are not bothering to READ the material (or the online materials are not as useful as my live lecture). But an alternative explanation is that the online and face-to-face classes have drawn from different populations of students (many students are online because they are "too busy" to attend class, ugh!). Any thoughts on this? Particularly, trying to figure out if it is the difference in teaching methodology or difference in student population that underlies the variation in student performance... Thanks for your thoughts, Lenore Frigo Shasta College Redding, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]--- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
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