04/23: Classic Denial

You'll love this email I received from a student this week:

Professor,

I have tried unsuccessfully several times to contact you regarding the online class. I have not been able to pull it up on Blackboard and I have tried to get help but they are telling me that I am not enrolled. But then I went to go see the Blackboard tech person and she said that I am enrolled, so I am really frustrated and confused and I have not been able to see any of the assignments and I could not get a phone number for you and I stopped by your old office but they said that you no longer have one on campus. if you could get back to me that would be great. I graduate in May and I need this class and I am extremely worried. I would be willing to do anything to pass this class I am not sure what happened to my blackboard account. Thank you, L. H.

Here was my response to her:


Hi L,

It has been quite a while since I heard from you and, unfortunately, I don't know what to tell you. How were you trying to contact me? This is the first email that I have received from you in months. My cellphone didn't ring, either (which was posted online in the classroom from day one). If you contacted your study buddy, that person never contacted me. However, that was the very first assignment in the course and you didn't complete that (at least not as far as I am aware...the other students posted their study-buddy online as I requested but I don't see any postings from you on this assignment).

I could have easily resolved your concerns if you had contacted me. During Spring break, I removed you from the online course. You had not participated or logged into the class in months. You did not submit even one assignments and I had no contact from you. In fact, the last record of your presence in Blackboard was on February 1st. If you had, indeed, been trying to get into the classroom or accessing it, what did the help desk tell you? Certainly they would have seen that you were not even listed? If you had emailed or contacted me, I would have put you back into the course.

I don't know what to tell you about graduation. But, clearly an online class requires an online presence. I made that very clear in the beginning of the course. Since I last heard from you on or about February 1st and it is now mid-April, I feel no obligation to give you an incomplete or pass you for the course. I know that isn't the answer you want to hear, but you will need to discuss this with your advisor. I'm cc'ing the department chair on this email as I had contacted her via email on 2/15 that you had logged into the class but not participated or submitted assignments. I advised the chair at that time that you were not going to pass the class since you were not participating or submitting work on time and she was notifying your advisor. Perhaps the chair will other advice for you. Best of luck and I'm sorry that you waited until mid-April to contact me.

Professor

04/13: One month?

I cannot believe I haven't written for an entire month! Things have calmed down and there is a light at the end of the horizon. Only three weeks left and, in the meantime, my one online course ended. Yippee! I'm almost done AND...drum roll...I'm taking next semester off. Well, off from face-to-face teaching. The school thinks differently and put me on the schedule even though they never asked me to teach! That's a good sign but I did have to tell them that I wasn't going to do it.

My online class had an interesting character in it. She wanted an A. That was the bottom line. Not that she wanted to EARN an A, she just wanted it. She spent hours on the phone with her advisor about why she deserved an A. She ended up earning an A- and she was furious. She was also mad at me because I didn't respond to her in a timely fashion during the week I was at the funeral for my father-in-law (even though I told them that I wouldn't be responding, I was going to a funeral, and we had a SECOND instructor that she didn't contact!).

I love my stupents...

BTW, I had an amazing student in this class. She was a dream student who went the extra mile and really put in 150%. She earned an A and raised the benchmark for the rest of the class. It was an amazing experience to finally have a really, really good student again. Ahhhhh...the joy of teaching when the students want to work for their grades, not just get them handed to them.