george clooney loses out to comments
so my big plan was to watch ocean’s thirteen last night. on a whim, i got it from one of those red rental things in the grocery store. which means i was supposed to return it today (why i have a roving rental eye and don’t just stick with netflix, i’ll never know) so i was under a bit of a time constraint.
but my libs101 students had topic declarations for their pathfinder projects due yesterday. and i was curious to see what topics they chose. i thought i could give them a read and post grades to blackboard in under an hour and still watch my movie. i thought this because i had no intention of commenting on their topic posts.
on monday, i posted an announcement to the course blog stating that if they didn’t hear from me personally about a problem with their topic and they got a grade in blackboard, all was well. i was really hesitant to comment on their topics because i didn’t want to publicly discuss something tied to their grade that could possibly need revision on their part. what if they had picked a topic that was too broad or not workable? i wouldn’t want to say that in a public comment. i didn’t want to call anyone out. so i decided that i wouldn’t comment on any topics at all.
but i came across a student post about really liking the discussion aspect of course blogging, and that got me thinking. i really like the discussion aspect as well (which is one of the reason we are using blogs) and i enjoyed commenting on the student’s introductory posts. their posts put a face and a personality with a name and gave me insights into their needs that normally would have taken most of the semester, if we were lucky enough for it to happen at all. i also wondered if by commenting on their first post, i had set an expectation that i would comment on future posts.
i realized that i had started a dialogue with them and i didn’t want to lose that. so i set about commenting on their topics. it took a while, even though my comments were often short. and i lucked out because there was no need to call anyone out. i missed the movie, but i think it was well worth it. 20 undergrads beat george out for my attentions.
i am curious how other teachers deal with these issues. anyone out there have any thoughts?
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February 17th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I’ve described this setting down to write one or two things on class blogs and then disappearing for hours as a hidden time cost of entering into this world. Still, as you point out, it’s time that feels well spent. So, I’ve been trying to build this time in more consciously. Another possibility to avoid it overwhelming you, is to tell the students that you’ll comment on some of their posts, but not all of them. That way you avoid the expectation that you’re responding to each post. [There's a good reason for this beyond the time commitment on your part. I've found that my posting comments (as the teacher) can prevent a student's fellow classmates from posting their own.]
February 20th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for the input. I think I will have to let my students know that I won’t comment on every post, particularly for the multitude of posts that I am expecting for an upcoming assignment.
Interesting that your commenting discourages students from posting comments. I wonder why that is the case. Perhaps some fear of their post being compared to yours (an “I don’t want to have to compete with the instructor” type of thing)? Or is it something else?
The dialogue that can be created through blogging is so wonderful, but it does create a relationship between student and teacher that feels unfamiliar and raises a lot of questions.