This assignment could not have come at a better time in my life so I am pretty excited to express my recent dilemma with my online math course. Taking a course online is nothing new for me, I have taken on average one per term since my sophmore year of college, so obviously I enjoy being able to take classes online and I know how they work. This term I had several time conflicts with a few courses so I had to register for this course online as well as a math course, which I thought would not be a big deal. I enjoy self paced learning environments and in the past of taking online courses I have done very well, I also need to mention that I have taken a previous math course online and did very well in it too. Once this term started and a week went by that I had not received any type of email or contact information I began to worry. As the week wore on students within the course were sending back and forth information on the discussion board, we finally found out that our teacher had recently lost a family member that was the reason for his absence. This made sense to me so during week 2 we finally got a course schedule, the following week I wrote the professor an email regarding our homework and was wondering how and when we would know how we did (grade wise). He did not respond for 6 days! The response was go to the math tutoring center, and that was it. The next week I emailed him about our midterm that was approaching, regarding which chapters it would be over, and again about grades from previous assignments. A week and a day later (after the midterm) I received an email from the professor, saying sorry for the delayed response that he had been ill and his internet had been acting up. At this point I was fed up, all the responses I was getting back were excuses, and as an online professor not being in contact with your students for more than 24 hours is unacceptable. After this experience I went to the Ecampus office and filed a complaint, I have been in touch with the chair at the Ecampus office ever since. Although the professor has gotten better about responding to my emails and questions he only checks his email at most twice a week (or responds twice a week). Which to me as a student and for him as a professor of an online course this is not responsible. I have done my best to try and ask questions with at least a week's notice knowing he is not quick to respond but having this situation has given me so much unneeded stress and frustration. I think that this course has been such a problem because of the lack of attention from the professor, and it appears the lack of care for his students, and no one wants a teacher like that.
Had I been able to take this course in a classroom setting getting my questions answered would not be nearly as difficult because of the one on one interaction that the classroom offers. I also would be able to attend office hours if I had taken the class on campus.
Although this experience has been an awful one, I would still consider taking more courses online, because I hope that after all of the complaints about this professor he won't be teaching online classes anymore! The Ecampus office was more than willing to try and help me, and I think that this shows how much they care that we are really getting the quality education that we are paying extra for.
