Currently, I have 23 Final Papers that must be graded by Midnight on Saturday. Just like students, instructors are typically provided with specific deadlines within the online classroom regarding when to return grades and feedback.
The timeframe for grading and providing feedback to students varies based on the university or college where one is teaching. For discussion question posts, feedback is typically due 24-72 hours after the end of the discussion week. For assignments, most schools allot 4 to 7 days to provide feedback. For teachers coming from a traditional classroom (where it isn’t uncommon to find instructors who wait until the end of the semester to grade everything) this can be a huge change. It requires careful planning and consideration to meet the deadlines required.
Just as students in the online classroom need deadlines to keep themselves on task and to make sure that they are completing the material, online instructors need deadlines to ensure that requirements are being met in the online classroom and that students are receiving the feedback they need in order to continue onward within the course.
Some people have a preconceived notion that online learning is self-paced, but in most classrooms, this is not the case. The curriculum and assignments are assigned due dates throughout the course and students know when their assignments are due from the first day of the course – just as instructors know when their deadlines are as well. While there is a great deal of flexibility in online learning, it is not an environment without deadlines. There are still requirements that must be met during each learning week.
For both instructors and students, the flexibility is in terms of when they choose to complete the required work – but there is not a great deal of flexibility in the work itself or when it is due. In most courses, the learning weeks build on each other – meaning what you learn about in week one you might need to apply throughout the rest of the course or examine in a different way during a future week. Each week creates a foundation of learning that will help the student as the course, and their future courses, continue.
It is also vital that students meet deadlines so that they can engage in a substantive discussion. If students complete the work in any order and don’t work inside the set learning weeks, the discussion would not be as dynamic or relevant.
Another benefit of deadlines is that they motivate students and instructors to login to the course frequently and to have a presence in the online classroom. Students and instructors can both lose motivation and momentum if there are not specific deadline requirements each week.
Another trick that most online universities and colleges utilize is keeping the weeks consistent. For example, perhaps discussion questions are always due on Thursday and instructors must provide grading and feedback by the following Thursday. When the courses follow a predictable schedule it can be easier for both students and instructors to structure their weeks around their online courses.
About the Author
Jamie Weitl is a WAHM teaching for several online universities and raising three precocious little ones. In her spare time she enjoys writing, baking, and running. For more info, see my Google Plus Profile.
