Lazy professors

I have learned a theory from my brief experience in college.  I also think this
is something that I am going to have to consider and live by.  Online classes breed lazy professors and resourceful students.

Exhibit A:

One of my professors does not post any lecture notes at all.  Simply reading assignments.  Most are from the (required) books.  Others are reserved readings selected from the campus online library.  Sure these cover the material that we are supposed to learn, but it is all subjective from whoever wrote them.  Nothing is elaborated, expanded upon, or emphasized.  So essentially we have to determine what is applicable and why.

Exhibit B:

This same professor thinks that by posting a link to an hour long video, that covers any potential lecture.  Most of these videos are presentations of guest speakers from the academic community at some event speaking.  Most of these videos are in regards to their new book (this is not a literary class, this is a international relations and policy class) or people self-aggrandizing their own theory from the book or otherwise posted work.  Once again, there is no elaboration, expansion of thought, or emphasizing of importance or relevance in today's world.

Exhibit C:

The online discussion boards.  The bane of every online classes existence.  We are tasked with answering a question, mostly from our own input and point of view.  The professor will post a response question to our posting.  Once we respond, there is no feedback of any kind.  This is the only interaction any of us have with the professor.  We are not being gauged at all on our understanding of the material.  These are simple "Why do you think ____ ?" responses.  At this point, an automated response generator from a computer could perform the same duties as our educator.

Exhibit D:

During the third week, we had to answer various questions on a particular topic.  This topic was in the reading.  But it wasn't.  It was not in the assigned reading.  Or books.  Or reserved campus library readings.  Or even in the campus library, online and on the shelf.  Soooooo....after some deliberations, ponderings, and numerous emails between students:  Google.  We all end up finding enough of an exert online to generally get the idea of the reading.  However, this apparently is not enough to answer the questions.  This is brought up to the professor with no response.

Conclusion:

Not all online courses are bad.  However, use of RateMyProfessor.com and any other word of mouth or other metric is valuable when choosing the course.

Additionally, I LOOOOOOVE instructor evals.  This was definitely in mine, as about 21 others.

Karma