Early American History (HIST 151)
Fall 2006
Student Comments
I really enjoy this class. I like how the instructor has presented the material. It is much more interesting and fun. When this class first started I was overwhelmed by the amount of work that was involved. Each module seemed to require reading and quite a bit of research. However, once the class got underway, it wasn’t as hard or as overwhelming as I thought it would be. I really learned a lot throughout the course and I like how it was set up. The book 1776 was really good also and I think it really helped contribute to the course. The teacher cancelled all quizzes and some modules, and changed the way our grades were weighted into the semester. I learned NOTHING from this professor. We never had any direction and I learned more about Pat Tillman the football player/soldier that lost his life in Iraq. The class was a waste of tuition dollars. I have attended classes at 3 Universities outside of Schoolcraft College and have over 100 credit hours with an A average, and this was by far the worse instructed class I have ever taken. The main text was a novel, and we only read 3 chapters of it. 1 I think it would be a good idea that if students were failing with the course, and showed they obviously had no idea what was going on, that the teacher would have taken the time to e-mail the student and ask if everything was alright and if they understood the criteria enough, and that if they were failing, the teacher would contact the student and let them know of their progress. I really thought that taking an online course would be more convenient for my busy schedule. The instructor said that we had to go online separate days to write responses and papers. I had trouble with this. I have had a full schedule before but I found this was the most difficult and time consuming class I have ever taken. I am really upset that the only thing I learned was from a book of his choice. I had trouble communicating with the instructor because he would wait a while to return e-mail and did not answer all the questions I asked. He would not give me a clear answer to what grade I had in the class. His grade book was inaccurate because when I totaled all my points and divided them by the total, I thought I had my grade. I asked him if that was my grade and he said, “no, because points are weighted different than that.”2 He also did not post the module for discussion on two occasions and had to change around a lot of due dates. I thought the class was very unclear and unorganized. I have told everyone that asked that on-line classes are a waste of time, I also explained to them how some instructors are just not willing to teach. That is why I have always liked Schoolcraft. This class has changed my mind.
1The information presented in this comment is factually incorrect. Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough’s 1776 is not a novel. The entire book—not just three chapters—was assigned.
2 The information about the grade book is misleading because the student is confusing absolute points with weighted scores. For example, assume there are three assessments. The first assessment, which is worth only 20% of the course grade, has a total of 100 points. The second assessment, worth 30% of the course grade, also has a total of 100 points. The third assessment is worth 50% of the course grade, but is graded in such a way that it has only 20 points.
For the purposes of easy calculation, assume that the student earned 100 points on each of the first two assignments and did not complete the second assignment. Using absolute point totals, this individual is arguing that his/her final grade should be based on 91%. However, because the scores are weighted, the actual grade is actually 50%. BlackBoard shows both the absolute points in the course as well as the weighted total.
My Comments
On 16 December 2006, I posted "When Teaching With Integrity Means Not Teaching" in which I posted some of my reflections on this course.
The revised version of the course is available on-line.
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