Study Guide

Five Things You Should Know
about Professor Knox's Online Courses

  1. This isn't easier
  2. You will learn more
  3. WYSIWYG
  4. Grades don't matter
  5. This isn't easier

1. This isn't easier

It's difficult for a teacher to know why students do not succeed in a course, but my impression is that in the vast majority of cases for my courses, it's because the student mis-judged the amount of work it takes.

Students don't intentionally enter a course only to fail or bail. They don't necessarily sign up thinking "this will be a skate." The error in judgment is subtler than that.

I have heard students say they didn't realize the course would take so much time. Or that they took the course because they didn't have the time for an on-campus course. Or that they couldn't work a regular course into their schedule.

Do you see?

These students don't explicitly say "this online course will take less time" but the implication is there. They think they're making good time management decisions. This is increasingly common because some online courses (or TV courses) are easier. Students take one of these and naturally assume the next one will be the same.

My advice is: slow down. Read what I say here in this Study Guide and in the Syllabus for the specific course you are taking. Take the information seriously. Yes, my courses are more time flexible that f2f courses because they are asynchronous. But over ten years of student feedback tells me that you will spend more time on one of my classes than you will in most other classes you take. That's more time in the sense of … more time. If you don't have more time, it won't appear magically.

2. You will learn more

The exchange for the somewhat dreary message of the above is that you will learn more from one of my classes than you will from most. This is not bragging on my part. Just as I have concluded that my classes take more time based on student feedback, I have also concluded that students learn more based on that same student feedback.

You will, moreover, learn more than just history. You will learn about research and writing and your own misperceptions about the past and communication and scholarship and how to pile up conjunctions for effect.

In other words, I honestly believe, based on student feedback, that you will find the extra work worthwhile.

3. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)

Everything is online. The whole course. Oh, there's still need for a textbook here and there, but even those we are outgrowing.

An unfortunate corollary is that the amount of information can be overwhelming and disorienting. I have tried to create navigational structures that mitigate the effect, but students do tell me that it is "hard to find things" in the first few weeks.

Be patient.

Be persistent.

And ask questions. There is no excuse for letting uncertainty or confusion persist when you can go to the discussion board and ask.

4. Grades don't matter

I'm terribly earnest about this one. All my students begin the semester with an A. Okay? Everyone has an A. Now, stop worrying.

No one will care what grades you got. My grades mattered exactly once: as part of the formula that went into getting admitted to the Master's program at the University of Utah. When I went to the University of Massachusetts for my PhD, my grades didn't matter. After I graduated, no one ever even looked at my transcript. Ever. Not once.

Grades don't matter.

Well, okay, sometimes they do. Bad grades especially. Do badly enough and you lose credit, or lose financial aid, that sort of thing. It's really hard to do that badly in my classes, unless you simply miss assignments or don't meet the requirements.

I'm really speaking to those of you (you know who you are) who fret over the different between a B+ and an A-. Or a C and a B. I say this knowing that there's a certain personality type that cannot stop worrying about such things, and you can go right on worrying. No sense in worrying about worrying!

But for you others, here's the good news: grades don't matter.

Learning does.

Work hard on learning and let the grades fall where they may. Grades are a reflection not of what you have learned but of a complex interaction between student, teacher, material, and circumstance. What you learn, on the other hand, you will carry with you forever. Learning has value; grades are just that day's sale price.

5. This isn't easier

See Point 1.

You have to write more. Way more. This is a good thing, but it is a hard thing. The only way you will learn, though, is by doing. The more you write, the better you will get.

Let me amend that: the more you re-write the better at writing you will get. You must get feedback on your writing, and in my courses you'll get that. It's much easier to write an essay, get a grade, and walk away.

This course isn't easier.