And then at lunch yesterday we were discussing a colleague's recent trip to Vegas and subsequent losses at the roulette wheel. Gambling strikes me as a situation where expectations are rather confused and muddy. We don't expect to win and yet we do... at least we are pleasantly surprised when we do win. It almost seems as if we convince ourselves that we had some hand in the outcome and our expectation of winning flipped somehow.
The same colleague also expressed his joy and perhaps equal amounts of frustration experienced during a Penn & Teller magic show. Once again a situation in which expectations are a bit topsy-turvy. Or is it that we expect to be entertained and surprised and so normal annoyances, like defying the laws of physics and reality, seem great?
All this is going somewhere. Not sure where, but I've had these snippets from a paper on Students' Perceptions of online instruction sitting on my desktop for a while and I wanted to share/write about them.
As an instructor I do not typically expect students to give me concrete strategies to enhance my instruction. I often feel like I know where I screwed up or lacked something and have an idea how to fix it. I know that story could have used more visuals. I know the assignment could have used an example. And I suspect students are not usually encouraged/expected to share such strategies. What would a question like this elicit in way of response: "What strategies could your teacher have used to help you better understand concept ____?"
Response time, and more generally, instructor presence are huge in online instruction. And while they certainly are of high importance in face-to-face courses too, instructors rarely have the same difficulties with being present... or at least appearing to be present... and communicating... or at least appearing to communicate. It's all perception see? If I as the instructor give a passionate lecture for 50 minutes full of humor balanced with content, students will likely perceive good instruction happened. If I ask students to work in groups and collaborate on a problem, students will likely perceive little instruction happened. Or do students perceive instruction when guided while in groups?
And for the strong finish, it would seem to that if I can show students what progress was made, what learning happened, what thoughts were produced, how far they pedaled the bicycles of their minds, then they will perceive my instruction good. I'm almost certain it's more complex than this. Not only must the perception be that they learned/achieved, but also that they learned something valuable or something complicated or something that will impress their families and friends.
