This week on the education blog let's think about how we introduce learning technology to new students and remind returning students of our expectations. Although many students will be familiar with the idea of a learning management system already, we cannot assume that everyone is on the same page about how it is to be used and what the expectations are. Let's deal with a few common excuses that students give when something goes wrong in educational technology:
- I did not know when it was due. This common excuse is primarily a consequence of poor planning combined with poor communication on our part. I have noticed several classes missing due dates in Populi. Let's do our best this week to introduce students to our learning management system by getting all of our dates and times correct in the system so that students can see on their calendar at a glance when something is due. I'll be working on this on my end too.
- Populi ate my homework. This excuse is very rare once students learn the system, but in the early days of learning a new system students may unintentionally click a button twice or think they have submitted something when they haven't. The best thing we can do here is to show students how to turn in their work by pulling up Populi ourselves and going through the motions a few times. Even though I did that in the intro to Populi yesterday, students still forget or get confused. Thanks for your help in this regard.
- It is too hard to learn. Certainly learning a new way of doing something can be difficult. However, if we as teachers take the attitude that students can do it and if we express that optimism, anything is possible. We're coaches of learning; we're masters of our craft that patiently explain things again and again if necessary.
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