Monday, November 17, 2008

Leading Blindly

A couple of weeks ago one of my FIT directors sent an e-mail asking me and my fellow FIT's how we would like to contribute more to the online class we are observing.  He gave us a lot of suggestions on different things we could do and that was great.  I chose to lead an activity that was coming up in a few weeks.  A week before the activity was do, I followed my director's recommendations and sent an e-mail to the early start section (there is an early start and a late start section which are about a week apart).  That was a little over a week ago and I have only seen one student post their answers to the activity.  I've been checking every other day, hoping to see more posted.  I feel like I'm at one of those moments that our 7130 class has been talking about throughout the semester.  That moment as a facilitator where you're not sure if you should act (maybe send out an e-mail to the students and remind them of the activity) or if you should calmly wait for more to respond.  
Well, I just did the next best thing - I e-mailed my FIT directors and asked them what I should do.  If this were my own class, I wouldn't mind making an executive decision here, but it's not.  I would hate for the students to get behind or something because of me.  I'm starting to wonder if maybe the activity isn't due until the end of this week - not the end of last week.  The schedule is very confusing to me - I'm used to having set days when things are due.  When I asked one of my FIT directors when  the week 11 activity was due (the activity I'm working on), he told me to watch and see when the kids start posting things on the discussion board for week 10 - when they start posting there, that means they are getting ready for week 11.  I saw students posting on week 10 before I sent out the e-mail about the week 11 activity, but what if the students posting on week 10 were just working ahead? 
Anyway, I'm just feeling like I'm leading a bit blindly here.  Without the students in front of me, I can't rely on the nonverbal and verbal feedback that I'm used to.  Perhaps they are confused by the assignment? Maybe they didn't even get the e-mail?  I suppose I'll just wait for my FIT directors to get back to me.....

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