An online class requires the student to be in control of their learning. Taking this into consideration, I found the online class being very challenging and fascinating as compared to a face-to-face (F2F) class. This term has been a very busy term where I was supposed to participate in weekly various group discussions. Despite the many challenges associated with an online class, I successfully completed it and below is an analysis of my participation in the course.
Presentation and analysis of class participation
There were several questions that were posted by active team members. I strived to respond many of the questions, citing various sources and striving to always ensure that my responses as well as posts were delivered in a timely manner. I made my posts between morning and noon time every Wednesday to allow my classmates time to read, internalize, comprehend and respond to the posts.
Below is a quantitative and qualitative data summary of my participation:
Other than week one where there was a general state of inactivity in the online class, I was able to actively take part in the class in the rest of the weeks. In week 2-11, I posted a total of 28 questions, using 35 sources that were appropriately cited and referenced. Additionally, other students responded to my posts and I responded back to 18 responses citing and correctly referencing 22 sources. Additionally, my posts and responses were actually quality, factual and up to standard. In week 14-17, I posted 21 citing 19 sources. I took none of the group discussions and responded to all the students’ debates. Most of the times, I was able to correct some responses from students who were apparently weak in the course. With this, many students were able to appreciate my participation and it was of utter importance in the success of the group discussion.
My contribution in teams 1 and 2 cannot be undervalued. In team 1, was able to:
- Answered 5 out of the 14 questions
- Reviewed the narrative twice
- Review the PowerPoint presentation once
- Make 5 commons for the group at different times in order to submit quality work
Working in this team was quite advantageous as it enabled me to:
- Learn how to effectively and efficiently participate in a team
- Gain a deeper understanding of the subject at hand
- Share my knowledge and ideas with the other members
In team 2, I managed to:
- Answered 3 out of the 14 questions
- Reviewed the narrative twice
- Review the PowerPoint presentation once
- Make 4 commons for the group at different times in order to submit quality work
The team was quite beneficiary as it enabled me to:
- Improve the quality of my discussions
- Gain a deeper understanding of the concepts taught in this online course
- Appreciate the ease and efficiency of exhausting and comprehending problematic concepts
- Easily reflect on discussions made by classmates as well as accept corrections for the minor typos that I had made.
Comparing my quality and quantity of my participation with that of other classmates, I found myself being a notch high than most of them but did not underrate them but rather took an initiative to encourage them to improve the quality and quantity of their participation. Considering my timely and active participation in the class, it is fair, realistic and logical if I will be awarded 250 points out of the total 300 points which will translate to 83.33%.
Criteria used
The criteria presented from the syllabus do not meet the needs for each and every student in participation of the discussion. Therefore, due to this, I did not use the criteria from the syllabus but we constructed our own academic based criteria that considered the interest of each and every member of our group. The main reason behind the change of criteria was as a result of our differences in origins thus some our group members were not conversant in English language. The criteria presented from the syllabus clearly require all the responses from the group members to be professional in nature. In order to meet the level of professionalism, the common language in use should be smart. However, due to unfamiliarity in English among the group members, professionalism may not be effective. Due to this, I was distinctly forced to review the narrative twice since most of my group members did not clearly understand what was needed as English language was their common barrier.
The time zones may differ according to the continents in which different group members come from. Therefore, the timely manner described in the syllabus criteria did work in our group as in some cases, the best time for both of us was not available. In order to counteract this problem, the group decided to change the day on which the discussion questions should be presented for evaluation. The posting day was changed to be on a weekend in order to provide the group members with maximum time to interpret the discussion questions and views from the group members in subject of discussion.
The criteria presented from the syllabus do not fit for international students in an international university. The conditions for the criteria largely favor students from English based universities. In this view, we adjusted some of the conditions in favor of some of my group members who were from nations that did not speak English as their national language. However, even after significant adjustments on the criteria used in our group discussion, some of the members still experienced difficulty in providing the responses as evident in week 14 and 15 where I gave almost all the responses on the questions of discussion.
In the end of week 11, our group members split into two teams for efficient performance. I was forced to be present in both teams since my contribution on the same was so great and the teams could not make it in my absence. I had so much influence on the rate of contribution and the group members suggested that I should be present since I gave them morale to be active participants despite their difficulty in writing in English. The only thing that helped us in both team 1 and 2 was that the discussion was online and therefore the actual pronunciation of words were not included. The teams mainly concentrated on written material for interpretation. In some cases, if the members failed to understand each other, I would edit their postings for others to understand what the other intended to post for the other members of the teams. In week 12, I worked with team 1 and I evaluated some of the significant observation in relation to the performance of the team. There was great improvement in team 1 when compared to the performance of team 2. This is evident due to the decrease in the number of questions I responded to in team 2.
In week 12 and 13, the contribution and participation of my team 1 and 2 members was quite substantial. The performances can be analyzed as follows:
Comparing my performance with their performance, I can therefore contentedly conclude that my performance and participation in the online class was quite worthy, substantial and requires a good grade.
