Son frustrated with an online class

[JadeOrchidSong]

Ds is doing Spanish 1 online. He has been feeling frustrated about the directions of homework. Often times he has to email to ask his classmates what to do and some of them are confused too sometimes. It is not easy to reach the teacher since he teaches high school full time during the day. This week the students are supposed to do some tests on teacherease and he didn't know how to get on that site. I finally figured it by logging in with my name. Ds says he is stretched to the limit. 

In order to help him, I will sit by him during class and help him understand what the teacher wants for homework. What else should I do

I have to give him support for him to stick it out for this school year at least. 

Sigh. 

[gstharr]

Find another class. Comprende?

[MarkT]

Ds is doing Spanish 1 online. He has been feeling frustrated about the directions of homework. Often times he has to email to ask his classmates what to do and some of them are confused too sometimes. It is not easy to reach the teacher since he teaches high school full time during the day. This week the students are supposed to do some tests on teacherease and he didn't know how to get on that site. I finally figured it by logging in with my name. Ds says he is stretched to the limit. 

In order to help him, I will sit by him during class and help him understand what the teacher wants for homework. What else should I do

I have to give him support for him to stick it out for this school year at least. 

Sigh. 

Is there a "provider" that you can complain to?

For now help him out - and have him stick it out - it is not easy leaving if you are a month into it

[Lanny]

The Instructor does not sound well prepared.  If your DS was the only one who is confused, that would be on your DS, but if others are also in the dark, it is on the Instructor.  In a Synchronous course, this is worse than in an Asynchronous. course. Most of DDs Instructors the past 4  school years are also employed full-time, teaching. A few are retired. Usually, if DD sends one of them a message, they respond the same day or the next day. Once, I think this was a year or 2 ago, DD was confused about what she was supposed to do.  I suggested she message the instructor, and not go off the deep end. She got the assignment clarified before she proceeded.  .  

[Tess in the Burbs]

well, I finally had to sit with my son for his online classes to get a feel for the teacher and HOW they give out instructions for homework.  I had to agree it wasn't always obvious.  Now that I have it figured out I ask him to tell me the homework and then I compare with what I know from the website/ppt slides.  Teachers aren't perfect....ours has a typo this week on the assignment list but I figured it out by looking at the class slides.  His other class is 5 weeks behind in grading, so it's frustrating and hard to know what you are doing right/wrong.  But once I got involved and saw how it was run it was helpful for my son so I could point out what to listen/look for in class. I also encouraged him to contact more often.  During office hours, go ask 1 question.  Email once a month.  It's helping.  He has a better sense of things.  For German I actually emailed the teacher after the first 2 weeks and asked point blank what the heck was happening and what we needed to know to get the work done.  I was lost!  She spelled out the flow of the week and now I know what to look for.  I have no regret in that email.  I figure if my kid was lost, so were others.  

[RootAnn]

This is Sr Gamache's Spanish, for those who are playing along at home. 

 

Usually, there is one student who is the "recorder" who writes the homework on the white board (during class) as the teacher assigns it. Everyone should save the whiteboard, but the "recorder" (can't remember what they call the designated kid) is also supposed to email everyone in the class with the assignment, too. 

 

Sometimes, something is confusing & the kids email each other when there are questions. Rarely, someone has to call Sr at his cell phone during his planning time at work. (These instructions are in the "info importante" document.) 

 

The teacherease site is confusing the first time, but you quickly get used to it. The biggest adjustment for Sr.'s class is understanding that he assigns a bunch of work at the beginning of a chapter and it is all due by the time you take the chapter test. You have to do several assignments every day so that you aren't stuck doing 45 assignments the last two days while you are trying to study for the test. It is a high school class & Sr expects the kids to be able to pace themselves, set goals, and do it themselves. When you have a kid who isn't used to doing this, you as the parent have to do it. (Ask me how I know.)

 

DD finds that every class's interface is confusing at first and takes some getting used to. Some classes have a syllabus with all assignments listed. Others have a syllabus with a general idea of pacing. Others don't have a syllabus at all or have a very generic one that basically just lists the class policy & texts. (My favorite is the detailed one. I deal with classes that don't have a syllabus.)

 

Some kids are not a good fit for this class, but it is really good if you can get past the disorganization of the teacher. (And, yes, he is disorganized.) DD is in her third year of Spanish with him. She's taken (or is taking) online classes with Memoria Press, WTMA (dropped this one because of a bad fit), Wilson Hill, Center for Lit, Landry, and Homeschool Connections. Hands down, this is her favorite teacher, her favorite class, and her favorite online/live interface (Blackboard). But, if you search on the high school board, there is a huge ranting thread on this class from this past spring - so it is definitely not a class or teacher without its challenges.

 

Not the one I was thinking of, but here's a review from Span 2.

ETA: Here it is!

Edited October 14, 2016 by RootAnn

[JadeOrchidSong]

Thank you for the links, RootAnn! They are very helpful.

Ds has lots of homework this week. He works very hard. He says he likes Spanish but doesn't like the teacher. I hope he can gets used to it and learn to deal with it. Who knows, maybe he will turn around and like the teacher and will continue Spanish 2 with him, I hope. It is not easy to find good online classes. I do think he has learned a lot.

It makes me feel ever so grateful to Mrs. Jetta, ds13's Clover Creek physics teacher. She is the kindest, warmest, most responsive and encouraging teacher I have known. My son loves her and as a result loves the science class. I will definitely have ds11 take physics with her. I feel very warm and secure with her.

[J-rap]

Three of my kids took online language courses.  They were difficult to get the hang of at first (partly because for all of my kids, it was their first online course).  I wonder if the teacher has some kind of a tutorial that shows how to work with the online program, or maybe the program developers themselves have a tutorial.  My kids were hesitant to email the teacher, but I encouraged them to do it anytime they had a question.  I think you have to with online courses, especially when you're just figuring out a particular teacher's system.  Keep the questions short and to the point.  If you flub up on an assignment due to a misunderstanding of the online system, tell the teacher.  In our experience, the teacher realizes that online is not perfect, and were always willing to believe the student and give them a chance to make up the assignment.

 

It's early in the year so it might just take a little time to get into the groove of it, and then it'll work more smoothly and quickly.  Online foreign language courses definitely consumed more time than our other homeschool courses, but they ended up being some of their favorites.  I do think it's a good idea to sit in as a parent for awhile and you can help him figure things out.

[samba]

I've shared here before about our experience with Sr. Gamache. Some disorganization? Yes. Uneven workload? Yes. Occasional cryptic instructions? Yes. Dd's favorite class (Spanish 1-3)? Yes. DD's favorite instructor? Yes! Well-prepared for Spanish Clep? Yep...earned 6 college credits.

 

Not every teacher or program is a good fit for a student or family. 

[Renaissance Mom]

Older dd did Spanish 1 at home with me then jumped into Spanish 2 with Sr. Gamche in 11th grade. She transitioned well, experienced all the disorganization, etc. but says she really learned Spanish. She did take his Spanish 3 class and afterward earned 12 credits via the Spanish CLEP test. She was the class liaison both years and gained many skills because of it. I think it helped that she was a bit older than many in the classes and figured out how to "translate" Sr. to her classmates. She worked hard but still loves Spanish. It was well worth persisting.

[JadeOrchidSong]

He finished his test for the first chapter. I am amazed how many words he learned. He did very well for his test. He knows he has to at least finish this school year with Sr. Gamache. I pray that ds will get used to Sr. Gamache and continue with him. We invested lots of money on the textbook, wordbook, and Supersite code $249, which is used in Spanish 1-3.

Ds likes Spanish. He did fabulously with Henle Latin 1, getting >90% for all exercises, quizzes and tests. However he begged to discontinue because he hated it and because he wanted to learn Spanish, which he wanted to learn to speak. So the motivation is working in his favor. I hope to convince him all the good he has gotten out of the class despite the teacher's lack of good organization and timely responses to questions by emails. This is a learning opportunity for understanding teacher style and personality and student navigating skills.

Thank you for your encouragement.