The relationship between learners and an online instructor is defined by the structure of the course but also by their interactions.

I'm not sure what went awry, but I'm starting to feel a bit like a bill collector. I've never actually been one. The only one I ever spoke with was one of my students who moonlighted as a bill collector. She said she used charm to get people to pay their bills. She said - and I never did verify this independently of her - that she would sometimes even sing to her targets to get them to relax their defenses and to pay up.

A Payday Loan Scenario

Students email me daily. Many of these include various stories of loss - houses gone aflame, relatives ill, car accidents, deployments, break-ups - and while I'm savvy enough to know that there are limits to difficulties, I also know that life goes on alongside every course. Life doesn't just stop.

So I will hand out some extensions even while feeling like it's a kind of payday loan. I will not hesitate to tell students to drop the course and take it another quarter...if that's the right response. However, those who've already participated well for 4-5 weeks...and then come across a stumbling block will get a little more grace. Where it gets difficult is when an issue doesn't somehow get resolved, and it drags on a bit through the term. I feel like I'm ultimately not only harming the learning but letting that student get farther behind with each extension. At some point, it won't be possible to catch up, I fear.

Getting the Work In

Sometimes, students will try to make me responsible for their work. If they ask for additional critique or commentary on their work, I'll give it to them. Then, some will invariably throw a quote back and say, "But you said..." This would be in the situation of a topic selection for a paper, for example, that was only a general concept...not a specific request. Or they'll ask me to make decisions that are in their purview. "Please choose an author of literature for me to write about."

It's a losing game for me to take responsibility for what's not in my purview. Instead of enabling students to put the locus of control outside themselves, I'd rather empower them into making the choices that are right for their own learning.

A lot of the online classroom is built around that precept.

Not Beyond the Breaking Point

Still, that leaves me in this bill collector / pseudo-lender role when it comes to offering deadline extensions. I want the quality in the learning. I want the flexibility and support that would be a gift to me were I in a different circumstance. I don't want to lose the students. But I also know that there's a breaking point beyond which it makes no sense to be flexible or to stretch.

Letting students know where that edge is is critical. And honing my senses of how far is too far may help.