1. Sign on early and often to your first online doctorate class. Spend 2 hours cruising around the site, become overwhelmed, and log off.
2. Pull out course readings and begin to read. Read for hours straight without coming up for air. Discover with alarm that the book you spent weeks trying to navigate in an attempt to be really prepared isn't even assigned. Yet.
3. Re-read course readings and eMail friends about them. Bore them to tears with quotes and ruminations and endless ramblings about some German philosopher named Habermas.
4. Log in to course homepage at least 50 times over the span of several days, forcing yourself to read everything and then printing it out "just in case."
5. Blow a printer cartridge printing everything out "just in case."
6. Assume that the "focus" points at the end of each reading assignment on the computer screen is to use for the first assignment - the Digital Journal, which will be used as a writing sample and your first grade.
7. Spend at least 4 anxiety-filled hours after a hellish day at school writing a well-crafted and tightly compacted essay that links the 3 main ideas of the readings into a drop-dead fantastic essay - complete with A.P.A. references.
8. Realize that this essay should have taken 8 minutes and silently curse the inventor of the A.P.A. format.
9. Be an overachiever and cite at least 5 references instead of the required ONE reference - "just in case." Make sure one isn't even from the readings.
10. Happily submit the paper EARLY to the instructor's drop box - BEFORE proof-reading it. (Practice spelling "pos i tive" for at least 5 minutes.) Then submit
the same paper to the discussion board for your peers.
11. Log in to the course the next day to find several entries to the discussion board. Snicker to yourself very smugly that THOSE entries are all "fluff" and YOURS in well-written and professional. Pat self on back for remembering not to use "I" in the essay.
12. Log in to course the next day to find that everybody's entry is "fluff" and that NOBODY has commented about your well-crafted essay. Sulk.
13. Realize with an "I coulda had a V-8" head-smacking moment that something is terribly wrong. Go back and hunt down the instructions - the ones you SWORE you read.
14. Gasp in horror as you realize that YOU did not follow the directions. Make sure you do this at school during lunch time so there is NO possiblity of remedying this error right away.
15. Tell NOBODY about this error. Wallow in horror for the six hours it takes for the school day to end and repairs to be made.
16. Email instructor and eat crow. Admit mistake. Promise better diligence. Ask for permission to re-post since assignment is still not technically due yet.
17. Receive absolution ("Dear Kim... No Worries!!.....the first few weeks have a steep learning curve.")
18. Get up early and finely craft the real assignment. Make it witty and full of examples and cite ONE source so as not to court arrogance. Throw in reference to ProfReading Board and Ellin Keene and the professional conversation, "just in case."
19. Proofread entry and then submit to instructor's drop box and the discussion board. Breath sigh of relief.
20. Realize in horror that you FORGOT TO INCLUDE THE WORKS CITED PAGE as required in the instructions.
21. Email instructor again from under the desk. Use words like "flabbergasted," "appalled," and include something about "not being worthy". Congratulate self for being able to type from the under the desk.
22. Resubmit corrected version. Begin lighting candles to the Patron Saint of Doctorate Studies.
23. Nurse bruised ego as you ponder the reality of the Steep Learning Curve - which is liberally coated with slick and slippery stuff that oozes and stinks.
24. Return to discussion board and liberally praise each and every "puff" piece and follow the directions to the letter ('add your opinion,' 'cite an experience,' ask a
clarifying question', etc.)
25. Take long hot shower to rid self of slick and slippery stuff from the Steep Learning Curve. Pay close attention to nose and facial area.
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1 comment:
Been there, too. How could I have missed the point? Any of the points? I have to take several showers with sandpaper!
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