In the Rough - The Blog of Joel McDonald Jr.

Last night I attended a charity dinner for the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center. This ecumenical organization is the result of the support of 120 churches, temples, and other organizations, religious or otherwise. The mission statement of the JCOC is “to empower homeless families and individuals to recover from crisis situations and return to being self-supporting, productive and independent members of our community”. Their programs are transformational for those who enter them and follow the guidelines provided by the organization, and I was honored to attend.

As you may know, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints participates minimally in ecumenical activities and organizations. I wasn’t surprised to not see them listed along with the supporting organizations, but I was very surprised when a scholarship was given to a young woman who is an active member of the LDS Church. Now, I’m not saying that this young woman was undeserving because she is a Mormon, or for any reason otherwise, but it does cause me to think about how this young woman is associated with the JCOC and how the organization may be providing the kind of qualified support that the LDS Church is not able to provide most of its members.

Let’s face it, the local leadership of the LDS Church are really ill prepared for the real challenges which face them, such as poverty and addiction. We know the church has welfare programs in place, and that the church does much good for people around the world, but often locally these programs are ill run and can place additional burdens upon people.

Further, I wonder how local Mormon leaders feel about her accepting a scholarship primarily by churches’ who do no see the LDS Church as a valid Christian church, in addition to wanting to know if they feel their programs are lacking in not being able to provide the same kind of scholarship that this organization has.

As you may know, I am pursuing a degree in Information Technology from Axia College of the University of Phoenix…online. I know many others who have found that taking courses online has enable them to fit continuing education into their schedule. While the ideal experience for me may be to attend a university, live on campus, and focus on nothing but my education, working full time and taking online courses is working for me just fine.

Online degree programs have come as far way as far as outside perceptions as to the quality of education being offered by these programs. However, even today there are people who snub their noses at these programs and don’t consider them to be as valuable as traditional classes. This is ultimately to their loss as they disregard the education and experience of people who have a great deal to offer, even if they’ve never have the traditional college classroom experience.

Times are changing, and education is attempting to keep up. While coursework as been adapted to suit the needs of the online student, there are still many issues with institutions that take their programs online. Some of these issues are caused by administrative processes which can only be described as being counter to the culture of the Information Age, forcing students to jump through unnecessary hoops. Other issues arise as schools attempt to recruit students and balance sales and dignity of higher education.

For example, on Friday I endured a phone call from Colorado Technical University in response to a request I made on their website for additional information about their online program. After being slingshotted to an admissions counselor after having my identify verified by a call center employee, I was subjected to a round of questioning. The conversation went something like this:Hello Mr. McDonald, I understand that you are interested

Counselor: “Hello Mr. McDonald, I understand that you are interested in information regarded enrollment in CTU. Do you have any college experience?”

Me: “Yes, I’m considering transferring to another online program from the University of Phoenix after I attain my Bachelors in September.”

Counselor: “So you’re interested in transferring credits to CTU and finishing your Associates here?”

Me: (Slightly agitated) “No, I will be finishing my Associates at UoP and am considering transferring afterwards…”

Counselor: Oh.

Me: “… and I’m wanting to know how my credits will transfer over.”

Counselor: “Okay, well let me ask you a few questions.”

Me: “Alright, go ahead.”

Counselor: “What did you enjoy about high school?”

Me: (Confused) “Um, I’m not quite sure how to answer that.”

Counselor: “What did you enjoy about being in a classroom setting?”

Me: (Even more agitated) “Synchronous debate.”

Counselor: (Short pause. I don’t think he knew what synchronous meant). “What about online courses interests you?”

Me: “I really don’t see how these questions are relevant.”

Counselor: “You don’t? It’s just the process we go through.”

Me: (Extremely agitated) “Look, I graduated from high school with honors, was one of three out of nineteen students to be certified out of my Cisco Networking Academy Class, and currently have a 3.67 GPA after a year and a half of online courses with the University of Phoenix. I will do whatever the hell I need to do to attain my degrees!!! I don’t need you to sell me your school!”

Counselor: (Silence for a good ten seconds) He then sent me an online presentation to look over.

At the end of it all, I didn’t have any of my questions answered. I was informed that I could apply with the accompanying $50 fee and have my transcripts reviewed then. I wished him a good day and hung up.

Why is it so hard for these school’s to work with students instead of against them? Why not institute practices which allows students to easily map our their education, including transferring schools? Why not accept, administratively, that the customer is always right? My being enrolled at your school means that I am a paying customer. Sure I want my instructors to treat me as a student, but I want the administrative side of the school to treat me as if my business was appreciated. No, I don’t want to be sold. No one wants to be sold. However, I do want to know that the people are working for me and not hindering the process.

Here’s another example: In order to process my request for the $600 that my employer will give me annually as tuition reimbursement, I needed my transcript. However, when I went to order my transcript, I found my account locked because my approved student loans hadn’t been disbursed to the school yet. Having no control over the timing of disbursement, and still needing my transcript, I contacted University Services which forwarded me to my financial counselor who forwarded me to my academic counselor who told me I needed to contact University Services. I stopped this process then and there and demanded that the University issue my transcript and let her my academic counselor know that it was ridiculous for my account to be locked and for me to be penalized when I have no control over student loan disbursement. She said she’d talk to her manager. Short end of the story, after a letter from Luxford’s administrator, the transcript was released. I shouldn’t have needed to go through this. Everyone should have been more responsive. It should have taken only one phone call. There is a bright-side to this story though, I don’t think I was charged the $7 processing fee; but if I am, they’ll hear about that too!

Higher education, especially online, should be seen as a service. Already these institutions cater to a different type of student, many who are older or in the midst of their careers. We don’t need the administration of these institutions imposing themselves upon us. We want then to provide our education as a service, allowing us to focus on the coursework and not on administrative oddities.

I’ve never been so thrilled about a C+ in my life, but that’s what I passed Financial Management with! Even crazier is the A+ I scored on my final project. Due to the seemingly random grades I’ve been receiving for my assignments, submitting the final project seemed a 50/50 between failing and passing. I just didn’t know which way the coin would land.Education shouldn’t be like that, should it? What does this say about me as a student, or at least a student in Financial Management? I probably should have failed the course. I really took very little away from it, and really wasn’t sure if I was even in the right ballpark with my final.

How much should a student take away from a class to be considered passing? Supposedly, I’ve absorbed 77% of what was taught. I don’t think that’s the case. In actuality, I think it was much lower.

Is this even a reflection upon me, or should it be a reflection of the coarse? Perhaps the imbalance was caused by a poorly designed coarse.

I know a handful of educators and students will read this. What are your thoughts? Read some of my prior posts concerning this class to help. Was it the course, or was it me? Does a straight A student being on the threshold of failing say anything? If so; what?

I cannot adequately express my frustration with the Financial Management class I’m taking. In the last couple of days, I’ve discovered it’s not just me who’s frustrated. I want to share some comments from other students.

“…I am struggling in this class.  I don’t understand all the material and they have so many formulas for one thing.  I can read all I want, but it isn’t helping with me like assignments like last night.  By the way did you get your assignment done?  I don’t think I did mine right, but I guess I will have to wait and see how poorly I did.”

“…I am the same way I have read the information a few times but it is just not clicking. As far as last nights assignment I did do it but I do not think that it is right. However, when I did Wednesdays assignment I thought I did pretty good but boy was I wrong. So who knows.”

To help combat all this lack of understanding, some students are trying to work together on class assignment. This isn’t easy to do considering the class environment doesn’t include any kind of chat application. As the students found themselves not able to hammer out an answer to a recent assignment, one of them decided to ask a question of the instructor in the main forum. This is how it went.

“Which formula should we be using in Excel to determine the values of the bonds in our Friday assignment? I’m using the PV function and another student is using the NPV function. Are either of us on the right path? Thank you for your time.”

To which the instructor replied,

“First of all, I do not encourage students doing their homework assignments together.  I prefer that each student do their own homework and try to figure the answers independently.  When you go into the work environment; you will not be able to depend on someone else helping you with your duties. That being said, if I tell you which function to use, I have given you the answer.  Therefore, I will tell you that one of you are correct.”

I absolutely flipped out when I read the instructors response! I cannot believe how unhelpful, and totally disrespectful this response was. What I wanted to write in response was, “Yes, because it’s so much better to fail an assignment than to seek help from others, or ask the instructor for some assistance”.

I realize that this is only an example of the larger gripe I have with the Phoenix online learning environment. Some instructors really try to reach out and offer comments and assistance to students. Some classes needed it, and some classes didn’t. This class, Financial Management, needs it, but any kind of assistance from the instructor is lacking, or completely unhelpful as illustrated by the above. So, as a consequence, students are left to pay hundreds of dollars to teach themselves a difficult subject using a horrible text.

Does this really make any sense? Do brick-and-mortar students have similar gripes?

As you may know, I am college student pursuing my studies online with Axia College of the University of Phoenix. When I started with Axia, I wasn’t knew to the online learning as I had completed three distance learning courses while I was in high school; Pascal, C++, and Visual Basic. I had a great experience with these classes; and because of that experience, the thought of earning a degree online seemed to be a natural option.I did have concerns starting out, though. My previous experience with online learning was totally with programming courses. Computer courses seem to fit very well with the online learning model for obvious reasons. I was primarily concerned with completing math courses online, as I knew that completing assignments was going to be a totally different process. I also feared not being able to use the step-by-step examples of an instructor to help me understand how to solve problems.

A couple of months ago, I finished my first academic year at Axia without any major problems. In fact, I did really well with earning nothing less than an A- in any class. Most of these classes were fairly subjective in nature, and thus reading he text and writing well with a purpose aided in the success of those classes. Environmental Science did throw me for a loop a couple of times, but I was eventually able to figure that course out as well.

To begin my second academic year, I’ve been taking Algebra and Financial Management. Before the start of these courses, I was a bit nervous about the Algebra, but didn’t think twice about Financial Management.

My concerns about studying math in an online environment were not entirely wrong, but none were of any negative consequence. The new approach to completing math assignments has led me to understand concepts faster as I’m forced to think through each step of the process. I was a horrible math student in high school, but I’m doing a bit better in college.

My Financial Management course, on the other hand, is my untamed beast for the time being. The text for the course is bulky, examples within the text don’t prepare the student for assignments, and my assignments have been very hit or miss as far as grades are concerned. While students can call instructors, or e-mail them, the schedule at which I work on assignments, following the provided calendar, allows very little, if any, time to try to hash out what assignments are really asking for, or to gain clarification on an issue.

As a struggled with yet another assignment, which I know will gain at a maximum half the points of assignment is worth, I’ve begun to ask myself if all college courses can be adapted for online learning. Are all subjects equal in an online environment?