8 Big Mistakes Online Students Make

I have taken over ten online classes through UNM Valencia and UNM Main, I find them convenient, however, they are from from "easy" You have a lot more reading and the deadlines are absolutely the one reason some students fail. They take time and dedication.

Alicia of NM 4:09PM January 08, 2013

Regarding: "Learning to resolve and prevent these difficulties is a valuable skill in an employee." (Stated in the discussion of group projects)

This is hooey cooked up by academics without practical, productive experience in industry.

In the workplace (from an Army rifle platoon to the office park), there are people in leadership, supervisory, or managerial roles who have responsibility for the successful completion of a task. Whether its a platoon leader or a project manager, someone has to answer for what got done correctly, and what did not. That person, (in a successful organization), also has support from the chain of command (higher management), and the authority to make decisions that move the project along. In the workplace, if you don't pull your weight, then you quickly find yourself booted from the sandbox. You don't get play anymore.

Again - in the workplace, if you don't pull your weight, you are eventually gone, and in the workplace, one person holds responsibility for successful task completion.

In academia, these concepts do not exist. Schools use group-projects to force competent, high-performing students to carry the weight of the duds who either lack the ability, or (FAR more often) the will, to perform the academic work required. The professor gets paid to teach. I don't. I have no interest in doing the professor's job. Lazy, pie-in-the-sky academics disgust me.

Furthermore, there is a affinity among academics and corporate culture air-heads for terms with positive connotations like "teamwork." Very close to 100% of the time, it seems that people who use the term "teamwork" with regularity don't have the foggiest idea what it is, how it works, or its degree of relevance or importance.

Let me clear this up right now: In a single, given situation involving the performance of a task by a small group of people, there is NO teamwork in the absence of leadership.

There are such things as self-organizing systems, such as economic activity in free markets, but such systems are manifestations of the aggregate behavior of many individuals and groups acting as individuals, in what they perceive to be their best interests. That is completely irrelevant to collective performance of a specific task.

Leadership is a requirement for teamwork. It isn't, "Come on guys, we need to work together." That's hogwash that makes me want to puke. Rather, it should be, "Alright, here's the plan. You and you do this, to achieve that, and let me know how its going in x minutes/hours. You and you go and do yadda, to achieve...etc." THAT is leadership and teamwork. It does not occur in academia. It can't.

Grade people as individuals. If they can't meet the standard, then they can try again. If they don't want to try again, then thank them for their interest and wish luck in other endeavors.

Mr. Mark of FL 1:16PM July 15, 2012

Good information, You have to put in the time to be successful.

Phyllis Allen of FL 8:46PM January 09, 2012

This information is very helpful. You or they, teachers and advisors should also post it. Online and in the regular colleges. Online is not twice as hard it is just twice the work, plus discipline. Only the person, couple or people know their life style and ways of learning. Some fast, some slow, some much slower. I am a much slower learner but once I got, it I got! And I can teach it to some one else. Others, once they've got it are you kidding? It's enough just to retain it. Thanks for reading.

Barbara Jean Golden of NY 6:54PM November 25, 2011