A Thousand Years in Thirty Virtual Days: Summer Online Courses and the Sophomore Survey
Conclusions
I have learned a great deal from those who have come before me. I know the weight of experience represented by Kearsley and others when they warn new teachers of online overload. I heed the call of Palloff and Pratt as they preach against the sin of including "too much material for the time allotted to a course. The pace of an online course is slower; it takes longer to explore various topics through asynchronous discussion than it might in a face-to-face lecture or classroom discussion" (Palloff & Pratt, 2003, p. 84). But in the fast-paced world of summer online courses, this languid pace is no longer a serious option. As Marvel opens his complaint to his dilatory mistress,
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day. . .
As you'll remember from your own sophomore survey, the poem glides elegantly through a dozen entrancing lines before the speaker jars us back into reality with a single conjunction and its insistent warning: "But at my back I always hear / Time's wingéd chariot hurrying near." The reality facing summer teachers on-campus and online is that time flies, and whether in 5 weeks or 15, syllabi must be distributed, pages must be read, and meaning must be discovered. As one 5-week student wrote, somewhat poetically, "This semester has been like a slap in the face. It has been painful, educational, intense, and over before I knew it began." Teachers and course designers new to the unique challenges of summer online need to plan carefully to ensure that they understand the limits and opportunities imposed by this new medium.