Time-Saving Tips
The May/June 2005 issue of Adjunct Advocate carried an article by Evelyn Beck, hyped by editors as “Time-saving tips for faculty who teach on-line. Read ’em and rejoice” (“20 Time-Saving Tips For Faculty Who Teach Distance Education Courses“). A number of these “tips” not only advocate outright unethical conduct, but also display a supreme cynicism toward on-line teaching as a “learner-centered” endeavor:

Tip #4: “Answer e-mails and posted questions between classes or even while on the phone . . . [because it] helps students feel that you are deeply connected to the course, even if you post only short notes.”
Tip #9: “Have students collaborate on group projects, which means not only interaction that doesn’t involve the instructor, but also fewer papers to grade than if every student turned in an individual paper for that assignment.”
Tip #13: “Set rigid deadlines . . . use weekly topics, with no credit for posting once the week ends, no matter what the reason . . . [because it] will prevent your having to track late assignments.”

Such tips can only be important to teachers who sign up to “teach” too many on-line courses and then must ”save time“ by cutting corners. As Bruce MacFarlane (2002) notes in his study of the ethics of pedagogic practice, “Although the language of higher education may have moved on to emphasize the importance of student empowerment, independence and autonomy, a harsher reality still exists, sometimes uncomfortably, behind the rhetoric of the new lexicon.” I have been the unhappy beneficiary of such “teaching” and would urge Ms. Beck to seek other employment.
Barbara Berger
Dade City, Florida

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