In A Plan for a New University, I wrote:
| Academic reform initiatives often run aground on either-or disputes between advocates
of what is often called academic rigor on the one hand and relevance on the other.
Such debates are unnecessary and harmful. The world expects both rigor and relevance,
together and inseparable, and resents having to choose between one or the other as
they do now in choosing between narrow skills training at a technical academy and
a broad liberal arts education at a university. The traditional separation of theory
from practice is artificial, an artifact of the disciplinary structure of traditional
academia; part of the problem and not on the path to a solution. Theory and practice
should be integrated so intimately that the question of which is "best"
never emerges. |
Do you agree with this claim? To you think this course succeeds in this goal? Explain.
In what ways does it succeed? In what ways does it fall short?
|
| |
| This course is an excellent compilation of both theory and practice. That is the
problem with traditional education. I know what a router is, what it does, but I'm
not sure I could pick one out if I had to look at someone's LAN. This course not
only taught me theories, but I had the chance to apply principals. Because of that,
I feel I learned much much more than traditional learning. |
| I agree with the statement above. I believe this course succeeds in integrating both
theory and practice. I learned more applicable skills from this course than any of
my undergrad courses, and addidtionally, the theory taught during this course fully
supported the skills we learned. |
| I agree that theory and practice should be integral and the question of which is
best shouldn't emerge. A University in an institution for learning and should be
the first place to accent new ideas and behaviors and teaching techniques. But the
university like other institutions and people do not welcome change but rather resist
it. This class is a good step in combining theory and practice and I would like to
see more classes set-up like this one. This class did an excellent job at combining
those seperate traditional skills. |
| This course provided a good balance of theory and experience -- the reality of the
electronic frontier that has to be experienced. Sometimes I felt that the course
tried to touch on too many things. |
| Both theory and practice are balance in this class. |
| I am continually amazed that people don't grasp this point -- but they don't. Working
on the practical without the theoretical tends to lead to the problems we see in
so much of corporate America -- workflows set up for the needs of long-gone employees
and customers, workarounds maintained despite the fact they were designed for equipment
that has been replaced and re-replaced. I know others have complained about the amount
of work in this course, but I found it enormously fulfilling. For example, Pirsig
was an enormously challenging text, but it represents much of what separates this
course from "HTML for Dummies." |
| I mostly agree with the claim. Coming from a technical background I am a bit predjudiced
with regards to hands-on technical training. I do understand however, based largely
on TTEF, that the the dependence of theory on practice and vice versa is critical
for overall understanding. Which is best would have to be determined by what the
student expects. If presented correctly, as in TTEF, the student will view the balance
as absolutely necessary. |
| I think this course provides studying in theory and practice. The problem is that
one semester is not enough time for that. |
| This course provided lots of reading material for the theory part - on many topics
and from very diverse points of view. We were immersed in learning it by doing -
this is practice. I think this course can be packaged to be an year-long program.
This course was like a well prepared meal that has enough interesting things to eat
- of the theory and practice dishes. |
| I think that this class took theory and practice to a new level. We delved deep into
both of these areas. I just don't think one semester is enough to explore everything
to the depth we would like. |
| There really wasn't much theory in this course. It is a very practical course. I
did not really get much out of the lectures because everything I needed was in the
required tasks. |
| I was not a good student in my undergraduate career. I used to think that I was not
cut out for engineering. But what I realized after I got my first job was that I
just couldn't apply the information to real life. Work was so much easier than school.
This class gave me that hands on approach. I didn't necessarily agree with all the
content of the course, but I did pay attention and learn. |
| I guess this course succeeded here. But I think there are really to many social issues
discussed in this course. I think there should be more learning instead of being
forced to critque personal view points on all sorts of issues that have nothing to
do with this course. |
You need time for theory and you need time for practice. There is not quite enough
time in this class as it stands for either. More importantly, anytime anyone breaks
an arguement down to US versus THEM -EITHER/OR-it's a sure sign that neither are
prepared to hear what the other has to say. So much for education.
Brad, I truly believe this course succeeds rarely in combining these two goals as
witnessed by the person who described this course as "a grab bag of tasks we
do each week that are then forgotten." There is no single unification focus
of what we are doing short of the nebulous goal of creating electronic property to
sustain this course all the way through. (No quality level is approaced for each
topic in practice.) Your excellent wholistic approach breaks down because this becomes
an OVERVIEW course about QUALITY (which is an impossibility). There isn't time (short
of 15 - 20 hours a week and I'm already an expert at most of this stuff) to do these
tasks well, so your students cheat, steal material and electronic properties. And
in doing this they become exactly what you propose to teach them NOT to do and be.
Furthermore, when you are lenient with code violation offenders because you admit
that possibly you didn't forwarn of these gray areas soon enough, you reinforce the
action of stealing electronic property. If your royalties collection Superdistribution
scheme were already in-place today, I believe many more people would do poorly in
this class. This should be a 6 or 12 semester hour earning class or three separtae
classes, maybe four - that would approach quality. |
I ceratainly do. I think this was a tremendous course which not only introduced the
student to the technical aspects, but the social and Quality issues as well. It even
began the discussion as to what the future of this industry might look like. Thus,
unlike most academic environments I have been in, the theory was put to practice
in this experiencial setting.
The academic rigor was as tough, if not more, than most traditional classes I've
taken.
couple that with the great experiential learning that takes place, and you've got
a very dynamic learning environment.
If anything, this course needs to be expanded to allow time to get the full measure
of all of the issues and the technologies. |
| This course is well organized with theory and practice. We learned some skills and
also we learned about "Qulity". |
Theory and practice should be integrated so intimately that the question of which
is "best" is obvious. I think the course has tackled a huge challenge and
has done a superb job in walking a tightrope and trying to to become too technical
or too theoretical.
It falls short in that it one semester is not enough time to build up enough depth.
Each of us is barely catching on to how to do something and we have to use it right
away. So in that sense it is not like a technical training program but more like
being a intern. But the standards we were aiming at, were professional levels (with
the customers). |
Our team projects and peer assessments prove this argument. Theory without application
is wasteful. Application without supporting theory is just stupid.
Most of my other classes have the academic rigor yet fail to bring home the relevance
to the workplace because of a failure to communicate or give hard demonstrations
of application. Therefore, I usually have to make my own connections, better put
as guesses. |
| The balance is critical, and as our society becomes more techno-driven it becomes
more so. TTEF is unlike anything I've ever studied, or should more properly say,
experienced ... It provides means to immediately apply seemingly abstract concepts
and learn their use, misuse and quality... it did some things better than others,
can't say it really fell short in any one area. |
| Yes, I do agree with this claim. Dr. Cox does an excellent job in combining both
the theory and practice of the issues surrounding Taming the Electronic Frontier.
The course title itself is so intrigueing that it enticed me to further research
the course. As that title defines the problem that the Electronic Frontier needs
to be tamed, Dr. Cox does an excellent job in teaching the issues surrounding Taming
it, and provides an excellent concept towards a potential Paradigm shift that could
solve the ultimate problem of value and quality on the Electronic Frontier, how you
charge for the transactions of digital bits of information. |
| This idea is to much for most people to grasp. |
| I do think the course agrees with this goal, and is a very successful class, although
it is by far the most difficult class I have ever taken in my entire life. |
| This class succeeds in the theorectical and practical approaches. However, too much
attention is paid to the theorectical and philosophical aspects. The student should
spend more time practicing the technical and artistic aspects of web publishing.
The philosophical relationship of web publishing to life should be touched on briefly. |
There is no doubt that this course intergrates "theory" and "practice"
together very closely. I cannot think of anything we talked about that we did not
try on our own and "practice." Everytime there was a lecture on a topic
we then spent the next week figuring out how to do what we discussed.
Even in reading the two books that we did, we then put that knowledge into practice
in creating our sites and answering questions. |
| I believe that this course succeeds in this goal in that it has aspects that lead
to a grade which incorporates outside results for work done, such as the Peer Evaluation
and Client/Product, while also keeping academia involved with all of the other tasks.
Somewhere in the middle, I walk away with some basic skills and understanding about
Web publishing, and a broader liberal arts understanding of Quality. |
| I do agree with how you have set up the course and I, apart from other opinions I
have read, do think that Zen is a good choice of reading for this course. I like
how you injected the Idea of quality into the course. That which I don't agree with
is the volume of work which you assigned for the course. This decreased my focus
on quality at times and made me "just want to get it done" unitl for some
tasks I just decided that it wasn't worth it. |
| I feel that this course is right on time and that people do resist change but in
time this course will be common place. GMU will come to their senses and add this
course structure to their curriculum however, there will be a semester or two that
many students will not know about the distance learning technique that Brad Cox has
demonstated while at GMU. Theory and Practive, yes Brad covered these aspects and
much more. Brad Cox's LRNG 572 course exceeds the standards and thus should be a
permanent part of the curriculum. |
| Look at what our team has done. We have built an extranet for a telephone company.
If that isn't relevance, I don't know what is. It gives the tools and not just the
theory, but a working knowledge of the tools needed to accomplish building a website.
It helps to build confidence and the willingness to try new things in technology.
It helps the students make value judgments and work in teams. Fall short? I really
can't think of anything. Maybe it could be expanded another semester (and that may
be what your other course addresses) to cover programming languages helpful for building
websites. |
| I think the course is grounded in examples and doing rather than just discusing and
learning about something. In almost every case, the tasks associated with learning
something involve actually doing it. I would love to see the ability to watch superdistribution
in a lab-like environment, to actually "do it". I would also enjoy seeing
more of the classes reactions to the things we learn in this class. This would help
to cement the understandings ans concepts we are learning. |
| This course definitely succeeded with this goal. The mix of theory and practice-my
favorite way to learn. It's the best approach to learning in my view. |
The technical portion of the course and learning about the web and how to publish
a page was the cornerstone of the course and the reason I enrolled in the class.
The class definitely met my expectations and helped me to achieve my goals. I was
glad to enroll in this class when I heard that it would be the last time the course
was taught as GMU, I was doubly glad. I think more students at GMU could benefit
from this kind of course. In fact, several people (over 50, if that matters) have
talked about their new career in web publishing, digital photography and other activities
of that ilk. Learning about the web is CRITICAL. It is where commerce will be in
the future!
The philosophical portion of the course was important, stimulating and challenging.
I enjoyed combining the knowledge of quality I learned from my interpretation of
Pirsig with that of formulating my idea of quality on the web.
The interpersonal skills and group dynamics portion of the course was interesting.
Although I have worked on teams in most of my graduate level classes at GMU, the
professor did not focus on the team's dynamics, only the team's output. I really
learned from the added emphasis put on getting to know our teammates. This is an
industry trend as well. GMU should know that what you are doing is important in the
work place today. I have had to take the Myers-Briggs test at work to find out how
to work with different types of people. Finding out more about myself and my style
of working was productive.
I don't think I necessarily learned anything about writing. I wrote in a prosy, cutesy
way because I thought that it would be more entertaining and fun to read. I did not
want to write a completely technical document. The exercise in itself was very good.
It was good to learn how other students accomplished their tasks and several times
when I was stuck, it actually helped me to get over the hurdle or problem or misunderstanding
I had. |
To me, this is a no-brainer. The cost and effort required just getting to a class
in a University these days causes an expectation of rigor (or valuable learning effort).
The relevance aspect is also fundamental. Why take a course in which you learn nothing
relevant.
However, these ideas and aspects of academic study should be inseperable. I do not
see any possible value in divorcing them and choosing one over the other. |
| I believe this course has had very rigoruous topics that brought the best out of
me I am sure on other students as well. Theory and practice were involved in the
accomplishments of most assignments for this course. |
| This was the first time I have encounterd a course of this type. I feel this course
came very close to meeting this goal. Almost everything in this course is relavant
to what is needed and can be applied in the real world. Course material also provided
the students with the tools to suceed. At times, the relavence was not all that clear. |
| This course intergrates "theory" and "practice" together very
well done.It is succeeds in the gold because we learned how to do it and then I have
a chance to practice and get a result after I did it. |
| This multidimentional/interdisciplinary course was a challenge for most of us. It
was certainly relevant because of its focus on electronic frontier tools and issues.
It was rigorous because of the heavy workload and sometimes difficult technical and
intellectual (Persig) tasks. The best way to grow is to challenge your level of competance.
Few courses are simultaneously rigorous and relevant as is this course. |
| I learned a lot of practival application that I never would have gotten in any other
course. I agree that this course succeeds with integrating both theory and practicality. |
| I think this course does succeed in this goal because we used tools from the real
world experience and from academia. We were taught, but we also taught ourselves
through portfolios and team projects for real world customers. It was an excellent
combination. I had only experienced it one other class, which was a business course
in my undergrad. This class succeeded in that I came away learning a whole lot more
than I thought I was going to when I walded in the door. I now feel confident to
tackle issues on the electronic frontier. The only drawback is the enormous amount
of time you have to spend on it. It is the price of doing a good job at distance
learning and doing real world projects. Overall it is definitely worth the extra
time and I am glad I got to be a part of it. |
I look at the role of traditional academia as similar to doing Forms in the Martial
Arts. I do Forms which I would never use sparring. I broaden my chest to breath in
and step wide to gain power. The idea of the "Forms" is to practice understanding
the basis for the movements that are most practical when sparring. They are a useful
exercise which help me to become a better practical fighter and martial artist. I
would never open my chest and step wide, exposing myself to an attacker when sparring,
but the act of doing this in the form, gives me an appreciation for the principles
of balance and power and focus.
Just because traditional academia may not have specific pratical application outside
of university walls, does not mean it doesn't help to mold students and make them
better for the experience. It exposes students to important principles that should
not be lost while turning all courses into tech/voc style learning experiences.
I think this course does succede in educating in pratical terms of relevance and
in terms of rigor, though, as I had stated early, the socio centric items need either
much more depth, or need to be dropped to be useful (either in the former case of
given real valuable debate or in the latter case of not spending as much time on
items which only require superficial understanding). |
I agree with your statement if the context is learning about the electronic frontier,
and other suitably technical subjects. Employers today run a tight ship, and are
less enthusiastic about taking new people on and training them to do their jobs.
Rather, companies expect new people to hit the floor running, and be able to contribute
to the bottom line immediately.
In this milieu, combining theory and practice are crucial, and any students who have
this opportunity while studying have an advantage over students who do not get to
work like this.
But if you are talking about an area of academia that is not so technical -- for
example the study of Greek philosophy -- your comments may not be applicable. There
are few technical skills here that are immediately transferable to today's electronic
frontier workplace. In this instance, the university needs to implement traditional
methods of teaching this arts and sciences subject. |
| The mixture of theory and practice serve to build a "best of both worlds"
environment for the student. TTEF succeeded in this goal through the use of many
"theory" related tasks and a project that served to bring real world "practice"
to the students. Not the "good ole college try". |
| I agree with this statement. I feel like school should integrate rigor and relevance.
I feel like relevence should bge teh goal, but often to see relevence, rigor is needed.
In otherwords, I learned a lot this semester, I feel like most of it was very relevent
to life beyond academia. It took a lot of rigor though but becase of the relevence
the rigor did not - for teh most part - matter. I think that the class succeeds in
properly combining the two. The only way that it falls short is that often the relevence
has been realized and the material has been learned, but the rigor continues. |
| This course was great. I have a government backround and I found it most appealing
in the matters of obtaining information on governmental concerns about the electronic
frontier. It falls short only on time to dealve greatly into more areas of the electronic
frontier |
| I agree that it is important to obtain technical skills as well as a broad liberal
arts education. One should not be sacrificed for the other. |
This class is a little ahead of its time or maybe not academic environment but more
for the commercial sector. A course like this would define work for training for
Microsoft and CISCO certification. The way you combine theory and practice was on
the money. I would like to see more classes in this format.
Yes Oracle field engineers as well, I think that would come up one the Microsoft
courses as well. |
| |
| I think the course maintains an expectation of both academic rigor and relevance,
and helps to build technical skills necessary to meet those expectations. As interesting
as I found the discussions about Superdistribution, though, I think that portion
of the course deserves the right to stand on its own as a course. |
| I think this course is the balance of theory and experiments. |
|
Suggestions for topics that I neglected to cover in this questionairre.
|
| |
| |
| ? |
| Suggestions for topics that I neglected to cover in this questionnaire. |
| I think you covered all of them. |
| Can't think of any. |
| Most of them you already covered in this class. |
| None, really. |
| I cannot think of any topics that you neglected to cover in this questionnaire. |
| I cannot think of any. |
| How about putting your solution of superdistribution infrastructure in a laboratory
environment and using it - maybe on a continually evolving basis, from one course
to next. |
| None here. |
| |
| I can't think of any. |
| None |
| None of your questions deal with over-doing something. GMU2.4: Overall, intellectual
challenge provided by my instructor is an OVERLOAD. It's a great idea, but too much
information to be put into practice at any quality level. GMU2.5: Overall instructor's
degree of fairness is impossible to identify with perfection grading. It's unfair
to expect a student to keep re-doing a task x amount of times - it shows that the
task is not clear or the student can't reach an experiential expertise level or they
just get others to help them. |
I feel as though more time could have been spent on the social psychology. Dr. Borkman
did a great job on her in class presentations, but it seemed in the flow of the course
to be an afterthought.
It could have really been woven in if we would have had more on how groups operate,
and how to lead work groups, instead of measuring our group against a norm. What
I'm talking about is to really study how to most effectively and efficiently lead
work groups. |
| None, generally, Brad did well for this course. |
| Leaving the PGP topic till the end puts too much stress on when there is little time
in trying to get the products finishe etc. Something is going to give, something
is going to get shortchanged. |
| I can't think of any. This course was all I wanted an more. I'll neec to take the
next step to understand more of the plumbing. |
| More discussion of peer review process ... |
| Topics that I would have liked to see more of; which companies are at the forefront
of solving the issues of Taming the Electronic Frontier. Who is working closely on
this issue, other than Dr. Cox of course, and are any companies, Government Agencies,
and Educational Institutions working together? |
| |
| I can't think of any. |
| No, I believe you covered all of the topics. |
| I cannot think of any. |
| Java scripts |
| |
| I feel you paced and covered topics that were related very well together. If you
left anything out, there would of been some other lessont that would of been cheated
and therefor the course structure would of not ran as smooth as it did. If anything
you can delete a few areas like: The Holloween Lesson and maybe narrowed down the
questions that you asked pertaining to superdistribution. |
| What snacks to have when your team meets is the only thing leftout, oh, and maybe
the kitchen sink. This is comprehensive. |
| Ask people if they would recommend this class to others. Ask people how they would
rate the use of their time for this course in comparison to other courses. |
| none |
Grade weighting.
I think the weekly exercises should count more toward the final grade. You did make
sure that we all understood the grading scale from the beginning, but I would put
the individual exercises at 60% and leave the team exercise to 40%. If you still
wanted the 10% as a discretionary part of the grade, the individual exercises could
be reduced to 50%. |
| Which technical topic would be most useful. This is an area where I think further
learning is required to complete an education on homepages to a relevant degree.
Some overview of web page creation tool suites (Netscape Communicator/Front Page...).
I understand the monetary and proprietary challenges here but think it is relevant
to know how most web pages are created these days. What are the latest tools? Perhaps
an overview? |
| I think all the topics were covered. |
| I can't think of any. |
| You did a good job. |
| None |
| I can't think of any. |
| You cover everything really well. |
| Check into time that people had for the course in more depth. Identify those with
busy schedules and then look at the quality of their work in their products...not
on the academic tasks...determine if time is the element which leads to task completion
and whether task completions is necessarily related to the quality of products. |
| None. You covered all relevant topics. |
| Questionnaire is sufficient and doesn't need to be altered. You've allowed for plenty
of opportunities for dialog exchange between yourself and the students the entire
semester. |
| You were thourough in this questionnaire. |
| I guess how important this class is to the major of telecommunications. I believe
this to be a great starting class as It exposes you to a great deal of telecommunications
aspect, mostly the world wide web. |
| |
| Can't think of any. |
| |
| I found the questionnaire to be exhaustive. |
| Nothing. You already cover everything. |
|
What do you like most about this course? Why?
|
| |
The virtual school website. I have become attached to this place. I feel like it
is mine and have developed a sentimentality towards it like one would toward an old
schoolhouse they went to as a child.
It was within these virtual walls that laughed and cried, screamed in frustration,
and smiled with pure joy at accomplishing something that I thought was beyond my
reach.
I feel quite nostalgic about it all being over. There is nothing that compares to
this in traditional education. It's kind of like the old adage "Where do we
go once we've reached the top of the mountain?" |
| I enjoyed the flexibility of not having to attend a classroom lecture every week.
The lockers on the web was also a great experience. However no one could use the
old excuse - my dog ate my homework!! |
| What do you like most about this course? Why? |
I liked the the combination of theory and practice and submitting homework electronically.
I also enjoyed not having to go to class for the lectures but being able to enjoy
the comforts of my home while listening to your lecture.
I also enjoyed working in my group with my teammates, that experience was very valuable
in strengthening my group skills and leadership abilities. |
| The portfolio construction and the team project and team work with a real client.
Also the mode of delivery. |
| It is a great class for students to learn new technical skills and knowledge. |
| What I liked most was the challenge. Too many course are disappointingly dumbed down.
This is a course worthy of a graduate program. |
I particularly enjoyed the discussion of Quality (Pirsig) and the concept of Superdistribution.
Additionally I enjoyed the tasks relating to the technical portions of the course. |
| I enjoied to do my homework electronically. I have never worked on a computer so
much before. Now I enjoy to deal with it. |
| Chance to actually create things. Readings. Concept of quality, superdistribution,
interplay between old and new paradigm. Building a real web site to make the world
a better place. |
| I liked the exploration of what is quality the most. It is a realy industry trend
that most think they understand, but really need to study it in the manner you offer. |
| I liked the creation of the web pages. It was a lot of fun, challenging, but fun. |
| I liked the freedom the class provided with the Internet accessible tasks and televised
classes. At the same time, I still retained the classroom flavor via work groups. |
| Learning how to construct web pages. |
| The whollistic approach. It puts into a milieu an issue that will affect everyone
now and in the future. |
Learning about the technical issues, and reading Pirsig, Superdistribution and the
Halloween papers.
As a novitiate to this community, I find myself learning a new vocabulary and skills.
I find this challenging and interesting.
I have learned how to fabricate a web page using HTML, something I thought I would
never do. From this basic knowledge I have already begun to expand my knowledge base
into areas I would have never gone on my own. |
| I like almost of them, especially, building web page. |
| I got a lot more comforatble using the internet. And I am not as concerned with "overloading"
my laptop. |
| The technical skills it provided with a constant grounding in social reality, the
rigor and the relevance. |
| The development of a cyber team with a specific mission. I was forced to communicate
with new types of people in totally new ways for extended period... |
| The interactivity of this course was amazing! Never before have I taken a course
in which you could perform all of the tasks in an online locker and interact with
your professor utilizining the technology to its fullest! Dr. Cox was organized and
because of that, we benefit from being able to contact him directly over the phone
at almost anytime, that is awesome, although I only needed to that once, it was nice
to know that I could. |
| The overall concept of the class in unique. The class could be done over 2 semesters
and cover more information on both sides of the electronic frontier. The techno-centric
and the philisophical side of the frontier. Subjective and Objective must emerge
together and when they do it is very good. |
| The fact that I don't have to go to class and that I can tape it if I am not home
at class time. |
| Your availability hours because I know I can call you if I get stuck on a task late
at night or on the weekends. |
| The ability to learn so much about the electronic frontier. I would have never thought
that I would be able to do the things that I have done in the past few months. I
like the accessibility of the instructor and I took advantage of that on many occassions. |
| I liked the fact that I could attend this course from just about anywhere, just about
anytime. I also like the perfection based grading. |
| I learned a lot about the internet and the workings of my computer. The fact that
I never had to go to GMU to class was another bonus. |
| I likes the way Brad Cox put this course together. What a thought provoking course.
I certainly can I learned alot from this course that I will remember for sometime
to come. I really appreciate the reading about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenaince.
This was the pivoting point that made most student realize that this course was not
going to be one that they could just squeak by with marginal effort. I also liked
the pace of the course. Overall, Brad Cox's distance learning approach earns a thumbs
up from me and I for one will endorse his work and efforts to change the way we can
teach students today and tomorrow. |
| The experiential learning and the fact that everyone really learned all the material.
Related to that is the "How I did it." That is extremely helpful. I also
appreciated the fact that you actually read the assignments we submitted. |
| I like the unique methods of instruction and communication. I also liked the cooperative
learning in the teams. |
| Everything. I especially liked the idea of being presented with something new and
then given the chance to go off to explore and practice it. It was a great learning
experience and one I'm sure that I'll never forget. |
| I loved the material and the flexibility of being able to complete the assignments
at home or at work or at school. I especially liked watching the lectures from home.
I would have like to call in to the studio for questions before I actually did when
the cheating incident occurred. |
| I liked the homework tasks. They were challenging and ensured learning. Well structured
tasks. |
| I like the different skills that offered to us about building web pages and running
different programs on the computer at the same time. As well as reading Pirsig. |
| THe peer assesments and the team meeting exercise. |
| I like all of what I have learned from this course.I learned not only of knowledge
but also valuable of working with a team project. |
| The tremendous challenge this course presented with its interdiscipliary structure.
The technical challenge by itself would have been a sufficient challenge. For those,
like me, who thrive on multidimentional challenges, this was terrific. I can't imagine
why anyone complained about the workload. Everything we learned or attempted to learn
was worthwhile. |
| I like most the use of the interactive forms to convey information between organizations,
teacher and student. This is a most intriguing technique for the classrooms of the
21st century. |
| This is a hard one because I learned many valuable things. So I guess what I liked
best is the way it all flowed together. One I first saw we were reading Pirsig, I
was surprised. Now it makes total sense in the big picture of the semester. Quality.
Therefore, all books, assignments, projects tie into one another to give me and other
students a very meanful learning experience. Thanks for your time and effort to create
this environment. |
| Learning about the nuts and bolts of the internet. Frankly, I think quality is critical
in everything you do in life...there must be some value...this is not unique to the
internet...in this sense, I didn't see much need for the level of scrutiny of quality...let's
face it, for those who didn't get it before, they are not going to stumble onto it,
just because they read the book and answered the tasks. |
I liked the hands-on exercises. I learn best by doing, and this class gave me many
opportunities for this.
I also liked working closely with a group. I have been out of the work force for
five years, and this class gave me the chance to get back into the swing of working,
and creating a product for a real client.
I liked working for an actual client, instead of creating an hypothetical product
that has no value outside of the classroom. |
| The distance learning environment through virtualschool, lectures via cable TV, the
TownHall, phone, and e:mail worked extremely well. I found this to be very convenient
and allowed for a more enjoyable yet very challenging experience. |
I liked pretty much all of the material that we covered. I feel like I learned a
lot in this course, and since I am at school to learn, I feel like this course provides
a good bang for the buck.
I like your availability, and willingness to help. I like the flexibility that this
course affords to us as students in terms of when we do our work. I like the way
it was set up as well. I really like most of it. |
| It is very wide ranged and covers alot of territory. I learned alot more than I thought
and that it is good to look at the web and make things happen with it. |
| I like the that most of the work is done via computer and the class can be watched
on tv. I can watch it at a time that is best for me. |
| The quick response to homework assignments. Not have to fight the traffic every week. |
| |
| I most enjoyed the experience of working through a course delivered over the Internet.
This is one of the best delivered courses that I have taken in this format - a format
that I think is clearly the future for postsecondary (and some secondary) education. |
| I like the process that you teach, learning and studying by the computer, network
and television. They are the infomation world. So cool!. I am appreciate to study
and do the project. frankly speaking, in my opinion, I didn't get anything too much
in the graduate course but I got the idea and knowleadge to adapt and use in the
future. |
|
What do you like least about this course? Why?
|
| |
| Probably the group work. I'm just the type of person who is introverted (get my energy
from within). I have no trouble working by myself and find group work always to be
compromising. |
| I didn't find the lectures too exciting. Great topics - however the forum wasn't
too good. If more people attend the classroom lecture maybe there would be better
discussions. |
| What do you like least about this course? Why? |
| The workload and the fact that I wasn't made aware of the incredible workload when
choosing my course load for the semester. |
| Pirsig, and also having to read all of Superdistribution. I don't think that was
necessary to get the point. |
| Both reading and writing, I spent more then what I expected to deal with reading
and writing. |
| Nothing, really. |
| Cannot think of any portion of the course I didn't enjoy. |
| Reading. It was difficult for me and very time consuming. |
| The amount of work required. My experience, in my mid-career, mid-life station, of
this course was that of being overwhelmed by big waves. This felt like a half-time
job to me. I don't have much to show for it because I was usually behind. I would
have loved to take this as a two-semester course. |
| All the reading of misc articles and websites. |
| I liked the lectures the least and the tasks where all team members relied on each
other to submit. One persons grade on a task should not reflect on anothers. |
| I sometimes felt like the course was a formum to promote the superdistribution theory
and implementation. No alternative suggestions were given. We saw the conflicting
sides and then superdistribution in the middle. |
| Having to read all the political type viewpoints, such as Holloween documents, etc.
I didn't see the value in any of that. |
| Lack of focus and inability to spend enough time on each of the topics covered to
reach a level of quality for each. Your predisposition colored too much of your tasks.
e.g. Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance doesn't ANSWER the question of What
is Quality -- It QUESTIONS the answers that are in place with the country's then
paradigms. Ironically, the book makes him a part of the Circuit at the end by giving
him electric shock. Indeed the separation between problem and solution converge and
destroy him at the same time. It appears it has done the same to you at GMU. |
The time constraints to get things done. I don't know how I stacked up with the other
students, but I know I spent alot of time on these assignments.
This task alone has taken me almost four hours to complete.
I have found myself burning the candle at both ends to get through it, but I accept
that as a part of the pursuit of education.
You asked what I like least, that was it. Would I change anything - NO! |
| Almost everything is good. |
| A lot of the technical instuctions (with downloading, installing, etc.) are incomplete,
confusing, and inconsistent. It reminds me of the part in ZMM when Pirsig talks about
poorly written instructions. |
| Doesn't apply. I'ts been my favorite course. |
| Only downer was driving to class (became less frequent, sorry!)... is the why necessary??? |
| The workload was far more than I had expected it to be and far more than it needed
to be. I had to put certain aspects of my personal life on hold because of the workload
of this course. I felt as if I were living in Dr. Cox's Virtual World, which has
been an amazingly educational experience, but not the only one that I desired to
participate in with my limited amount of personal time. TOO MUCH reading, and too
many assignments, and TOO MANY questions. |
| The topics covered should be covered in more depth and perhaps over 2 semesters. |
| The amount of work should be cut in half in order to be fair with the amount of credit
that we receive for all of this incredibly hard work. |
The reading, writing and analyzing because I'd like to spend more time with the technology
and artistic aspects. Due to time contraints, certain tasks took away from the time
I could have spent perfecting my personal and group web pages.
I would liked to have spent more time experimenting and perfecting my personal web
page and have it carry more weight. |
| The amount of reading. Just to time consuming for people with other classes, full
time jobs, and families, not to mention the other work for this class. |
| I did not like the talk to me sections. I don't particularly like giving suggestions
about how to improve a course. I think that if I felt strongly about something, where
I think I wanted to make a suggestion about a change to the course, I would email,
call, or set-up an appointment with the instructor. |
| The workload. |
| I truly felt the Holloween Lesson was a waste of my time. This lesson should be deleted.
I also feel that the "Talk to Me" text box's should be optional as I have
spoken to many students who feel that they must write things there that aren't really
true in nature but that they are compelled to write positive things since you are
the professor and that they haven't receiver their grade yet. |
| The problems I had with servers being down, etc. That caused me a lot of frustration
and ate up a lot of time. Of course, that is real world. |
| The thing I liked the least was the time of the class. I think graduate courses should
start later in the day to accomodate working people better. |
| Answering all of these questions. It's tedious. |
I did not like being graded on my portfolio.
Sometimes, I felt as though my work was not reviewed quickly enough. I did turn an
assignment in early on a Tuesday morning on one occasion. WHen I ran into a technical
problem and "called Brad" stating that I couldn't access the web page via
Netscape which I have at work, I still got a lower grade, reduced by 10% for a minor
fix. I realize that this was my fault for not turning the assignment in earlier however. |
| I think the touchy feely stuff. When we got to Mazlo I found myself asking, "Why
this?". I read the reasoning in the tasks but thought I could learn more in
other areas. |
| I did not like some ot the basic questions which asked students how they accomplished
certains tasks. I believed some assignments warranted explanation and other did not. |
| Reading Pirsig. Very difficult to read and understand, at times this book had a tendancy
to put me to sleep. |
| This course requires too much enegy and desire.It is so hard for student who have
to working and studying as a full time. |
| Having 50% of the grade based on the team project. |
| The team assignments which require you provide so much more time than the normal
classroom time although it does serve to provide an invaluable experience. |
| The worse thing was writing out How to Steps in such detail as to explain what clicking
meant. I don't know how you can be a graduate student today and not know how to click. |
| Responding to indivduals viewpoints on task assignments...I think we could have dealt
with the issues more broadly and in a better class discussion environment. |
| The peer assessments that determined students' grades by assigning the TEBs. I have
explained my reasons elsewhere in this task. |
| Personally more interested in the technical aspects of the course. I felt inundated
with the socio-centric stuff and felt it was a bit overdone. Sounds like Steve's
subjective viewpoint here. |
| I feel like the work load at times was overbearing. I spent seemingly every free
moment on this course and then some. I think that that is too much, it detracted
from time I should have spent on my other courses. |
| The extreme workload. It was difficult for me as I had alot going on in my personal
and professional life. I spent over 10 hours a week most weeks on this course which
I feel is alot. |
At first I didn't like the idea of a group project because of the time requirements.
I however had a wonderful group where everyone was willing to participate and do
what ever it took to get things done.
I wish that there was another class before this one that would aquaint me with some
of the technical sides of the computer. Often times I felt a little intimidated making
the tasks take for ever to complete. |
Not technical enough. The reading and writing about quality which I concluded at
the end that it is an individual preference. So why all the time reading about it.
I would have like to learn more about adding video and audio and JAVA script to my
web page. |
| |
| Probably due to my personal requirement for a sense of order, I was occasionally
discomfited by the sense that the course was being developed/modified "on the
fly." I also think it would be better to have the second round of peer assessments
to be performed by a different group rather than the same group that did the first
round. |
| Actually, not thing but some task should have a bit time too study and practice. |
|
Suggestions to George Mason University
|
| |
I'm surprised that GMU is not more excited about this course. I feel that it challenges
the ideals of traditional education and that always makes people feel uncomfortable.
What is most important, though, it to listen to the students. If they tell you it
works, that they learned more here than in 5 other courses, that should stand for
something! |
| Find a replacement for this course that is just as challenging, both in theory and
practice! Dr. Cox will be missed greatly. |
| Suggestions to George Mason University |
| It is unfortunate that Brad Cox is leaving the University, however, this course should
remain in some form or another. This was very interesting and very useful information
and skills. |
| Keep this course. |
| This class should be kept to teach here. |
| Don't let this course die. |
| Not much to say except that GMU loss is private industry's gain. Future students
at GMU will only hear about TTEF from those of us lucky enough to have taken it.
Those students have suffered a great loss. |
| Keep the course. |
| Since this course is property of Brad Cox, once Bard leaves GMU (this is my understanding),
GMU should license this course from Brad and hire faculty to teach this course. GMU
should make this multi-disciplinary, learn by doing, coordination technology approach
a one of viable ways to design and deliver courses at GMU. |
| Keep the course. |
| |
| None. |
| A course of this type should be maintained. Overall, it provides a great deal of
information to students that they will not get anywhere else. |
| Come forward and tell the students in an open forum why Brad is leaving/not being
re-newed, or whatever. Did you cut the last lecture short because of the material
being presented? Were Brad and Thomasina censored? |
Keep the course. Dr. Cox provided a very rich learning environment, with plenty of
academic rigor, and the requirement to apply higher level thought.
His distance education format is a part of the process, total immersion if you will
in the very topic this course was designed to teach. Without it this course becomes
ephemeral.
If not Brad cox, then who? What subject? How are you going to teach about the Internet,
and use of web based applications without getting people in front of a computer?
Teach the class in the computer lab? Fine, now instead of going home, or doing my
assignments at work during a break, I've got to drive to the classroom.
I think this was a great learning environment, and Dr. Cox has made himself available
to me on any occassion I have needed him. Often he has graded my assignments within
the hour, with detailed comments as to my work, so I know he has read it in detail
and understood it.
This is a superior course, with a great professor, and I believe that GMU is diminished
by his departure. |
| We need this course with Brad. we learned a lot from this coruse. |
| Keep offering the course. |
| Keep the damn course! Don't let this man get away! |
| Accept change, foster and embrace the revolutionary -- but hey, what can you expect,
I heard about this guy who got a "C" on a graduate dissertation and took
academia's opinion in stride -- he owns a little company called FEDERAL EXPRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| Teach a toned down, two-part version of this course. In two semesters, you could
cover more information and you could create an environment in which your students
would learn an amzing amount of information that is incredibly helpful in understanding
and for working in the Digital Economy. |
| Break up course content and go into the technology side and quality side over 2 semesters. |
| I think that the course should be kept because I find it incredibly useful and educational,
however if it is kept, the work load should be reduced by half. |
| Please make more telecommunication classes available via cable television and the
Internet. |
| None. |
| They should consider looking at how they could implement other subjects to work in
the same manner as this class did. |
| |
| I feel that course is just what this university needs. It was a real learning experince
for most people including myself. I can see that Brad Cox has put a lot of work and
effort into this course design and deserves a lot of credit for his achievements.
Don't let Brad Cox's work go un-noticed, either hire another person who can pick
up where he left off or have some department within GMU pick up the ball and deliver
a product similar to Brad Cox's |
| Wake up and shake off the dust. Schools like Strayer, etc are adapting to student
needs and attracting students who could be coming to George Mason. I know because
I've spoken to some of them. I've not spoken with a single employee at George Mason
who is really happy with the way things are at the university. Traditionally, educational
reform has come from the post high school level and they had better get up and smell
the roses. Th post high school population demographics have changed and the studentis
older and knows more clearly what they want from their educational experience. Same
old, same old won't cut it in the future. George Mason is touted as the technology
school for northern Virginia but people need to prepare for employment in that area
and don't have a lot of time to do it while working. This course proves that you
can have rigorous academics and practical learning blended together. They are losing
a part of the future with the loss of this course and will have to work very hard
to recover. |
| Keep this class around. Whatever disagreements exist among administrators, losing
this class is a mistake. |
| Keep Brad and the course! |
| They should definitely KEEP THIS COURSE. In fact, I wish there would be a follow
up to it or a whole entirely new curriculum built around the major premises of the
course. |
| More virtual school! Change the parking policy. |
| I hope it can have more long distance learning course as challenging as this. |
| More courses like this one. |
| George Mason should provide more chance for distance learning.Giving a class like
this course for student who hardly to come to study at regular class. |
| Rehire Brad Cox or hire a search firm to find his clone. |
| None |
| I suggest they keep this course and start more classes like this one. I know not
every course can be easily put into a distance learning category, but this is the
wave of the future. I liked all the options available for this course. |
| Don't kill the course. See if you can outsource it back to Brad as a corporate supplier
if not as a prof. |
If GMU is as pro-technology as it claims, it should make more of an effort to retain
professors such as Dr. Cox. His approach to teaching technology challenges the status
quo, and makes everyone who takes his course think long and hard about how the electronic
frontier influences life (and vice versa).
A university needs a diverse population both as students and teachers. If GMU want
only those who think according to the party line, GMU will lose out on some great
minds that will feel alienated (because they dare to think outside of the box). |
| Highly encourage more distance learning courses whether at the grad or undergrad
level. |
| Keep this class, it is one of the few where I really learned something that is transferrable
from school to job. It is well taught, and this environment makes it easy for me
to learn. Keep the class. |
| Listen to students they are the paying customers, forget beauocracy |
| Offer more classes taht take advantage of distance education. |
| Have more courses in this format. Why cancell a course after it has won a $25,000.00
award ? |
| |
| Develop more Web-based course offerings. Don't get left behind. |
| George Mason University is a good school in Virginia. Here is high quality. They
should this course. |
|
Suggestions to Brad Cox
|
| |
The only suggestion I have Brad, is that sometimes when you lecture, you appear really
"out of it". I know you are highly intelligent, but sometimes its tough
to follow you when you have trouble putting a thought together.
If you watch the lecture videos, you will find that you say "um" an awful
lot!
I tell you this for one reason. When I first started training with GM, a manager
sat through one of my classes. When the class was over, he asked if he could give
me feedback. I welcomed this, as up until this point, I had not received any feedback
from anyone. He said, "You say 'OK' a lot. From the beginning of the class to
the first break (about 1 hour), you said it 273 times!" I was mortified. I had
no idea. But you know, I never did it again, and I have always been grateful to him
for telling me! |
| Thanks for creating and maintaning such a challenging and creative courses! I learned
many invaluable skills about the frontier we taming! |
| Suggestions to Brad Cox |
| Brad it appears that you are the most intelligent person I have come across in my
26 years of living and you are by far an over achiever. That is super, we need people
like you to keep this world going and functioning. One thing to keep in mind, not
all people are over achievers - meaning the workload for this class was too much.
I feel the portfolio task entirely could be changed to just our home pages and building
our skills using that instead of our portfolio's. We could still evaluate each other
on our Portfolio's and have quality portfolio's. I think most of the portfolio's
were me-centric anyway. It was a favorite topic of the author and the author tried
to make it interesting to others. |
| Enjoy your next adventure. |
| You did a good job. I learned a lot of technical skills and social concepts from
you. Thank you. |
| Don't loose hope. Captain Beefheart once said that there are only five people in
the world; all the rest are hamburgers. I'm sure your dealings with GMU makes you
question that hamburger quotient -- as too low. But it's important to remember that
it is the other group, no matter how small, that makes it all worth it. Somehow,
progress is made. Keep the faith. |
Sorry to see you leave GMU Brad. Your reputation was the only reason I signed up
for TTEF. You did not disappoint me. Great course - I hope you can keep it alive
on the private front.
Good luck. |
| Keep being so helpful as you are. Thank you. |
| I presume that you will continue to evolve this course and create other courses like
it. I would love to see a product that would use this approach in running a project
- including these components: theory readings, good example in practice references,
coordination for tasks that I need to do now, feedback, how I did it, learning dimensions. |
| |
| Try and refrain from sexist comments of any sort. |
| None. |
| Focus more on business applications of web pages. Less on all the side issues and
commentary. |
| For a moment, listen to these emotion-packed suggestions, and imagine that you have
indeed overlooked something or possibly miscalculated a few things about this class
instead of immediately looking for statistics that you have collected to prove that
what you already feel is right and that I am a solitary misfit. The minute you think
you are right, you cease to listen. You are guilty of this to a degree. As a University
professor, these are questions I constantly ask myself. |
None specifically. Keep up the work. We need a few Daniel Boones to lead us over
the mountain to the new frontier.
I appreciate your patience when I started to whine, and your positive comments when
I met your expectations. Lastly I appreciate your fairness in dealing with me.
Thank you, and I hope to keep in touch. |
| You did a great job in this course. Thank you very much. |
| Don't give up on the ones like me. |
| Find a way to keep offering this course. It has been too valuable to me and, I'm
sure, others. |
Continue to keep your chin up, be patient, continue to write down those ideas, and
by all means ... have a couple beers Tues night ... you deserve them!!! Thanks Brad
...
JGP sends ... |
Read the book, "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie.
This book taought me more about business that any other that I have read, and I have
read almost 75 in my 27 years. I have achieved a high level of success in business
and my peers are (on average) 10-12 years older than me. I attribute that mostly
to the principles and instruction in that great book.
Good luck in business! |
| Same as above. |
| I enjoyed this course, even though it frustrated me a great deal. I never should
have taken it in the first place since I had no experience with anything that we
had done. If I did not have the patient and helpful people in my group as I did in
this course, I would have failed because I never would have been able to do it on
my own. And I don't care what you say, I have been to SEVERAL of the campus computer
labs, and they DO NOT offer the help that someone of my extremely limited background
needs. I heard several times from different people that they are not there to do
my homework for me, and if you think about it, it is nearly impossible to not have
them do it for me if they were to actually sit down to help me with it. They will
ask, "What do you need help with?" and I will say, "I have to complete
this task." But each question becomes more complex, and they absolutely cannot
give me that amount of time and energy that I needed. They are one person in a lab
responsible for people using twenty computers. They became very frustrated with me,
and I don't blame them. They are there to assist, not to do my homework for me. |
| Good job, but please let the students spend less time on the theorectical aspects
and more on the practical. You have enough material for two separate classes. |
| Do not stop letting students call you at home, it is the greatest, not to mention
helpful. I learned alot about the internet and the web, and I think so did most students,
something we are all greatful for. |
| Have a good New Year |
| |
| Take this last lesson and shorten it up! It's okay to get us to answer some feedback
questions but I feel like I'm being asked the same question time and time again.
This lesson was too long and too redundant. I like your initiative to get as much
feedback as possible but this lesson was a bit oo much. |
| Go make a million bucks and have fun and satisfaction doing it. |
| Good luck in whatever you do. I have enjoyed being in your class and learning from
you. Please keep in touch, or at least reachable in the future. |
| Stick with it. What a wonderful concept. I'm glad that you're focused more on learning. |
Keep this course alive! I would like to be informed if you have a sequel to the course
since I want to make a career shift in this direction.
(mpajak@gmu.edu) |
| Consider reducing the sociology aspect of the course (see below). |
| I don't have any suggestion on how to im prove this course. I just want to congratulate
Brad for creating a long distance course as challenging as this one. |
| Don't give up teaching. |
| I hope you will share this kind of course more and more in the future.It just wonderful. |
| Best of luck in your new ventures. |
| None. Keep up the good work and I wish you well in your new assignment. Do plan to
come back and |
I hope you are able to share this course with students again in the future.
Some of the lectures would have been handy the week before the assignment came up
or the night of the assignment. For example, tonight you talked about encryption,
but that lecture would have been very useful before the assignment. There were a
few others like this that I can't think of at the moment.
Beth mentioned in class that she was going to miss her locker. I think I will miss
mine also. The great thing about this was it was so organized that you knew when
to start, when to submit, etc. My organized mind liked that aspect of the course. |
| Focus even more on the end results and not on the "tasks". These tasks
seem to be almost the antithesis of everything we are learning. If you want to see
if somebody gets it, you can look at the quality of their work. Questions examining
actual web sites and the underlying value assumptions and principle would be better
than responding to authors about their perspectives. |
| Keep up the good work. You really challenged me this semester, and gave me opportunity
to look at computer issues from a much broader viewpoint than I have ever experienced
before. |
| Have the students write an essay answering the question "What is QUALITY?"
I had to say that. Honestly you may want to consider rebalancing the wieghts of individual
tasks. As students may purposely avoid the more time consuming tasks (ie. Pirsig
or Superdistribution) knowing full well that they only represent a small fraction
of the final grade. I would contend that those 2 tasks alone are worth 10% each.
Also, count the semester project as 30% and redistribute the difference to the individual
tasks. |
| This is a great format, and you have a good thing going. Dont let GMU get to you,
take this to another school, and you will do fine. This is a good class, overall,
and it should be continued somewhere. Thank you. |
| None. Good luck in the future. I hate to see you go but as so many I have seen leave
jobs that I have had, I really feel you can do better. I hope you get a supportive
campus because your program really is ahead of its time as Thomasina stated. I want
you to find a campus willing to give you everything you need to succeed. GMU is obviously
not that place, unfortunately. I know that you will do well. I can't help you as
long as you know that you really have a great program, you will do well with it with
the proper support |
| Very interesting class. I really learned a lot about computers, how to use them,
and the web. I have not tamed the electronic frontier, but I am least more comfortable
in it. |
Let us know where you will be teaching next. Will you have any type of newslist or
web site of your work after this course is completed.
Thanks will do. Is this being host on other server not at GMU.
Can you recommend some sites to host web pages? I have started working on another
client web page, that should be ready around the first of the year. |
| |
| Good luck on your return to private industry ..... and Thanks! |
| This class is the first class in graduate course. Thus, you are my first professor.
I think you did very good job. Thank you for teaching me. GoodLuck!! |
|
Suggestions to Thomasina Borkman
|
| |
| It was a pleasure sitting by you all semester. I learned a lot from your lectures
appreciated your honesty and openness with Brad. |
| Thanks for your insightful advice about groups. Unfortunately my group ran so smoothly,
I didn't get to put into practice what was taught! |
| Suggestions to Thomasina Borkman |
| None |
| I appreciated Thomasina's caring our our groups and helping the groups work smoothly.
In other courses the instructors don't want to hear about team problems and dysfunctional
teams. Thomasina was a real plus. |
| Your guidances are very helpful in team work. |
| Don't loose hope. It must be hard now, with Brad and others from the program leaving.
It may seem hopeless. But every cliff and mountain is ground down eventually by wind
and rain. Somehow, progress is made. Keep the faith. |
Dr. Borkman - I enjoyed our chats during breaks in the lecture. Your input into team
dynamics was very informative and useful to us all. Please keep making noise about
teaching team dynamics to those professors who think all teams "work".
Obviously some don't.
Thanks |
| None, she did a good job |
| |
| |
| I'm not sure she is really needed in this course. |
| |
| She played a good role in this course. |
| Use your sociology skills and bring together a forum of Brad, you and the Administration
of GMU and have a healthy discussion of what is happening. |
Dr. Borkman, my comments are listed above. I liked the assignments, But they seemed
to be laid on top of the TTEF requirements instead of being imbedded in the course.
A study in how to lead work groups might be beneficial vice answering questions about
how you'd handle conflict.
Just a suggestion. Thank you for your efforts with the groups. |
| She made students feel comfortable. She did good job. |
| Be more assertive in providing helpful suggestions. |
| I would like to see with more comments in the tasks or more interaction with the
teams. The latter would be difficult because of the time commitment and because my
team had no issues to address. |
| Continue to hold GMU's feet to the fire on the study of new group interaction processes,
especially those in cyberspace ... economies are merging, space stations are being
built and academia needs to continue to expand its classrooms as well.... |
| Enjoy GMU without Dr. Cox. Build a web page! |
| |
| Although I think Thomasina is very nice, I did not find her sessions very helpful
(for me anyway). I think it is pretty sad when grown adults cannot work through any
problems they may have with each other in a group setting. I have been in several
group projects before that were nowhere near as successful as this one was, and any
problems that occurred, we were always able to work them out without any mediator
becoming involved. |
| You did a good job covering group dynamics. |
| None, she did a good job on team dynamics. |
| Have a good New Year. Thanks for the group dynamics suggestions. They really helped
group 10. |
| |
| Thomasina, I think your a very nice person who really does care but I felt that the
group dynamics part of this course was a waste of time. Times have changed and most
of us are working in organizations that require team/group dynamics. I feel that
the group dynamics issues were irrevelant to this course and did not pertain to my
team and I never heard from other groups that they were held back due to frustrations
of a failure or breakdown in the teams. |
| Stay honest and forthright. It's good for the soul. We have too much sameness and
fear of saying what we are thinking in organizations these days, in my opinion. People
are afraid of losing their jobs if they say the wrong things. I wonder where they
get that.. |
| Good job bringing group dyamics into this course. It was suprising and refreshing
to see this type on material presented and encouraged in this class/ |
| None. Thanks for the tips! |
| It would have been interesting to know more about her direct experiences in health
care and how they applied to her role in this class. |
| The necessary mechanisms for group interaction have been launched in this course
(team building and contract etc). The main requirement for sociology here is to monitor
team disputes and problems. I'm not sure any further input is required from your
end. |
| The inquiry on group dynamic has been very instrumental in making my team very effective.
More works on groups dynamic could well be used in all students work groups. |
| None at this time. |
| Your task is so helpful for a teamproject and real life. |
| Your insights gave another dimension to the course. |
| Never stop being the student's advocate. It came across in your lectures that you
are, keep it up. |
| Thomasina- Even though I did not have group problems, the assignments were interesting
and you brought a great alternate perspective to class. Livened things up a bit.
You are really needed with the groups, and I think you should convince Brad that
the first meeting should be a mandatory f2f. Makes a big difference. |
| I think her feedback on group dynamics ws helpful. Keep it up. |
| Continue to offer feedback on the group dynamics portion of this course. I liked
the analysis you slipped in during the semester. It made me realize that it takes
more than raw talent to make something happen. It takes people working together well
to create something good. |
| Thomasina did a fine job. No suggestions for improvement as her role was minor in
the big picture. |
| Keep it up. |
| No suggestions, you have done alot in the area of group relations and helping warn
us of problems. I am thankful |
| |
| None at the time. |
| |
| Relax a little more with the technology (grin). Thanks for the guidance and support. |
| I'm appreciate to study in this course. I learned a lot from your articles. Good
job!! |
|
Suggestions to Next Semester's Students
|
| |
| Give it all you've got. Don't get discouraged - it's worth all the hard work. |
| Enjoy! |
| Suggestions to Next Semester's Students |
| At the beginning of the first class stress the amount of work for this class and
be realistic 15 hours per work on most weeks. If they are not prepared to work those
hours for this class, drop it while they can. |
| I fyou have the opportunity to take this course, understand the work load, and keep
up with it. |
| Do your new tasks as soon as possibly. |
| I hope there are students next semester. If there are, I would say this: Have faith
in the work. Nothing worthwhile comes unearned. |
| You missed the opportunity to take a great course. Hopefully you can still visit
the TTEF site as a visitor to see what it was all about. |
| Do not give up, keep working. |
| |
| Don't quit! It's a loss to future students. |
| |
| None. |
| Good Luck! |
| Take the new class and wish Brad well. |
Dive in, stroke hard, don't stop, and don't be afraid to call Dr. Cox or other students
for help when things go wrong or get frustrating.
Bottom line, don't let this class fool you. Get to work on it early and fast, and
don't fall behind, because it's tough swimming upstream.
Lastly, focus on what you're learning, not on how long or how hard the tasks are.
Once you're through it, it doesn't seem all that bad. |
| You should manage your time well in this course. This course need a lot of time. |
| Allocate LOTS of time. More then you think is necessary. |
| Will there be a next semester? |
| Log on early and often ... |
| TRUST THIS COMMENT! This is a warning, prepare to be challenged and set aside at
least 25 hours per week for this course. Plan ahead and make sure that you do not
fall behind. |
| Start building a web site for your self now and read Persig now. |
| Count on AT LEAST tewnty to thirty hours a week for this course! |
| Be prepared for alot of reading and analyzing. |
| Alot tons of time and keep up with the work, do let it pile up. It is a constant
flow. |
Good Luck, considering that this is the last semester they are offering this class.
If the class continues, I think that there should be a greater point made concerning
students having the ability to access a computer, and making sure that computer is
capable of storing programs. They had better have there modems and memory up to speed. |
| Work ahead. |
| Well we know there won't be any so this question is obsolete! |
| Wherever this course is taught, take full advantage of the opportunity to learn.
There is so much in his course of value that all the work you put into it iswell
rewarded. |
| I wish there were going to be some! I would suggest that they stay on schedule, and
don't wait to start reading the books! |
| Think Quality! Start early on Pirsig! |
| Don't take too many other classes in combination with this one! |
Get the tasks done. Stay up to date at all costs.
Put in the effort, especially on HTML. This course will pay you back tenfold and
it is a tool which will benefit you for life. |
| Do your assignments on time so that the instructor can get enough time to review
them. Also in group project, set norms for the group to follow if you want to get
the project completed on time. |
| Start the assignments as soon as you can. Read Pirsig at least twice to really understand
what is trying to be said. |
| Organize your time and submit your work early.If you have problem giving Brad Cox
a call. |
| Sorry you won't be taking the course. |
| Don't sign up unless you have 14-15 weeks to devote to doing nothing but this course. |
Organize your time wisely.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time with your computer.
Get to know your team and have f2f meetings.
Read Pirsig before the semester starts! |
| Don't fall behind on any assignments...all of the tasks pile up on you quickly. |
| Realize that early in the semester, you may feel like quitting, and walking away
from the course (due to seemingly overwhelming homework and assignments). But work
through them, and you'll see that by the end of the semester, you will probably be
able to say you have learned more in this class than any other class you have ever
taken. |
| TAKE IT EASY OUT THERE!! |
| Be prepared to do a lot of work. Read Zen and Superdistribution early so you dont
get behind. |
| Start early on assignments and don't fear calling Brad Like I am |
| If you aren't computer savy, find someone who can help you with the technical aspects. |
| None. |
| |
| Get a human form! (This is the last semester this course is to be offered, isn't
it?) |
| Please read the Pirzig and Supesdistribution early. |
