Red Flag Alert

Is too much freedom necessarily a good thing?

Students in Canadore College’s School of Recreation and Leisure have been given the latitude to take the Rec 130 course by one of three options or by a combination thereof. Students may choose to attend sessions “in-class,” or may choose to attend sessions by “e-class,” or may choose to view recorded classes “r-class.”

Although, we have just begun this experiment I am aware of several students favoring the approach to take much of our Rec 130 course by “r-class”. A danger of this tactic is for students to put off viewing recorded classes or stockpiling classes until there are far too many to properly digest...learning is a process and true learning requires absorption time and a degree of reflection. Those who embrace “r-class” learning will also not have the advantage of interacting with others in real time.

Regretably, certain controls (attendance/participation marks, etc) eventually may have to be introduced to encourage students to attend either "in-class" or "e-class" sessions...thus, discouraging an over reliance on "r-class" learning.

Attention to student behaviour will be needed in order to respond to the question... Given too many choices, will students ultimately abuse the intent of the "r-class" option?...an option that at best should be viewed as merely an inferior alternative to both "in-class" and e-class" learning.

For now, the plan is to remain vigilant and to follow, as best I can, the students' footprints to see how many migrate to each option.

At the end of the day, the goal is to ensure student learning is not negatively impacted by offering too much freedom.