I thought the idea was excellent and well executed. I would have loved to participate more in the discussions, however my schedule limited me on the times I could post. I would recommend keeping the forums as they encourage thinking, and discussion. Everyone may not have the same idea on the subject, this however encourages both sides to learn the other side's views. Overall I enjoyed the forums that I was able to participate in.

Overall I thought the forums were a good idea. However, it was sometimes hard to log on and post everyday due to life outside of the classroom but the amount of time giving to complete the forum was more than fair. 

I loved the forums but I do with there was a min word count for the initial post as well as for the responses as I feel as though when I have a word count requirement I tend to express my ideas more clearly rather than just trying to get the assignment done. I also think having 3 required posting days (such as like you said Tues, Thurs, and Sun) would be helpful and maybe help folks stay on task. Although having more set dates is so stressful as a full time student and working I think it would have helped me post more in the forum so it would be helpful even if stressful.

I think many of my classmates made good efforts in articulating their ideas in the weekly forums. I think taking an online writing course in the lead-up to this course helped me considerably, and could be a recommendation for folks before trying this class - not only do we need to comprehend the history, we need to discuss it thoroughly in the forum posts. I understand that individual responses are important, but perhaps some people also need to see other's attempts to get a tone for their own responses. As I juggled my busy week, Wednesday sure came around fast! but if I set a target for posting by each deadline, calendar it, and outline some ideas as I read the chapters in the first few days of the week, the Wednesday cut-off was achievable.

Students should not be graded down for not continually posting throughout the week- responding to these forums (at least for me) takes time to come up with analytical answers, and some days I just don't have time to get to some of my classwork.
But, as clearly stated in the instructions, participation throughout the week is THE main requirment of the forums.

I feel that the deadlines for the forums were fair. The only times I had trouble reaching the deadlines was in the beginning first half of the trimester when my WiFi got turned off and I had to use friends computers for all 3 of my online classes. But once I did have WiFi access again, I felt that it was fairly easy reaching the requirements for the deadlines.

I enjoyed the forums the only thing I didn't enjoy was having to wait to see the grades for the posts on the forum. I understand why one needs to wait but it was just nerve wracking wondering if I did enough to earn at least the minimum required.

I honestly thought the forums were a waist of time. It took too long to go through all the material and then read and reply to other peoples posts. Also making it to where we got docked points for turning it in on the day it was due made no sense to me. I am very busy. I have full time school, work, coach JH basketball, and a kid at home. making it to where I have to be in and participating every single day was a bad idea. I took an online class to fit around my schedule and this made it to where I still had to be working on this class for hours a day. I took an online class so I could be on it once or twice a week for a good amount of time, not every single day. I also honestly don't care about other students input with the forums so it was just a hassle. Nothing about this was interesting or fun to me. It actually really irritated me.
Before the term begins, I send all students an announcement that this online course requires participation throughout the week and not just on the weekend.  Unfortunately many students either don't read that carefully.  Also, it sounds as if you schedule is just too busy to take a class that actually requires that students complete work.  Unfortunately, one of the greatest misconceptions concerning online classes is that they are easier and require less time then classroom-based courses.  I am fully aware that some instructors perpetuate this myth by lowering expectations, but I do not.  It is not academically fair to the tuition-paying student, nor is it financially fair to the taxpayers who pay instructor salaries.

I thought that the forums were an extremely valuable part of this course. I wish that more students had taken them seriously and thoughtfully posted throughout the week as instructed, but the conversations/debates from the students who chose to engage were very enlightening. I often found myself viewing an issue from another point of view that I might not have considered without the input from my classmates. In my opinion, this is a relatively easy part of the overall grade in this course. It simply requires the student to read the questions, watch the applicable videos/read the information provided, think about it thoroughly, and provide an educated opinion. The result of collaborating with one's colleagues is a richer, more complete educational experience that would otherwise be missing in the online platform. Maybe if this portion were worth more of the overall grade, more students would take it seriously, but I am just speculating. I know there will always be people in any group who choose to be less engaged and do the minimum to get by, but as a serious student of history, I found the forums to be quite rewarding.

I felt that I put fourth my best effort with each post and with my replies and I didn't once receive a 100%.  It was discouraging to me to keep putting as much effort because no matter what I did it just wasn't right.  I also don't feel that points should be taken away from those that post on Wed  and then again on Sunday.  As a parent to 2 children, working a job, and going to school full time I didn't have the opportunity to post every single day.  I took an online class just so that it could be more flexible and be able to do it when I was available, but that wasn't the case with this class or the forums.

I think it would have worked better if the students know how many times they were suppose to post in order to get full credit.

I would have loved to complete the extra credit opportunities, however my schedule just did not work with my classes this term. I feel like it is a great idea to have them in case there are those who would like to try and earn extra credit. 

It was challenging to finish the extra credit along with all the regular work given. 

For me personally and like you stated in the extra credit opportunities, extra credit is and should be extra work. With the work load that this class brought me as a student who is a slow reader and my other classes it was honestly too much for me to handle. I couldn't comprehend adding another hour or more a day for a week onto the 6 hours a day I study plus working. I think although it would be less work having an extra credit opportunity being in the form of a forum might be nice because I found the forums more palatable.

I attempted the first extra credit, but didn't have time for the second. I always appreciate the opportunity to gain back points, as each week it is easy to drift a little behind, even when the content is resonating, and inspirational. 

I think instead of giving students a pass/no pass on the extra credit, they should still get some points for putting in effort- some people are really bad at writing essays and shouldn't be graded so harshly.

I feel that the extra credit was hard to access. Not the work once you got the materials, like renting the movie, but actually getting the materials was inconvenient in itself, especially for those with busy schedules. Though, I'm sure it is very helpful for those students who do get the materials.

I did not take advantage of the extra credit but I was glad that they were available.

The extra credit was a nice gesture. I also respect that you think it should be earned points instead of just handed out. However, the extra credit was EXTREMELY long and irrelevant to anything we were doing in class. As I said earlier I am very busy and adding hours of work for some extra points that won't really effect your grade that much is ridiculous. I would recommend an extra quiz or two for extra points. 

I understand the frustrations that come along when you change the curriculum to acquiesce to student requests only to feel like the students did not take it seriously. I can only speak from my own perspective. I understand the reason for offering extra credit during the weeks prior to midterms and finals, but as you stated, students have quite enough work as it is with this course, let alone their other coursework. For me, the timing was just too hectic for me to be able to dedicate more time to extra credit on the weeks when so much was required of me from all of my courses. As a full time student, employee, and parent, I found it very difficult to justify spending more time on extra credit that I could be using to study for midterms or finals. If I had more difficulty making a "good" grade in this course, then these opportunities would have been more appealing. However, with my grade at a level that I was happy with, and with all of the other pressures I was under, I simply had to say no to something. I hope that you will continue to offer these opportunities in the future. This has been my first term in college and I was still finding the rhythm that I needed in order to be successful. In the future, I hope to be able to take full advantage of those opportunities as long as they are still offered. 

I thought the extra credit was okay to do.  I wouldn't change anything in that aspect.

I think the extra credits were very time consuming and a lot of work, i wish it was like taking an extra quiz or some other less time consuming method.

All of my history classes that I have taken have been physical textbook classes. Most of my math classes used online materials and it made the class a bit more difficult due to the lack of a physical copy. I think some of the resources such as videos or 1-20 page PDFs are fine for an online/in-person class, however a textbook would be best in my eyes.

I believe this could be a good idea, especially to the ones that have a hard time affording materials.  

This is the first I am hearing of this potential switch and I am scared. There is only one thing I hate more than spending $400 on textbooks each term and that is reading online. I have terrible eyesight and staring at a computer for any period of time makes it hard for me to look at other things. I choose to go the route of printing out any online materials I need but as a college student I don't always have ink and I don't always have the ability to buy ink to print things out. The logistics of a class of this format being completely online is incomprehensible to me. This textbook is priceless to me and one I will be keeping for a very long time if not adding to my collection of history books but if it were online I would probably never look at it again and I couldn't imagine if I had to print it out so I could see it.

I also leave my charger for my laptop at home often so when my laptop dies I have no other choice but to catch up on course readings so having a textbook is essential for my learning process. I have in almost all of my courses (all of which have been online courses) had the ability to purchase or rent an online text for much much cheaper but nothing beats having a textbook in hand. I truly can't put into words how much this will change my love of learning and my want to enroll in classes in the future if this actually happens. I simply will not want to go to school.

This class in particular I feel needs a textbook because of how much information there is to consume. I do not feel that this class would have been as beneficial to me if the course materials were online only and I would have easily fallen behind.

I like courses that have no text books, and I have taken a few. (This term my Geography course was free from textbooks.) I prefer printing important pages, over have a large text book (which I usually rent from Amazon when required) I really like youtube lectures, and videos - perhaps I learn better from audio lessons. I like researching online, and would be comfortable with reading from a screen, over a heavy book. I take notes into a note pad, when I'm listening to a video or podcast. I highlight electronically, and cut and paste notes into a word document. I probably end up with 10-15 pages of printed notes at the end of any class, regardless of the text book available. Sometimes links are "broken" but in the format of online study, someone seems to point this out fairly quickly, and a fix is found.

I like hard copies of books so reading everything online wouldn't be that beneficial.

I feel that the free materials online would be different for everyone. For students who are wealthy or who have parents/relatives/etc. who pay for their books and schooling, they probably would prefer the actual textbooks being buying the books is not a problem, so they would probably rather not have to read their materials online. However, for those who need/want to save money, would probably prefer the online free materials because since they will save money, reading materials online would be worth it. For me, though I have never had a class like that, I would prefer the free materials online so I can save money.

I have been in a class when the teacher just put the needed reading for the class in each section of moodle online. I really enjoyed this because it was free and didn't need a textbook, and also because it was on;y the reading we needed for class. I enjoy physical textbook and like being able to read them (to me it is hard to read online). But what I most don't enjoy is having to buy or rent a huge textbook but only needing the first 5 or so chapters of the book. If the books were smaller and only had the info we actually use in the class I think it would lower cost and would be great alternative. But also having the option for either online or physical textbooks would be great.

well im never taking another history class again so... but I still want free books for other classes. some terms I have spent over $500 just for books.

I feel that the Liberty, Equality, Power textbook is absolutely vital to this course. My (hardcopy) textbook is FILLED with highlighted passages which allow me to breakdown and understand the material better. I have a system of four different highlighter colors based on names, dates/concepts, places, and interesting passages that are worth revisiting. I spent most of my time in this course reading the text and switching between highlighter colors to enhance passages. Even when material was only offered online for many of the forums, I printed it off and highlighted. I suppose this is simply my learning style, but it is a necessary part of my process. If materials were offered strictly online, I would still need to print everything off and highlight as I read. This is NOT something that I am interested in doing. I love having most of the information that I need for this course all contained within one textbook. I not only highlight but also write on the edges of the pages, and I have flipped through the pages more times than I could count. This is the way that history was supposed to be studied I think. I know that the world is changing and we are relying on computers more and more in almost every aspect of our lives, but this is one aspect of the educational experience which I would like to see maintained for a while longer. 

For this particular class I felt it is best to buy/rent the book. m I think online links or books would be terrible there is just too much information and in the book it was all right there.  I have not taken a class with free online materials.

i think it is a good idea to have access to free Material but having a book is also a great help. As my personal Experience this term i had a online book and sometimes it was so hard to use it due to headaches and eye irritation caused by screen. 

I think that you did an excellent job organizing the class and providing clear requirements/deadlines. To me, it was an ideal class, I just wish I had more time to dedicate to it as I enjoyed learning from you.

I enjoyed the shared folder, it helped me stay organized. 

It was amazing! I have both Moodle and Google Docs on my phone and get notified anytime an assignment is due which is so helpful.

This might be user error but I think it would be nice if on Google Docs you had one folder for the whole class that you shared with everyone so we could see that and go into in when we needed something rather than having all of the documents being labeled individually as I feel like I might miss some here or there in the giant list of all my classes using GD.

I would have also liked a copy of the syllabus in Moodle, there were a few times I found myself confused and forgot that the syllabus was in GD

I like that every instructor is a little different, and I have to adapt to each style - truly! But I like when I can check off the segments within each week, along the right side of each task, and this is not an option you used in Moodle. I probably didnt use all of the features in Google Docs, but I appreciate that they are available. 

This set up worked out well and let me know what I needed to take care of for the week.

I feel that though the folder view style of class may be helpful for other students, but it was not needed for me because I found that just going to the moodle page week to week to see what was due was good enough to get all of my materials done.

I liked the organization of the class and the way all the links were set up. It was easy to find what I needed and it also helped with opening more tabs of each thing to be able to jump back and forth. 

it worked fine.

I think that the organization and communication of this course far exceeded the other courses that I took this term (my first term). The information was readily available, the expectations were clear, and the calendar reminders were extremely helpful when I was away from my laptop, not only for planning study time but also for scheduling the other things life threw my way. In some of my other courses, there was the weekly plan on the moodle page, but not all of the information was there, I needed to scroll back to the top and view the course calendar every week to make sure that I had all of the assignments for that week. This was never a problem with the History 201 course. From the very beginning, the assignment information was available a week BEFORE the term started, not on the first day of school. This allowed for advanced planning and getting ahead of the game. The instructor was clear in his expectations and offered an ample amount of communication to the students. In some of my courses, I was unable to get all of the required textbooks before the term started due to miscommunication from the instructors, in one course I never got the required version of the textbook because the instructor had not communicated with the LCC bookstore so they did not stock it, I simply made due with the version that I was told to purchase before the term started. I had none of these frustrations with this course. I cannot say enough how good it felt to know that every week I could write down exactly what was expected of me and check it off as I went. Thank you!

I felt towards the end of the course I was bouncing through different weeks to find the assignment or work.  

i really liked the entire process but the only challenging part was uploading of the pictures.

I do not have any recommendations. You did an excellent job with the class and if I could take another history course from you, I would be glad to. Sadly I am capped on my allowed history classes! Thank you for teaching a great class professor and I truly thank you for teaching history!

The only recommendation I would have would be for the study guide. For me, it would have helped if the vocab and terms were categorized by chapter not alphabetical order. 

I absolutely loved this course. I was intimidated by your videos when the term started but they helped me work harder in the course. I met with you this term face-to-face and I am pretty sure I would have failed the midterm had I not so I think it would be helpful to urge students to do this more.

A very thorough survey! Thank you. 

For me, I feel that the video quizzes helped me more than the reading quizzes, and therefor I feel that there should be more video quizzes. This is because since the chapters are so long, my brain got tired and would zone off when I was reading and it was hard for me to remember specific parts of the chapter. However, I found the video quizzes were easier to follow, remember, learn, and take quizzes on.

The only thing I would recommend would be to find a way (if possible) to use a smaller text book. The textbook for the class was great but it was huge and we barely scratched the surface of the whole book. Finding a smaller or more compact version would be nice to have.

I mentioned above that possibly making the forums worth a higher percentage of the overall grade would help more students take it seriously. Other than that, I think that this course was very well organized and I can't think of any improvements at this time. It's nice to have an instructor who clearly cares about his students and trying to help them succeed. Keep up the good work!

I have no recommendations at this time.

When is a good time fro students to decide if they are happy with their grades?