Optional assignments

Ko and Rossen in the book Teaching Online discuss the use of optional assignments (p. 107) which I’ve often wondered about. Although I think of myself as the model adult learner, more in this degree program for what I can learn that will help me out on the job, than for the degree itself, I often do have to draw the line at optional assignments for the very reasons the authors present. Prioritizing job responsibilities, family responsibilities, household responsibilities, and coursework responsibilities is a tightrope act in my life, and most often, not always but most often, optional assignments don’t get moved up high enough on that list of priorities to ultimately be accomplished. Honestly, one of the hardest parts of adding this degree program to an already busy life is the difficulty of determining priority.

In a research article by Gale Parchoma that, by the way, references BSU’s distance learning program (PDF link at http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22optional+assignments%22+%22online+courses%22), it is reported that 83% of students in an exit interview recommended that there be no optional assignments. This is an interesting article as it gives some guidelines for creating learner centered courses by describing two successful programs. It would be interesting to track optional assignments in online courses to see what the completion percentages are.