Hi again edubody:

In regards to a previous post of mine Here I’d like to suggest the following:

1) Make it Mandatory for a new teacher to take the intro class before he/she can set classes.
It would also be beneficial if a few days ( 2-3 ) pass by bewteen sign up day, and the intro class. This will show a teacher’s REAL interest.
2) Insist that a teacher has a completed profile. Make it look professional with all the required information.
3) Request assistance from other teachers. We’re all on the same boat. We all need each other…..LET’S HELP each other

These are just some suggestions. I know there are MANY more.

This will NOT STOP Teacher NO SHOWS. But, I hope it will make it more difficult for fly by teachers to just sign up, create classes, and never shop up again on edufire. This is giving us a bad name.

I want to HELP and PROTECT everybody’s good reputation. But, I need everybody’s help. This is not just a matter of edufire alone.

Its a matter of ALL OF US.

Thanks

Very good suggestions, Enrique. But, about #2, what exactly do you define as a completed profile?

Austin. To fill it out, and not leave most in blank

My question was about #2 also. At what point do you consider a portfolio to be “unprofessional” and the teacher should be reprimanded?

Dave. I mean fill out the profile, and NOT leave most information blank.

Also, what do we do with rogue teachers which could include those that you mention?

How about a warning the first 2 times they cross the lines, and after the third then they lose their ability to hold classes here? Some kind of fine or economic punishment may work as well.

Anybody can have an occassional problem and Don’t Show to class. I’m just trying to minimize these No Shows by making sure that the teachers are responsible and professional.

Responsible and Professional teachers also run into problems sometimes.

I like that idea of yours, Dave.

“How about a warning the first 2 times they cross the lines, and after the third then they lose their ability to hold classes here? Some kind of fine or economic punishment may work as well.”

But, what exactly do you mean by “cross the lines”?

@Dave and Austin. We must be careful on how to enforce that policy, if implemented. I mean, we must be fair; how close to each other the No Shows, etc…..

@Austin; as far as this discussion, “crossing the lines” = not showing. However I used a vague phrase because we may decide that there is something besides no-shows that need to be pruned from the system. Maybe it is something edufire never anticipated like if someone starts using the classes for pornographic shows. Edufire may decide to step in and say “if you do it again we’ll have to take action”.

@Enrique; the warning system was an attempt to keep things fair. Maybe we should set the number of “line crossings” within a timeline.

Enrique, you are absolutely right to state that we need to be careful in how we implement and enforce a Teacher-No-Show (TNS) Policy. I have mentioned this before in the threads, but often when students or teachers fail to show up for a class it may very well be due to circumstances beyond their control.

I experienced this problem first hand during my first class held recently here on eduFire. I will not go into all the details here, but needless to say I was thrown out of my own class on the Adobe Connect system and literally had to reboot my computer in order to be let back in. Thankfully I had already been logged on and uploaded my presentation to the classroom so when I finally was able to begin nearly 20 minutes late I was able to dive right in and present the information to my fellow tutors and students.

I was lucky in several aspects in regards to this situation. First, I was lucky enough that most of those enrolled in the class were fellow tutors who took advantage of the opportunity to conduct a mini-townhall meeting. And second, I had taken the opportunity to attend Marco’s class on making your class sessions run smoothly. Plus I had taken advantage of requesting practice time on the Adobe Connect system several times before the class in which I created a checklist of all the tasks I needed to complete before the class.

I would say that all teachers need to take the Teachers Orientation and the class I mentioned above prior to being able to add a class on the class schedule page. However, while this is certainly the prudent thing for tutors to do as they work to start their online tutoring business here on eduFire, I don’t know if these rules and regulations will do anything to help when someone doesn’t see the value of honoring his or her word to show up in the first place.

Ron. There’s no guarantee. But, at least we can weed out those that are not really responsible.

We can never erradicate this problem 100%. But, we can minimize it.

Maybe a Tutor Support area, like this but allowing more of a group chat. Can swap ideas, support and iron out their worries to perhaps negate their need for bailing.

@Ron; that is why I state a warning system and later within a said timeframe. If someone has problems more than x number of times in the last y months then there might be another problem. At that point several people are suffering; the tutor, the students, edufire, and other tutors on edufire.

@PSI; a chat is good, but I don’t see it as being better than a forum. Some do, I don’t.

@Enrique – I love the idea about having teachers fill out their profile before they can create a class. I’m never sure how easy that is to implement on the back end, but I think it makes sense nonetheless. I think it’s being tracked right now, too – you get a badge when you fill out an nth of your profile, though I don’t remember how much of the profile you have to fill out. Not quite a full solution, but I added some copy to the top of the create a class page about the orientation classes. Unfortunately I’m just a marketing guy so that’s the best short-term patch I could think of right now.

But, for those of you who aren’t doing it already, definitely e-mail hello@edufire.com if you find that a teacher isn’t showing up to a class – emergencies happen, and I don’t think you can punish someone for that, but we do want to know which teachers you think are consistently doing this so we can have a better idea of when to take stricter action.

Thanks!

Hey everybody. As Koichi just said, report teachers .
I just want to add this. …. PLEASE be fair. DO not report somebody just on your personal likes or dislikes.

Thanks

On some online forums, you need to respond to a specific number of existing posts before you can post a new post. You earn the right to post.

Why not set up eduFire that you can’t host a class until you attend and complete the orientation. Complete the orientation would be determined by the instructor, not just by virtually attending. For example, if Marco thought the person really didn’t “get” the orientation, they would need to attend another. It may sound pedantic, but just because you sign up for eduFire, it doesn’t have to mean you have the right to teach. It is just like signing up for drivers’ ed doesn’t mean that you can drive a car.

As all us teachers know, teaching is an art not a right. I think eduFire and teachers would all benefit if new members had to “earn” their right to teach, at least in knowing how to use the platform, and most importantly, understanding that scheduling a class to teach is a responsibility. Too often, since the virtual world does not appear to be “real”, people don’t always treat it as if that event were in the physical world.

@ Alan: I completely agree with you. Teaching is an art, and one of my favorites. You have to earn the right to do this, and if you can’t handle that, then it isn’t the career for you.

But, I do disagree on your “not getting it” topic. I believe that it would be enough just to attend the orientation, but maybe if they gave some positive feedback, that would be good. Or, if they hosted a class, but Marco or Valerie or someone was there with them just to see. You know what I mean? That way, they can get help with anything that they might have trouble with, and also teach a good class.

I don’t know. Just my thoughts. :P

@ Austin: I agree with your thought about having an “observer” on stand-by. Just wanted to make sure that the new member realizes that just attending is not enough. If a person doesn’t feel comfortable with or really doesn’t understand the platform, then an “observer” is a good idea.

I was just thinking can we ask tutors to be more specific with their credentials. I have clicked on many tutors’ profiles and many of them, though they have written a few lines of introductions, they left the credentials part empty or I have seen one that wrote “Trust me”!!!? Can this be a credential? (A disturbing thought) Though some teachers may not have gone through teaching college but I am sure they have been to certain schools, they must have graduated from certain faculty or institution and have the confidence and skills to teach the subjects, so why not have the credentials part be a mandatory field to be filled up. It could also be the work experiences of the tutors, need not be an educational institution.

I have co-hosted several classes. I should say, I’ve been a “Back up” host when a teacher has asked me to. The class is theirs. I’m just there in case they stumble and need a little support.

I am one of those students who wake up in the morning (different time zone) just to attend a class. One tutor send me a message that she couldn’t get in the class? I was kinda wondering why would that be a problem when I saw her profile, she taught several classes before. If this is true then we have a glitch in the program….of teachers can’t get in the virtual classroom.

I think that if you look at the bottom of the page that lists all the forums, you can see a list of students and tutors who are online. I am not sure if it is complete because there never seem to be that many …..

Anyway, if you click on a name, you can then text chat with the person whose name you click. I have only done this once, when I was struggling to get into a class and was rescued by Tim, who told me what to do.

But …. it occurs to me that if students and tutors are struggling with the technology, this feature could be used to communicate as they were trying to get into the classroom, if they were having difficulties getting in.

I don’t think the feature is well known and I don’t remember it being mentioned in Orientation Classes, but I do remember Tim rescuing me …. or perhaps it was all a lovely dream :-)

@ Friend Enrique: love your iniciative!!
@Forum: I agree with everyone!

And here’s what I think: regardless of complete profile, “getting” the orientation session, participating in forum etc, I do believe the most beneficial strategy would be reporting a no show tutor straight to hello@edufire.com, let them investigate to find out what happened to the tutor and deal with the situation. Like Enrique said: “do not report somebody just on your personal likes or dislikes”. Do we even know how many tutors are no-show??? 1? 3? 5? How many? Does the no-show has a demographic profile? (you know, it could be the internet provider and maybe it isn’t really reliable as some other areas). Please do report no-show to edufire, which I’m sure would contact the no show tutor.

Enrique, this is a great thread. And yes, you are the best co-host somebody can count on. : ) Thank you for being there for me.

What’s going on? In this moment I’m on skype chatting with an edufire student.

She had TWO TEACHER NO SHOWS today. Two different teachers didn’t show up. This student is not the same as the ones I began talking about on this thread.

What’s going on? Come on teachers. If you need to talk…..let me know. But, we can’t continue creating classes. And then NOT SHOWING UP.