Challenges and Problems

When teaching an online course, expect to be faced with certain challenges.

Challenges include:
- Differences in student hardware, software, and network access.
- Students may not ask questions when they get stuck and will get frustrated.
- Organizing and teaching an online class can take more time than you anticipate.
- It's easy to get sidetracked and waste time on the Internet
- Home and school distractions can challenge a student's self-discipline.
- Students have different learning styles.

Common problems include:
- Students don't show up on time. (A voice call might help.)
- One student posts many messages while others post nearly none.
- Motivated students quickly surpass the less motivated ones.
- Students "lurk" and read messages but resist posting their own.
- Students don't follow instructions carefully.
- Topic drift; discussions tend to easily get off the subject.