I've been teaching online courses for the last 5 years, but I've taught a great variety of subject matters over the last few decades. One thing I've noticed and have yet to find a truly effective way to overcome, is the overwhelmed feeling some students get right out of the gate. They'll look at the projects, look at the complexity (I teach in areas involving design as well as scripting and coding) and they just shut down. The material isn't a skip through the tulip fields, but it IS broken down into small manageable bites, and I am very active in working with students and covering each aspect. However, I find that a significant number of students, who can do the work if I can get them to focus on one aspect, completely shut down seemingly out of nowhere. I start getting e-mails that make it sound like they've been tasked with outlining a plan for world peace. Surprisingly, a serious lecture with a bit of humor has helped quite a bit, but I find I spend half an hour of a scheduled hour long chat talking them off a ledge. When I finally get through to them, they carry on through, often achieving an A. My wife did this in a class a friend was teaching, failed it twice. I finally stepped in and isolated each step and didn't let her think about any other, she got an A. This isn't a practical solution for a class of 30. Any ideas, anything you've done that would help? Trip Bauer