Feeling like I can't ask my teacher for help

I am not sure where to post this or who to talk to about it, but I hope this is an ok subreddit for this topic.

Recently I enrolled in online college. It has been years since I attended school so I am getting back in the groove.

One of our recent graded assignments had a question that I could not seem to get right (three tries)

I asked my teacher via email and went over my process to ask where I went wrong. She just said that if I am sure I am right that I may have entered the answer in the wrong format. (Answer I kept getting was square root of 40)

This did not sound right to me. After googling solutions and methods I finally found my answer. There is a difference between -xⁿ and (-x)^n. That was where my issue lied.

In my opinion she should have mentioned that. Not "if I am sure" bs. I am not sure, that's why I'm asking.

But now I feel like when problems get more complicated, I can't go to her for help to understand them. I wonder why she is even here now. If she won't teach and help me understand the material. What is her purpose. I might as well be taking the course through the book only.

There is a public general question thread. I am debating about using that instead. But will be vague like "I am having trouble understanding question y, if you have gotten there can you message me?" Or something like that if it's appropriate.

My bitterness half want to ask her why she is the teacher if she won't teach. Even though it is only after one question. But it was a basic question that could be answered without giving the answer to the problem. So I feel off about her now.

Am I in the wrong? Is there something about the modern curriculum that I just am not aware of that prevents her from giving better teaching answers? Should I just start posting publicly when I have trouble understanding something? Is there something I can do to call her out if I should.

I just really am bitter that she is even there at this point. If she isn't even going to help me accurately understand the material, she should be there getting paid in my opinion. It also makes me worry that she doesn't understand the material and may just be blindly grading by what the computer says the answers are.

Thank you for your time.

Submitted May 06, 2022 at 12:13PM by UnsungPeddler https://ift.tt/ikzKsTR