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[scotia]

I have just learned that a course I was told would run for 17 weeks in fact only has 12 weeks of 'teaching' time. I realized that 17 weeks was unlikely to be available and had prepared 14 weeks worth of material (the final exams need to happen before Christmas) but have now discovered that even this was overoptimistic. I therefore need to either (a) double up two weeks of material in the study plan so that, for example, materials which I think the students should study in weeks 4 and 5 will now all be done in week 4 and material for weeks 9 and 10 will be done in week 9; or (2) cut two weeks of material.

This is a brand new Masters program, with this and another course forming the first four months of teaching. It is not the students' fault that the administrators (not Faculty, who were only alerted to the problem yesterday - and the course starts in September) have cut the time available. My suggestion was to cut material rather than overload students. However, one of my colleagues wants me to make the students do all the topics as this is what we had in mind when the course was designed. 

I would be grateful for any advice  - I am the first person in our group to prepare week-on-week study materials for students who are learning at a distance and I am getting a lot of conflicting advice about what I should do.

[dept_geek]

Rather than doubling 2 weeks, can you add just a bit over 4 or even 6 weeks?

So.. you may have had (for example)

wk 1    unit 1 & 2
wk 2    unit 3 & 4
wk 3    unit 5
wk 4    unit 6

why not
wk 1   unit 1 and part of 2
wk 2   finish 2, do all of 3
wk 3   unit 4 and start 5
wk 4   finish 5, do all of 6
wk 5   final exams

Each week is only a little harder, and the students don't feel as slammed.  If you spread out the material, they may not even notice that you had to add additional stuff in less time.

The trick will be with homework & quizzes:
wk 2: hmwk & quiz on unit 1 and first 1/2 of 2
wk 3: hmwk & quiz on second 1/2 of 2 and 3
wk 4: hmwk & quiz on unit 4 and first 1/2 of 5
wk 5: homework on second 1/2 of 5 and 6, final exam

You'll need to be creative on dicing up the material, but it's do-able without doubling some weeks.
I do this often in my online classes where there are 10 chapters and 8 weeks.

[scotia]

Thanks for the ideas dept_geek.

Homework and quizzes are not a problem: the UK system tends to have fewer, but major, assignments. There are only two assignments and a final exam, and if I drop material it will be from the very end of the course, which would only have been assessed in the exam. However, there are self assessment questions to help students to test their understanding. I have designed these to test the students' ability to integrate and apply the material. Splitting things across weeks would make a real mess of what I have carefully prepared - not an option given the time I have already invested and the fact that the materials need to go to the printer on Friday!

I have been told that the cut in weeks will not happen when the course runs again next year: I spent quite a bit of this morning calming down the course director, who was not a happy man when I broke the news to him about the shortened time. I need a one-off solution

[dept_geek]

So.... the course is only going to be cut this year, and not next? Oh heck - no point in making this too hard for you. Can you give the last two units as the evil extra credit? And blame the missed material on programmatic growing pains?  The second easiest is to just double up like you suggested.

[scotia]

Can you give the last two units as the evil extra credit? And blame the missed material on programmatic growing pains? 

'The evil extra credit' is not a concept that exists in the UK. It is not all bad on this side of the pond. But maybe including it as 'something you can study if interested but I promise not to test you on it' might be a very useful get-out. That way the students who are particularly interested can look at the material in the weeks after the exam when I was under the impression they would still be studying - I'll even monitor the discussion board - and those that don't care get a break. Thanks for the idea.

[larryc]

Double up near the beginning to put the fear of God into them.

[drsyn]

I am always in favor of making students work harder.

[scotia]

I am always in favor of making students work harder.

I agree they should work hard - which is why the 14 weeks of material was already demanding. I have, however, no desire to be the cause of divorce or children forgetting what their parent looks like.

[drsyn]

I am always in favor of making students work harder.

I agree they should work hard - which is why the 14 weeks of material was already demanding. I have, however, no desire to be the cause of divorce or children forgetting what their parent looks like.

Then decide what is most important.  What you want them to leave the class with.

[magistra]

What is the big assignment?  If, say, it's a 20 page paper, maybe make it 16-20 pages, or whatever, so that gives them some breathing room.  Beyond that, I'd decide what's least important, and then give a bare bones overview.  Explain what happened, do the 'optional extra reading' thing as discussed above, and just give them enough so they know what the basic concepts are.  Can you put extra credit on an exam?  Maybe include this material there. 

Handouts are useful for 'extra' material.  A good exam study sheet, making it clear what's most important, can be helpful in cutting their study time, and thus lightening their overall load.  You might also want to work up good, comprehensive handouts on the topics you've skipped or given short shrift to, complete with bibl, web pages, etc.  This cuts your guilt -- they have the information -- and even if they don't 'learn' it, they have a reference sheet for the future.  You might even want to consider posting your class notes. 

I'm suggesting these things because I'm concerned that they'll be in trouble next term, when the professor -- who clearly wants them to know this info -- gets them.  If he assumes you've at least touched on a topic and you haven't, it'll create a headache for everyone.  It also strikes at the heart of your department and its reputation.  If the faculty things this material should be covered -- in a graduate program, no less -- than it should be covered, or it's a disservice to everyone.

This truly sucks, but then you know that!

[expatinuk]

What I do with the weird UK system is to have the exam before Christmas... and the paper due after Christmas. That way you do get the 14 weeks done with only 12 weeks of teaching.

[bone_gal]

If I were in this situation, my decision would largely be based on whether or not I was creating this content from scratch (after all, this is an online class and someone is building it), or if I was just reusing something someone else had created. If I was building it, and knew that every time in the future I would teach it a certain way, then I would build it to facilitate teaching it that way. I would not teach it so differently this time that I'd have to build it one way, and then fix everything to use it again in the future.

So, I'd probably give them the full course with the extra weeks compressed whenever it best fits the schedule. They can deal with it. I teach courses for a community college system that regularly occur in both 10 and 15 week versions. The exact same course materials, textbook chapters, discussions, activities, exams, etc., are used, but the 15 week version has some things that run over 2 weeks instead of just 1.  Students can deal.

[scotia]

Thank you everyone for the ideas. I have decided to double up on one topic, which will be needed for a follow-on course, and to omit another topic for this presentation only (fortunately it will not be hard to include next time the course runs as it is now all prepared). Because of the nature of the subject it will not have a big impact on students' understanding of later material. I will try to steer some of the online discussion so that some of the theory gets in under the radar.

What I do with the weird UK system is to have the exam before Christmas... and the paper due after Christmas. That way you do get the 14 weeks done with only 12 weeks of teaching.

I looked into this but was told I 'must' have graded all assignments and returned the grades to the students before the exam. This does not happen on any other program in the department. I am sure this set of administrators is making up the rules to suit the way that they have worked for the last 20 years and do not want to change.

Thanks again everyone. Now back to the cut and paste function.

[msoexpert]

I've been there myself and know what it's like and how frustrating this can be.  My suggestions are these:

• Use each or selected weeks to combine material.  Whether you decide to combine 2 full chapters for instance into 1 or do 1 and then part of the other is a personal choice.  But them longer than you had originally planned.  For example, I've covered 3 chapters in a week during summer, while it would only be 1 or 1 1/2 during the rest of the year.  So think of it as a summer quarter class where time is shorter.
• Modify the amount of work they have to do.  In other words, if you planned for a quiz on each chapter, then perhaps do it on multiple ones instead.  This way, students won't feel overwhelmed and complain "up the wazzo."  This also applies to things like assignments, homeworks, and/or discussions.  By cutting these areas down, you can give the students more in terms of learning material so they can actually get through everything they need to learn.  In other words, more time reading their lessons and less time worrying about quizzes, assignments, and other stuff.

Now what I always do is make my schedule tentative, and make that very clear to the students right from day 1!  This way, I'm free to adjust along the way and rearrange things if needed.  Sometimes, I've had to do this because maybe I was too agressive or the students couldn't handle it in the beginning so I pushed it to later on.
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