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[rod_torfelson_armada]

Hello,

As you can glean from the subject heading, I'll be teaching two sections of the same course this summer. Fully online, asynchronous courses. They have the same syllabus and start/end dates.

I've taught this course a few times and am comfortable teaching one section at a time.

Do you all have any suggestions about effectively managing this? Merging them into one master/overarching section isn't an option as the course was split because of over-enrollment.

I imagine I'm going to keep confusing which students are in which section in the discussion boards, etc?

[zuzu_]

Have a chat with the IT person who is in charge of the "back end" of your CMS to see if it is possible to merge the users into one course shell without changing their registration status. I have done this when I had the same scenario. But I suppose it depends on how interconnected your registrar is with your CMS.

[littlefred]

I have had 2 sections of the same class more than once, and it is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

I print a roster of each, and I make a spreadsheet of each to keep track of assignments and any *issues* the student may have.

I don't think its a big deal, really. The thinking about it is worse than the doing!

[infopri]

I've often taught two sections of the same course, both face to face and, more recently, in an online-only format.  I've never had any real problem.  Sure, it takes me a couple of weeks to remember which section various students are in, or which section has generated which comments in the weekly discussion (just as sometimes happens face to face, in a physical classroom), but--again, just as in the physical classroom--such things become clear to me pretty quickly.  I was always good at learning names/faces in the classroom, so I just put that skill to work online.  It doesn't take long for each section to develop its own "personality" (again, just as they do in the physical classroom) and for me to start "recognizing" the individual students.

Don't worry, you'll be fine.  And you get twice the pay that you'd get with a single, large section, even though it's only one prep.  (At least, I do!)

[glowdart]

I've often taught two sections of the same course, both face to face and, more recently, in an online-only format.  I've never had any real problem.  Sure, it takes me a couple of weeks to remember which section various students are in, or which section has generated which comments in the weekly discussion (just as sometimes happens face to face, in a physical classroom), but--again, just as in the physical classroom--such things become clear to me pretty quickly.  I was always good at learning names/faces in the classroom, so I just put that skill to work online.  It doesn't take long for each section to develop its own "personality" (again, just as they do in the physical classroom) and for me to start "recognizing" the individual students.

Don't worry, you'll be fine.  And you get twice the pay that you'd get with a single, large section, even though it's only one prep.  (At least, I do!)

This is the hardest part for me -- mostly, I think, because I'm a pretty visual person, and on-line classes do not provide the visual cues that I need to remember who said what where.  I tackled this by always grading the same class first each week, and always grading the groups within each class in the same order each week.  . 

I also decided that some redundancy in my comments was not a bad thing -- and so I'll say things like, "as one of the groups discussed" and then post that comment on all discussion threads.  (I split my classes up into groups, anyway, so two classes is really more like have a few extra groups -- I also tell them that I've assigned them to a group, so...)

[infopri]

I've often taught two sections of the same course, both face to face and, more recently, in an online-only format.  I've never had any real problem.  Sure, it takes me a couple of weeks to remember which section various students are in, or which section has generated which comments in the weekly discussion (just as sometimes happens face to face, in a physical classroom), but--again, just as in the physical classroom--such things become clear to me pretty quickly.  I was always good at learning names/faces in the classroom, so I just put that skill to work online.  It doesn't take long for each section to develop its own "personality" (again, just as they do in the physical classroom) and for me to start "recognizing" the individual students.

Don't worry, you'll be fine.  And you get twice the pay that you'd get with a single, large section, even though it's only one prep.  (At least, I do!)

This is the hardest part for me -- mostly, I think, because I'm a pretty visual person, and on-line classes do not provide the visual cues that I need to remember who said what where.  I tackled this by always grading the same class first each week, and always grading the groups within each class in the same order each week.

Yes, I grade everything in the same order, too--alphabetically by last name within each section, and I do the lower-numbered section first.  But I do that when grading work from face-to-face classes, too.

Another trick I use online is two-fold:

1) The system supplies me with a roster of each class, and each student is supposed to have uploaded a photograph of him- or herself to the system, which shows up in this roster.  I print these photos out at the beginning of the semester and look at them in conjunction with strategy #2, below.

2) The very first discussion assignment each semester is for every student to introduce him- or herself, tell us which program he or she is in (my course is required for several), identify the areas of the course of greatest interest to him or her, etc.  Following my model (I always post a similar introduction of myself), they often also include a sentence or two telling us where they live (they're distributed all over the country and even around the globe), their marital and parental status, whether they have pets, etc.  I require them to attach a photo of themselves to this introduction, and encourage them to use a different photo from the one already on the system.

Usually, just looking at these introductions and photos (from both sources) for a few minutes at the start of the semester (and perhaps referring back to them once in a while as needed) is enough to give me a starting point, so that when Jane Doe sends me an email or posts to one of the in-class discussions, I have some idea who she is.  Very quickly, though, as I said, the students' personalities come out in these actual exchanges, and I no longer need the roster or introductions to know who they are.

[melba_frilkins]

As several had said, it's easier than you might anticipate. But here are some specific suggestions:

1) Do EVERYTHING you can ahead of time to set up the course in its entirety before the semester starts. This includes putting in content, pre-populating the calendar, dated announcements, discussion topics, the grade book, etc. Then copy that into the second section's shell. (My only complaint about two non-merged sections is that you have to do the boring technical stuff double, when you would never have to do those sort of things separately for two f2f sections. So I try to get all the technical stuff done before copying sectionA into sectionB).

2) Then do what you can to make the classes look different to you. Me, I'm a big color person, so I put the same banner on the top of each, but used opposite colors (one is blue, the other orange). If possible, change the background colors of each section (use a reasonable color choice, like very pale colors, so that there is still a good contrast between background and text).

3) Always do things in section A first, then section B. Whether that be grading, replying to discussions, updating content, etc. Otherwise you lose track and waste time going back and forth to see where you did what.

4) Does your CMS have an interactive task or to-do list built in? If so, use that to keep track of what you've graded in which section.

5) Do not read your email from the general in-box, but always go into a section and then open the email from there.

6) If you find yourself having to rewrite the same sort of comments between sections (e.g., your responses to discussions, or in email or announcements) keep a running text document where you copy/paste in things you think you'll want to repeat in the second section.

5) Keep a notebook (and not just little pieces of loose paper) at your desk to jot down mini to-do lists, and then for each list there's a column to check off sectionA and another column for sectionB. For example, my current list is "grade chapter 10 discussion, grade chapter 10 essays, respond to chapter 11 discussions, send email out about finals week".

[zuzu_]

1) Do EVERYTHING you can ahead of time to set up the course in its entirety before the semester starts. This includes putting in content, pre-populating the calendar, dated announcements, discussion topics, the grade book, etc. Then copy that into the second section's shell. (My only complaint about two non-merged sections is that you have to do the boring technical stuff double, when you would never have to do those sort of things separately for two f2f sections. So I try to get all the technical stuff done before copying sectionA into sectionB).

This, in particular, is EXCELLENT advice.

[infopri]

Chime to almost everything melba suggests!

(My only complaint about two non-merged sections is that you have to do the boring technical stuff double, when you would never have to do those sort of things separately for two f2f sections. So I try to get all the technical stuff done before copying sectionA into sectionB).

This very problem made my first semester even harder than it would have been.  But after that, my school just dumps the entire content (except for actual discussion board messages and email messages) into the next semester's space, lectures and all.  All I have to do is update everything.  If the same is true at your school, then you have to set up each section only once.

2) Then do what you can to make the classes look different to you. Me, I'm a big color person, so I put the same banner on the top of each, but used opposite colors (one is blue, the other orange). If possible, change the background colors of each section (use a reasonable color choice, like very pale colors, so that there is still a good contrast between background and text).

I didn't do this, but our system displays the section number prominently at the top of the screen.

3) Always do things in section A first, then section B. Whether that be grading, replying to discussions, updating content, etc. Otherwise you lose track and waste time going back and forth to see where you did what.

YES.  I did this (just like grading everything in order), and it makes life much, much easier.

5) Do not read your email from the general in-box, but always go into a section and then open the email from there.

Yes!  Until I learned which student was in which section, using that general inbox was somewhat disorienting.  I always do everything from within the section, and, again, it makes life much, much easier.  It also gives me a more organic feel for where each class is in its progress through the course.

6) If you find yourself having to rewrite the same sort of comments between sections (e.g., your responses to discussions, or in email or announcements) keep a running text document where you copy/paste in things you think you'll want to repeat in the second section.

This is also a handy trick for comments on assignments (both within and across sections)!

[rod_torfelson_armada]

Thanks everyone for several helpful suggestions. I've already color-coded and printed photos and will use the same order grading strategy, too, along with the other things raised here.

Much appreciated...