2 sections of the same course, one synchronous, one asynchronous. Tips?

[spork]

My recommendation is to refuse to teach one of the two online sections if at all possible. It's really stupid for the university to offer one as synchronous and the other as asynchronous. Make them both the same or don't offer them at all.

What is stupid about it?

If they're already online, dictating whether they need to be synchronous or asynchronous is serious micromanaging. It's like dictating that one section is going to have 5 assignments, and the other is going to have 3 papers. Unless administrators claim to have some incredible pedagogical insights, those details ought to be left to the instructor. (And even if they did claim those insights, so that one format was pedagogically superior, then make them both work that way.)

Yes. What is the rationale being given for the same course being offered in two different formats?

[kiana]

If they're already online, dictating whether they need to be synchronous or asynchronous is serious micromanaging. It's like dictating that one section is going to have 5 assignments, and the other is going to have 3 papers. Unless administrators claim to have some incredible pedagogical insights, those details ought to be left to the instructor. (And even if they did claim those insights, so that one format was pedagogically superior, then make them both work that way.)

I don't see this. If students are signing up for a class, they need to know right away whether it has required meetings or not, and when they are. And if students specifically sign up because they want a class with scheduled, live meetings, it seems a bait and switch to pull that.

[marshwiggle]

If they're already online, dictating whether they need to be synchronous or asynchronous is serious micromanaging. It's like dictating that one section is going to have 5 assignments, and the other is going to have 3 papers. Unless administrators claim to have some incredible pedagogical insights, those details ought to be left to the instructor. (And even if they did claim those insights, so that one format was pedagogically superior, then make them both work that way.)

I don't see this. If students are signing up for a class, they need to know right away whether it has required meetings or not, and when they are. And if students specifically sign up because they want a class with scheduled, live meetings, it seems a bait and switch to pull that.

Serious question here: Prior to covid, did most institutions with online courses require that the course be identified as synchronous or asynchronous? My hunch is that it's mainly due to pushing everything online that the question has arisen about what sutdents expect/prefer. In other words, it's institutions trying to make the switch as simple as possible for faculty and students that has made synchronous a common option; prior to covid, I would bet most online courses were asynchronous.

I'm really curious about this.

[kiana]

Serious question here: Prior to covid, did most institutions with online courses require that the course be identified as synchronous or asynchronous? My hunch is that it's mainly due to pushing everything online that the question has arisen about what sutdents expect/prefer. In other words, it's institutions trying to make the switch as simple as possible for faculty and students that has made synchronous a common option; prior to covid, I would bet most online courses were asynchronous.

I'm really curious about this.

Absolutely yes. We never had synchronous online courses prior to COVID.

But we also had lower success rates AND we would restrict some students who were repeating courses from registering for online courses simply because with an asynchronous course it is so much easier to ignore/postpone/procrastinate.

Is synchronous any better than asynchronous for that? We don't know. But students are choosing sync over async in fairly decent quantities.

[Anon1787]

If they're already online, dictating whether they need to be synchronous or asynchronous is serious micromanaging. It's like dictating that one section is going to have 5 assignments, and the other is going to have 3 papers. Unless administrators claim to have some incredible pedagogical insights, those details ought to be left to the instructor. (And even if they did claim those insights, so that one format was pedagogically superior, then make them both work that way.)

My university gave instructors discretion to decide whether to do synchronous or asynchronous this fall, but we recently received notice that for the spring semester we must use a synchronous format unless the course is specifically designated as asynchronous. I am very annoyed since I have been doing asynchronous, so I must substantially rework my courses for spring over winter break.

[downer]

The general model for synchronous courses is that students do maybe 3 or 4 written assignments and a couple of exams, while the model for asynchronous is that they are participating in discussion each week and also doing about 5 tests, and also a paper. My general impression is that students in asynchronous classes end up doing a lot more work. They spend a lot less time being passive, listening to someone lecture.

I've taught synchronous online courses and really enjoyed them (but never taught the same course in these two modalities concurrently). I think many of your instincts (not too much lecturing, having the students present often) will serve you well.

If I were in your position, I would use as much of the same materials as possible. OneMoreYear's partial flip sounds smart: they can still watch your lectures, but on their own time, and you can use part of your synchronous meetings to answer questions about the lectures.

If asynchronous students would do a graded discussion each week, keep that discussion in your synchronous section, but make it live. Grade them for their contributions. If they carry the main burden of discussion, you might be able to grade it live, leaving you with no grading afterwards. (You may need to train them how to discuss for the first few weeks, but once they have the hang of it, if they are as motivated as you suggest, they should be able to manage with occasional steering from you.) Could you make one of the tests a short oral exam? Those, too, can be much faster to grade. If the work they would do on a test is equivalent to the work they would do for a paper, pick whichever will be easier for you to grade.

Also: unless you grade in huge long marathons, stagger deadlines for major work. Even teaching multiple sections of the same course, I try whenever possible to have one class with work mostly due on Mondays, and another class with the same work due a few days (or even a week) later. If you have a paper due in the synchronous class (though I don't necessarily think that synchronous=papers and asynchronous=exams), schedule the equivalent assessment a few days later in the asynchronous section so you don't have all the grading on the same day.

I'll also note that I find 12 students to be at the upper limit of a successful online synchronous discussion. Missing some of the social cues of in-person classes means that there are more false starts. I never require video, but I encourage it, and I encourage students to physically raise their hands and/or to use the chat box to respond so that they can engage with the current topics more immediately. It's been my experiences that individual students often speak for longer stretches of time in online classes, so it can be hard to make the conversations flow quite as dynamically.

AR.

Thanks AR. Very useful.

I am considering requiring the synchronous show themselves on video, and putting this prominently on the syllabus so those who don't want to can switch out. As far as I know, the college has given no directives saying that we can't require this.

I am also considering limiting video sessions to about 60 minutes. Unless it turns out that students have so much to say that we need longer.

I may also survey the synchronous students before the start of the semester to ask they why they signed up for a synchronous class. My experience this semester for the same class, where I had freedom to decide whether the class was synchronous or asynchronous and I surveyed them, was they all preferred the latter. It is more convenient. I even had other students emailing me because they had heard from  their friends that my class would be asynchronous and they wanted to get in the class. My impression has been that it faculty who are not used to online teaching who prefer synchronous in the hope that it is just like a regular class but online.

[ciao_yall]

My classes were 3 hours a week, face-to-face. I used to fill the 3 hours with lecture, discussion and activities.

Now I have them do discussions online. They post to the discussion board and offer 3 intelligent replies. We meet on Zoom once a week for at least an hour, sometimes longer. We use the time for group discussions, some lecture, and small group breakouts.

I was trying to keep them on Zoom for the full 3 hours but that was torture.

[marshwiggle]

I may also survey the synchronous students before the start of the semester to ask they why they signed up for a synchronous class. My experience this semester for the same class, where I had freedom to decide whether the class was synchronous or asynchronous and I surveyed them, was they all preferred the latter. It is more convenient. I even had other students emailing me because they had heard from  their friends that my class would be asynchronous and they wanted to get in the class. My impression has been that it faculty who are not used to online teaching who prefer synchronous in the hope that it is just like a regular class but online.

I had a similar experience. At the beginning of my course, a couple of students emailed to ask if there would be Zoom lectures. (I'd already emailed that there wouldn't be.) I confirmed there wouldn't, and that was it. Everything has run smoothly. (This is with about 350 students over two courses.) In a few weeks I'm going to have a survey about what they thought, so I'm really curious to see the results.

I also agree that it's faculty who can't figure out how to adapt who are the most in favour of synchronous, so they have to adapt as little as possible.

[kiana]

At my college at least, the people who are the most in favour of synchronous are the administration, backed by a survey of students **before** the semester. There are so many people begging for the fully asynchronous sections that a lot of people who really don't want to teach synchronously at all (like me! hi!) have gotten pushed into doing it. Admin has a mandated minimum percentage of classes that need to be synchronous.

Attendance is generally pretty low (actual attendance, not just people signing in on zoom and going afk) so I find it pretty frustrating on a personal level. But I do have some people who make good use of the synchronous time.

[Caracal]

I also agree that it's faculty who can't figure out how to adapt who are the most in favour of synchronous, so they have to adapt as little as possible.

I'll skip the impolite things I'm tempted to say and just stick with

1. We aren't all teaching the same sorts of classes and we don't all have the same sorts of teaching styles. Basically, there are two ways I could turn my classes into fully synchronous classes. One is that I just post a bunch of lectures online and we have discussion posts. The other is that I would completely overhaul the entire course content, reading, everything.

2. Which brings us to 2. It isn't that I "can't figure out how to adapt." I have no time or energy to overhaul three different courses in the middle of a freaking global pandemic. This is a catastrophe, not an exciting opportunity for innovation.

It would also just be a bad use of my time. If I create a brand new course, I won't be creating a better course, not initially. I was teaching course I've taught before as a summer course. I was already planning to change a lot of things to adapt it to the new format, so obviously I made other changes when it went online and asynchronous. Some things worked, others really didn't. That's fine because it was basically a new course anyway, and asynchronous summer courses attract more students anyway so I might offer it in the same format again. Next semester I'm teaching a course I haven't done in a few years. The last few times I taught it, I wasn't very happy with student engagement and I was already planning a full overhaul. It will be synchronous online, but since I'm changing a lot of stuff anyway, I'm obviously going to design it for that format. Lots of things won't work, I'm sure, but some will, and some of those things will hopefully be adaptable back to in person classes in future semesters.

[AvidReader]

I am considering requiring the synchronous show themselves on video, and putting this prominently on the syllabus so those who don't want to can switch out. As far as I know, the college has given no directives saying that we can't require this.

I'm sure you are already planning something like this, but may I recommend giving a link to an inexpensive webcam in your section for recommended course materials? In the spring, webcam prices spiked crazily, and many of my students still don't have them.

AR.

[kiana]

I am considering requiring the synchronous show themselves on video, and putting this prominently on the syllabus so those who don't want to can switch out. As far as I know, the college has given no directives saying that we can't require this.

I'm sure you are already planning something like this, but may I recommend giving a link to an inexpensive webcam in your section for recommended course materials? In the spring, webcam prices spiked crazily, and many of my students still don't have them.

AR.

They should also be in the college bookstore so that students can use financial aid to buy them if they are a required component.

[marshwiggle]

I also agree that it's faculty who can't figure out how to adapt who are the most in favour of synchronous, so they have to adapt as little as possible.

I'll skip the impolite things I'm tempted to say and just stick with

1. We aren't all teaching the same sorts of classes and we don't all have the same sorts of teaching styles. Basically, there are two ways I could turn my classes into fully synchronous classes. One is that I just post a bunch of lectures online and we have discussion posts. The other is that I would completely overhaul the entire course content, reading, everything.

2. Which brings us to 2. It isn't that I "can't figure out how to adapt." I have no time or energy to overhaul three different courses in the middle of a freaking global pandemic. This is a catastrophe, not an exciting opportunity for innovation.

Not trying to be snarky, but I've had to adapt labs for about 7 different courses. I can't just ship out thousands of $ of equipment to every student. Some things can be sort of done by simulations; others can't. Even the simulation s require me to find online simulations that they can run in a browser since they don't have access to our computer labs, and some have PCs and some have Macs, etc. So I'm more or less rebuilding all of the labs, some basically from scratch. The two courses of my own are heavily lab-based, so the content has to be changed based on what they can do remotely with the kits they have.

I'm not terribly sympathetic to people saying an online discussion forum isn't the same as face-to-face discussions.

[Caracal]

I also agree that it's faculty who can't figure out how to adapt who are the most in favour of synchronous, so they have to adapt as little as possible.

I'll skip the impolite things I'm tempted to say and just stick with

1. We aren't all teaching the same sorts of classes and we don't all have the same sorts of teaching styles. Basically, there are two ways I could turn my classes into fully synchronous classes. One is that I just post a bunch of lectures online and we have discussion posts. The other is that I would completely overhaul the entire course content, reading, everything.

2. Which brings us to 2. It isn't that I "can't figure out how to adapt." I have no time or energy to overhaul three different courses in the middle of a freaking global pandemic. This is a catastrophe, not an exciting opportunity for innovation.

Not trying to be snarky, but I've had to adapt labs for about 7 different courses. I can't just ship out thousands of $ of equipment to every student. Some things can be sort of done by simulations; others can't. Even the simulation s require me to find online simulations that they can run in a browser since they don't have access to our computer labs, and some have PCs and some have Macs, etc. So I'm more or less rebuilding all of the labs, some basically from scratch. The two courses of my own are heavily lab-based, so the content has to be changed based on what they can do remotely with the kits they have.

I'm not terribly sympathetic to people saying an online discussion forum isn't the same as face-to-face discussions.

Right, you've had to extensively adapt labs because you don't have any real choice. That sucks and I appreciate the amount of work that takes. It doesn't mean that it makes sense for everyone else to rework their classes completely when it isn't always necessary.

[marshwiggle]

I also agree that it's faculty who can't figure out how to adapt who are the most in favour of synchronous, so they have to adapt as little as possible.

I'll skip the impolite things I'm tempted to say and just stick with

1. We aren't all teaching the same sorts of classes and we don't all have the same sorts of teaching styles. Basically, there are two ways I could turn my classes into fully synchronous classes. One is that I just post a bunch of lectures online and we have discussion posts. The other is that I would completely overhaul the entire course content, reading, everything.

2. Which brings us to 2. It isn't that I "can't figure out how to adapt." I have no time or energy to overhaul three different courses in the middle of a freaking global pandemic. This is a catastrophe, not an exciting opportunity for innovation.

Not trying to be snarky, but I've had to adapt labs for about 7 different courses. I can't just ship out thousands of $ of equipment to every student. Some things can be sort of done by simulations; others can't. Even the simulation s require me to find online simulations that they can run in a browser since they don't have access to our computer labs, and some have PCs and some have Macs, etc. So I'm more or less rebuilding all of the labs, some basically from scratch. The two courses of my own are heavily lab-based, so the content has to be changed based on what they can do remotely with the kits they have.

I'm not terribly sympathetic to people saying an online discussion forum isn't the same as face-to-face discussions.

Right, you've had to extensively adapt labs because you don't have any real choice. That sucks and I appreciate the amount of work that takes. It doesn't mean that it makes sense for everyone else to rework their classes completely when it isn't always necessary.

I don't have a problem with people who try to keep things the same as much as possible as long as they don't whine about how it's not the same. If doing things synchronously works for someone, and they can make everyhting work with minimal adaptation, more power to them. But if people refuse to adapt any more than absolutely necessary, even when what they're doing isn't working for them, then they're bringing it on themselves. Because there are things that can be done (or done better) online, and being unwiling to even consider those possibilities is unprofessional.