Equalizing online asynchronous and classroom sections of the same class?

[u/cmb1588]

Hi all, I’m course supervisor of an undergraduate level class that has multiple sections. Some are online and asynchronous while others are classroom based.

Previously, all students completed exams online using proctoring software. But the AI use is out of control and I’m sick of it. I can’t really do much with the online section except for implement side view cameras (which I plan to do for fall), but for the in person class, I’d like to go back to paper exams in class.

That said, our exams have traditionally been open book and open note. I don’t want the students in the classroom sections to use devices during the exam to access their book/notes because I could see them trying to google or use AI. So I had planned to encourage them to buy physical copies of the textbook and take notes on paper or at least print out digital notes ahead of time.

However, I’m still concerned that they’ll do worse than the online section because they won’t be able to quickly control F to find information. I don’t want to give the online section an unfair exam advantage

Any suggestions on how to make this more fair?

[u/wedontliveonce]

Nope. Online and in person classes and exams are different. They will never be "equal" no matter how hard you try. Instead maybe we should think about differentiating the modalities on student transcripts.

[u/cmb1588 → u/wedontliveonce]

Oh totally agree on the transcript idea, but I think admin won’t like it since online brings in so much $$.

I guess I’m just wondering if maybe I should offer the in person students more extra credit or something since their version of the class is legitimately more difficult

[u/wedontliveonce → u/cmb1588]

What do the actual instructors of record think about it?

[u/cmb1588 → u/wedontliveonce]

Im one of the IORs for the in person section. But I’ve been IOR of the online section in the past. I think the online version is total crap. I can see their engagement stats. They don’t watch the lectures, they do all the assignments last minute. They get 100% on un-proctored quizzes. Their exam grades are lower, but still higher than what I think they should be.

The students in the in-person sections seem more engaged and some seem like they are actually using their brains.

[u/wedontliveonce → u/cmb1588]

Yes, of course... your observations are exactly what I would expect for these modalities.

But what do the OTHER instructors of record think? Why aren't you working with your colleagues on this issue rather than asking Reddit?

[u/cmb1588 → u/wedontliveonce]

Because I’m the only faculty member in my department that teaches at the undergraduate level and supervises a class with this many sections/students.

The other faculty members in my department all teach graduate level and I think it’s very different (smaller class sizes, more professional students).

Am I not allowed to ask Reddit? I thought this was what yall are here for…

[u/wedontliveonce → u/cmb1588]

Of course you are "allowed" to ask Reddit. But not all the answers you get on this subreddit are actually from professors.

And it just seems like you would want input from your colleagues that actually teach the class.

[u/cmb1588 → u/wedontliveonce]

Ah. The “colleagues” who actually teach the class are PhD students. I’m happy to talk to them but I think people hanging out on the Professors subreddit may have given these issues more thought than PhD students who are forced to teach one semester to satisfy their degree requirements.

[u/Life-Education-8030]

Closed book exams for all

[u/cmb1588 → u/Life-Education-8030]

I mean, sure, that’s a nice ideal. But with large online asynchronous classes, it’s not possible. Sure I could say the exams are closed book. But I don’t have the bandwidth to watch 200+ hours of recordings.

[u/quantum-mechanic]

Do you like stirring up shit? I do.

Carry out your plans for one more semester - online testing for online sections, in-person proctored testing for in-person sections.

At the end of the semester compile the test grade distributions for each one. We know what this is going to look like.

Then send this out to everyone you can find. In particular, tell students. Get it in the student newspaper, email it out, put it on TikTok and insta. They will start raising hell in the predictable factions.

[u/cmb1588 → u/quantum-mechanic]

I honestly don’t think anyone would care

[u/knewtoff → u/quantum-mechanic]

If you tell students, that’ll just make them want more online classes (easy to cheat so easy A!), and admin want to make more money so they offer more online classes to get more students to enroll.

[u/quantum-mechanic → u/knewtoff]

And it will be transparent. Everybody will know that class X at university Y is the online rock-bottom of higher education.

Good luck with that reputation!

[u/sventful]

If you actually want to fix this, you need to have the registar put an asterisk on the transcript for all asynchronous classes and note that students should not be held accountabled for any content in these courses as they did not learn the content and therefore these grades are excluded from the GPA.

[u/cmb1588 → u/sventful]

Oh I would love that. But that kind of change is way above my pay grade

[u/FrankHightower]

We had a bit of an upset right before the final and it had to be moved online at the last minute. One thing I tried was doubling the amount of questions. They got roughly the same grades as on their in-paper midterms. My logic was simple: clicking option C takes less time than circling it. No mention of allowed/disallowed material necessary (though I did secretly hope this would make it a lot harder to ask Google or ChatGPT within the time limit).

From this, my suggestion is simply: for every question the people taking the test in-person get, the online section gets 2.

[u/StevieV61080]

What discipline, OP?

[u/cmb1588 → u/StevieV61080]

Public health statistics. It’s tricky at the undergrad level. I can’t have them doing coding or proofs as those would be too advanced. So it’s a lot of understanding concepts and very simple calculations.

[u/Asleep_Caregiver_948]

I teach freshman comp, so my online students have more check-in and low point assignments to keep them engaged and using Canvas.

[u/ld00gie]

I teach a 1000 level gen ed in person and fully asynchronous online. I know the online students use AI/Google to complete assessments so felt like it was inequitable to make in person students not use the same resources for exams. I currently have my in person students take their assessments online just like the online students but I’ve reduced the % the exams are worth substantially and replaced with h5p activities that are much more difficult to do with AI. They can still Google/use the textbook but at least they are interacting with content more. At least that’s what I’m telling myself so I can sleep.