[ARCHIVED] Can one course be divided into several sections with a mentors assigned to one section each?

[rpsimon]

We have a senior internship course on Canvas and over 100 Seniors are enrolled in the course.  There are 10 mentors in the course.  They currently can see ALL of the seniors' course submissions, even though the seniors are not assigned to them.  I know a course can be divided into a number of sections.  What I am wondering is if each mentor can be assigned only to one section and therefore can not see the work completed by students whom he/she does not mentor.  Hope this makes sense. Thanks!

[rmurchshafer · Accepted solution]

Rebecca,

Yes, you can totally do that.  It sounds like you already know how to create sections and divide students into them.  The key for your mentors is that when you add them with TA or Teacher access, check the box that says "Can only interact with students in their section" and add them to the correct section.  If you already have them added, click on their name from People and there should be a link below there enrollment that lets you limit them to interacting only with people in their section.

Rick

[rpsimon]

Awesome!  I am wondering why we don't have all of our courses in school set up this way.....  For each course and section, such as US History 12 Section 1, that's a separate course in Canvas from US History 12 Section 2.  Technically, it could be one course in Canvas, with 2 sections, correct?  I am just wondering if that would make my life and the teachers' lives easier or more difficult in the long run. 

[rmurchshafer]

Rebecca,

I think it depends a lot on the culture of your school, the instructors, and how consistent the curriculum is. I've worked mainly in Higher Ed over the years and a combined course like that for 12 sections of History with many different instructors would not go over well where I've worked.  Professors typically have full control over their own content so they usually all do their own thing.

We do have a few exceptions and one is our Speech Community class.  Still have each class with it's own course site, but use a feature called "BluePrint" to create one master course and then push the content out to all of the individual sections/courses.  This works well to drive consistent curriculum and course design, but still lets faculty have their freedom to manage the course as they want.  Our Adjuncts love this (getting a pre-built course) but many of our full times.... not so much since they already have their own way of doing things.  If you'd like a quick overview of Blueprint here is a 5 minute video  

Rick

[rpsimon]

Yes, I’ve learned all about using Blueprint courses.    I definitely hear as to why one setup would work in some situations but not in others.  This was very helpful.  Thanks!

[rpsimon]

So an Admin in my school went ahead and created groups in the course - without knowing about mentors being assigned to the group.  Can mentors be assigned to a group (of students) in a course and ONLY see course activity for that group?  Or must a section be created for that purpose?  Honestly, I wish she had not done that.  I wish she would have waited for me to tell her.  

[rmurchshafer]

Groups are probably not going to cut it. For the most part groups are meant for collaborative work.  It will create a space inside of Canvas for each group, but if your mentors have TA access they can go into every group.  And you don't really have access to "assign" them to a group; only students can be members.  And for grading it's also not gong to work well based on what I thought you were trying to accomplish.  

Official sections are often tied back to your student information system so it's not uncommon for admins to not want to mess with those or create additional sections.   It's possible for people to be members of more than one section.  So that is what I'd suggest if it's the reason your admins don't want to do it.  Keep the students in their original section but also create the other sections in the course and add students to those too.

Rick