Trying to prep for 20/21

[AlwaysColdHands]

Arghhhh!!
We seem to be gearing up for two scenarios:

1. Blended, with reduced f2f, prioritised for year 1, but expectation that all students will come onto campus at some point (staggered times, small groups etc etc). Logistical nightmare to say the least, all delegated down to academics to propose solutions.

1. Wholly online in case of further lockdown

So I may need to transform an undergrad module into an online version with bells and whistles AND got to take on a new postgrad course. How to do this with no school and nursery ???? Dreading the summer and feeling so stressed about September..........who’s in the same boat? 😥
Misery loves company and all that.....

Don’t you have lecture recording software? We have Yuja, which works though Blackboard and is very easy to use. No way would we be allowed to put anything on YouTube.

Sorry if that sounded a bit snippy. We’ve had lecture capture software for a number of years so I’m surprised to hear that this isn’t the case elsewhere.

We have Panopto but I really don't want my lectures to be property of the University.

We have panopto but we won't be on campus to use it.

I have not tried yuja, would you recommend it? My reason for doing the odd thing on YouTube would be because it's what the students are already used to, it's something I ask them to do for one particular assignment and just to up skill myself a bit. It may not work out!

You don't need to be on campus to use Panopto.

If you don't want the university to keep the lectures, then you can remove later. However, you might find yourself on shaky ground: the materials that you produce while paid by them do belong to them.

On another note, have any of your unis given indication about mask wearing yet for staff or students?

No guidance yet. It all seems a mess. Promises made to students about face to face contact but ominous silence about how it will work. We have lots of students and very old buildings with small rooms. I have not heard anyone in power even mention transmission by aerosols and breath- all that is mentioned is social distancing. There is no way we can be expected to be in rooms with students for 3 or 4 hours (the plan in draft)

The students I have spoken to seem to think that they will have seminars and uni as normal in the Autumn. They think we are making things unnecessarily difficult. We will not be able to satisfy the promises being made by the university (they are vague but face to face is being promised) No student I have spoken to has realised that it will not be seminars as normal and it is likely everyone will have to be masked etc.

It is all extremely worrying. We went online quite well and have now lost any ground due to lack of any decisions about what we are expected to do.

have any of your unis given indication about mask wearing yet for staff or students?

Mine says it will make face coverings available to students & staff. I've decided I won't teach face to face unless all my students wear a face covering, as will I.

I use the disposable paper-like masks when I'm in shops & so on, and it's perfectly easy to talk, breathe & have facial expressions while wearing one. My glasses can fog up, but that's easily dealt with & happens a lot anyway, face covering or no.

No guidance but they have offered 2 masks each to all staff and students.

There is no way we can be expected to be in rooms with students for 3 or 4 hours (the plan in draft)The students I have spoken to seem to think that they will have seminars and uni as normal in the Autumn. They think we are making things unnecessarily difficult.

Sorry to intrude as I really shouldn’t be on here-I am not an academic, just a teacher, but as I have a DC about to start university, I was just wondering what sort of guidance you had been given on resuming teaching in September?

The description above about being in the same room as students for hours is what’s going to be happening in schools and despite some staggered starts, extra hand washing and trying to keep to year groups (of a few hundred), things will look pretty normal-certainly back full time at full capacity.

Can I ask how different things are for you all, or are you not really sure yourselves yet?

One difference in universities than school: 1) we have a lot more people circulating through the buildings than in schools; 2) we have significant numbers of international students; 3) we have older/adult students (obviously they're mostly young adults, but nevertheless they have a greater risk than children)

So far we've been told:

• Any class of more than 39 students will be online (as they can't accommodate any groups larger than that.)
• Priority for face-to-face teaching is being given to 1st year, 4th year (in Scotland), and TPG students.
• We should try to avoid synchronous online teaching
• We should avoid doing the standard 1 hour lecture online--we should break it down into 3-4 podcasts. I'm not convinced by this last point. I think that some students will feel short-changed if they don't get something that looks like a normal lecture.

That’s really interesting-thank you for replying. Yes, definitely re the larger numbers of people circulating. Do you think everyone will have to wear masks when on campus?

At my place it's all about the risk assessments and control measures - although the planning makes my head explode with the volume of work it's creating - I am reassured that both students and staff safety is taken seriously and above and beyond government recommendations.

Face masks in all communal areas is the current advice (as well as distancing/hand sanitizers/environmental cleaning etc)

There are some who are equivocal about students ability or desire to keep within the control measures and how this will be managed.

Nothing on face masks. We’ve been told that students need to sanitise their chair and desk areas whenever they arrive and leave. Apparently there’ll be masses of sanitiser and disposable wipes in each room.

students need to sanitise their chair and desk areas whenever they arrive and leave.

How do you sanitise a soft desk chair?

They’re not soft chairs—they’re plastic.

Gosh, that must be uncomfortable to sit on for a 2 hour lecture/3 hour computer lab!

OK, talk me through this.
I have an existing lecture that had "discussion slots". I tried, at one point, to use TurningPoint for voting but frankly it never worked so I got students into small groups and got them to chat among themselves and then vote on a question. Even in a large class, that worked.
Now it's been suggested we record 2-3 segments per hour and have chat in between.

I have previously taught two hours of lectures (approx 50 mins, 10-15 min break, another 50 mins approx).

Now I do have these "go away and discuss" points anyway, but they are not at helpful places in the lecture.

Would you:
Introduce breaks for Q&A where you'd have the discussion points previously (so, short segment, discussion, half hour segment, another break, 10 mins, another break)
OR
Use the same discussion points but at appropriate places time-wise
OR
Use new discussion points?
Please don't say the last one!

I'm OK with either finding an online solution to the voting or just letting them chat and feed back questions; the voting part isn't really an issue.

I think an online solution to the discussion/voting would be better. Could they post comments on a forum or similar instead of discussing live?

We have to have a Q&A between the segments so there has to be something (semi) synchronous (if you watch it during the lecture segment, you switch over to the Q&A when there's a break, if you watch it later you can read the Q&A and ask more questions).

I would prefer they discuss in small groups (e.g. breakout groups I have set up on Teams) because if there's an online forum it will be the "same old hands up" like it is when you have to say something in a lecture. Small groups are a lot less intimidating.

Ms forms can be used in ms teams for voting. I think Kahoot is an on,one voting system too.

I'll look into that, thanks.

Going back to face masks, etc. DH’s university has now said that they will be providing staff with visors and masks, and that students will need to wear masks in the classroom. Social distancing will be enforced on top of that. My university is still maintaining that they won’t be making anyone wear a mask, or even encouraging it. Few of our classrooms have windows, just an air conditioning system, which apparently actually increases the risk of transmission. Obviously, they are more interested in not losing student enrolments than staff safety, but I do wonder if this is counterproductive. I was on research leave when lockdown started, but DH had less than 10% of his students turn up for seminars the week before that, as they were scared of getting the virus and thought that the university was being irresponsible in carrying on as usual when there were known cases on campus.

Our vc seems to have done another about turn on masks and is sort of recommending students wear them. Don't think we're providing them though and very little info being given out other than his insufferable YouTube videos he likes to do.