How are we all managing?

[ItalianHat]

It's the end of a 2nd week of teaching for me. Online is working OK - the students are saying they're already very tired though! I think it's about switching from the complete lack of structure of lockdown (for them - I was pretty busy!) back to timetables and starting seminars at 9am and so on.

And today's hollow laugh was an email from our IT managers which included the statement that: "IT staff are working into the evenings and at weekends to overcome the backlog of requests"

Tiny violins, please ...

It's of a level of clodhoppery that rivals an email sent to us from the teaching administrative staff manager in the June exams period, which told us that academic staff would have to do some time-consuming admin task, because professional staff "did not have space in their workloads."

I mean, I know everyone's working over & above, but why is it the academic staff who have to applaud everybody else (and do parts of their work for them), when we routinely work evenings & weekends.

Grrrrr.

But other than that - it's nice working with the students again, although online can be frustrating at times. However, I don't think it'd be any more frustrating than masked & at 2m distance, trying to run a seminar with desks & seats set out in socially-distanced rows.

Awful, thanks for asking.
My module this term is the one that everyone loves.
None of the students are talking in seminars. None of them are even typing. All my lovely illustration videos are broken and I keep forgetting to press record too.
I think my students all think that "online learning" means "log in and go for a coffee".

[quote DoctorDoctor]@Poppingnostopping I also have learned that you have to tick the 'use computer sound' box or whatever it is at the bottom before you screen share with videos! Learning curve.

Also getting the tiredness comments and yes, I think it's very much mental / psychological.[/quote]
I tried this but it just tells me to select something I then can't select.

@ComoTheFirst

No. An IT 'manager' gets a salary in line with the starting salary of a Junior Lecturer (who has no management responsilbities). 'Precarious'? You mean part time/ temp employment. Welcome to the world. And ask any office temp about 'Precarity'.

At least one of our IT managers is now on a professorial pay grade (he is married to a lovely admin person in our dept, they met when he popped in to mend her desktop).

Is anyone teaching in a university in a Tier 3 region? Just wondering if f2f is still happening? I’m convinced my university will never move online, however bad things get.

I have the same feeling GCAcademic.

Not in a tier 3 region but as others had said, I'm also working on a fairly deserted campus. The students coming for f2f are a minority now.

I've got to point of doing what I like. I've done mostly f2f or f2f lite as in online from my office next to the studio. I feel like this has bought some flexibility and I'm doing all online next week when I have no half term childcare and I'm not asking management if it's ok.

VC emailed students this week to congratulate them on their great conduct which means we don't have much covid compared to Nottingham. FFS...I'd guess it's more that we're small and don't have huge accommodation blocks.

I am in Tier 3 and we're F2F though I'm yet to do my first one (end of the week). There should be one more this term (20 students in a LT for 300).
I guess I'm not that nervous because it's all so spread out. And I'm doing so little. Some colleagues are doing quite a few labs.

@Mumteedum we don't have very high levels at our uni either, I think maybe because we have flats rather than halls?

Can I just vent at the latest university-bashing on the Today programme (and certain threads in the Higher Education forum here on MN). A father saying "universities should do more" - but when asked "What can they do?" did NOT have a coherent answer - just waffle.

Parents really need to realise that: universities are not in some magic bubble where C-19 doesn't exist; and we are also not the NHS. Student well-being & mental health is important for good learning, but that is not our primary function, and we are not the NHS, nor a therapeutic institution. We will do our best, but we are here to teach, to educate in serious content and knowledge ...

I seem to remember between ages of 18 and 22 hitting some lows, but pretty normal reactive emotional responses to difficult emotional situations - totally normal - and a friend of mine (a psychologist) said that most people go through a 2nd adolescence at this age. It's part of growing up. Combine that with working hard, and that learning new stuff - really deep learning - is hard work (well it was for me!)

maybe we should just postpone anyone going to university until about the age of 25 when we're all a bit more experienced and know that one setback isn't a disaster.

I'm actually not unsymathetic - my office hours at the moment are filled with kids just landing their problems on me and asking for solutions - I listen sympathetically, and try to help them find solutions. But the general message some of them hear is not actually conducive to them growing as people. I'm not talking about those with actual chronic or serious illnesses - just those who seem not to have been gently guided to understand that growing up involves a certain amount of emotional challenge - and that this is best dealt with by not pathologising into some sort of "thing".

Completely agree, it's the medical rhetoric of things that used to be nerves/worries

We have a reading week this week so I will be glad of the rest. Am doing a mix of f2f and online. I realised the other day that maybe I’m developing more appreciation for teaching than before. I find myself almost looking forward to seminars rather than dreading them. I never see colleagues anymore and the campus is deserted so I quite like the small amount of contact I get with my very few f2f students. Would probably feel differently if attendance was better but at the moment I don’t feel I am at risk by being on campus 2 days a week - quite the opposite. It’s a ghost town. Online stuff gives me migraines so I like that a lot less.

I was quite in favour of doing f2f from the beginning as I think the risks are outweighed by the economic impacts of going totally online and losing income and having to lay off staff. I’m in a tier 1 area though so again might feel differently if I was in a tier 3. I am also at a non-RG so I am acutely aware that we don’t have the reputation or reserves to weather the storm like others can. A sharp drop in income will mean immediate move to redundancies.

Just saw that the UCU is taking legal action against ‘the English government’ (whatever that is) for failing to follow the SAGE advice that they have no obligation to follow. They never cease to surprise me but it keeps my boredom at bay I guess.

You’re all doing a great job by the way! It’s really hard and tiring.

I'm coping for the moment, surprisingly, although actively looking for jobs elsewhere. In a Tier 3 area and the uni has had lots of cases in student halls but won't tell us any numbers - apparently we're still Tier 1 in educational establishment ranking scale, so it's fine for us all to come to campus for f2f teaching. No option for staff to choose online only without a serious health reason. We need the student accommodation income to stay afloat, so we want them all on/commuting to campus (socially distanced obviously). Interesting to see what others are experiencing.

Our uni has actually been very good about accepting we might need to move online, beyond just for health reasons. We are doing a mixture of ftf and online. We know our numbers overall for the uni but not within each class, which is worrisome when you have students testing positive in your seminars. This is not going to change though and is the same position taken by public health across schools- only those within 2 metres/more than 15 min need to know what's going on. I don't agree but they won't shift.

Yes, our university is also very accommodating for staff wanting to teach online only. Not just for medical conditions. The thought of that depresses me though so I will carry on f2f for as long as I can. I think the difference in experience between tier 1 and the other tiers means that there cannot be one rule for everyone. It has to be up to each university whether they want to go fully online. For ours, it would be totally disproportionate as we don’t have that many cases and it would lead to job losses for our campus staff in the middle of a recession. For ones in very high risk areas, it seems the best/only way to go.

I've just realised I was supposed to be meeting my 1st year tutees but this week is half term and I have hardly any hours of work (and urgent meetings during those ones) so I'm going to have to put them off till next week unfortunately.

I don’t know if I’m just so exhausted that I can’t see the wood for the trees, but I’ve really hit a wall today. What if this is just going to be what it’s like from now? Dealing with an outbreak and self-isolating students at the start of every term? Our teaching load doubled in perpetuity. Only a % of the population will be offered a vaccine, and it certainly won’t be students or most lecturers. That means we’re fated to keep repeating this term, doesn’t it? The work-life balance in his job was always shit but now I can’t even see my elderly parents (who recently moved to live closer to me) in case I kill them. And I can’t see how and when that is ever going to change.

Unmumsnetty hugs there for you @GCAcademic
I've got more than half my lectures recorded for the year now so I feel a bit happier. Next up is my panicking project students. Deep breaths. Couple of days off with the DCs now anyway.

I feel like this is the worst week as well. So much stuff doesn't work properly at our university, tech stuff which should be straightforward, but isn't. We then have all the new stuff to do too. I'm finding it hard to be calm when yet another email comes through asking for something else, a new initiative, and that's if they bother to let us know! I know we are all doing our best, but the cracks are really showing between the tech issues (apart from the fact some students just don't have good enough broadband for online study) and us cracking up!

Yeah I don’t know how I will be able to carry on doing it long-term if it stays like this. However, I guess if there is a vaccine, the vulnerable will receive it and COVID will become like the flu, which is also potentially deadly, but doesn’t result in any changes to how we live our lives. I have never been particularly concerned about catching it myself as I am relatively young and have no health conditions and statistically I am highly unlikely to have any complications from it. My concern is for vulnerable people so if they were vaccinated to protect them from catching it, I don’t see why we would need to continue with the extreme measures we currently have.

Our tech was really rubbish yesterday in teaching. The students are unhappy not to see each others faces. It really is a helluva life. Bring on term end. Plus trying to do it all with DCs on half term round me. Shattered.

'Managing' about covers it - though the headlines this morning were spectacularly grim and thoroughly depressing. I hear UCL will soon announce that online teaching will continue next year - good to see one institutuion thinking ahead and giving everyone, staff and students, time to plan. Seems inevitable others will follow.

Do you mean next academic or calendar year? We've already announced to our students that semester two will be online. I find the thought that it might continue beyond that utterly dispiriting, although I can see the university rubbing its hands with glee at the prospect of increasing our student nos by 50% with nothing required from it in return.

Sorry - I meant terms 2 and 3. Though I'm pessimistic enough to think next academic year will be pretty similar...

Yes we have been clear for quite a while that terms 2 and 3 will be online, I reckon that we will never fully go back. All that expanded international audience. Digital learning, set up as an emergency, using the not very appropriate tools of corporations. Bleak.

Predictably our VC emailed students last night saying we're all carrying on f2f and they should feel encouraged to do so. Our students apparently are just so much more sensible than others you see and we have had no clusters.

This in contrast to me finding out that my student tested positive after I received the official alert to say he was self isolating awaiting test results. The student himself confirmed positive test.no follow up from anyone to confirm his result, check who he'd been sat next to and for how long and when.