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.

I am back on campus and actually quite happy with that, as are the students who are coming in, many prefer online and many do not, I think my more positive attitude though is coming from the fact that my department do not expect me to come in if I didn't want to (officially I do but I know they would fix it for me to stay home) and also the gratitude of those who prefer campus- not all by any means, but a sizeable amount.

I don't like Panopto, the camera is high definition, the lens wide and you can't seem to alter it and it makes big size videos which students find hard to download, We use it for lecture capture, we are supposed to use it for videos but I use Zoom. I'd be very surprised if anyone enforced it- we can't even set up a timetable or track attendance properly so I'm pretty sure no-ones interested in my compliance.

I should also say I'm in a Tier 1 area so don't have a sense of impending doom about corona myself, although there was an outbreak on campus which made the news.

Some of our students have defied the government restrictions and gone home for the lockdown despite the fact that they have f2f teaching. The senior management are saying that we must offer them online teaching and are not allowed to move the whole module online. So I have to double my teaching load because some students have defied government restrictions. I’m so fucked off with this. Students have basically been given the message that they can decide to flip between f2f and online on a whim, and we will set up dedicated online classes to suit them. To top it off my PhD student has sent me her chapter to read at 5.00pm today for a 9.00 meeting on Monday. I won’t be reading it, but I’m sick of the general assumption that we must use our already non-existent time to accommodate everyone’s whims and poor time management.

@GCAcademic that sounds stressful. I totally support your position. I have reached the point where I am not going to be the one suffering for other people's decisions. I know easier said than done, but if students left with no discussion,I would be very much ticking the blended box and offer the minimum. Can you record in person lectures or seminars? I would offer recordings as online learning. Or reduce f2f time to enable some online tutorials.be 100% straight with students. You don't have extra time available so that's how it has to be. And it's because you have been put in that position. Or alternate weeks? It sucks just now.

Not sure if I read it on here or not,but someone recently said students right to student experience or agency in making choices for the health of them or their families cannot come at the expense of staff. We have rights to health and wellbeing too

No, not allowed to record our seminars, not allowed to move an iota of the material online. Masses of flexibility for the students, but none for us. We're not even doing blended learning, not really. My department has interpreted this as some of us teaching entirely face-to-face and some entirely online, so that the blending is between modules rather than within them. I support the rationale for that as it allows some older colleagues to stay at home, but the problem with this set up is that those of us teaching f2f now have to teach f2f and online and there has been no rebalancing of workloads elsewhere.

You're right. We're supposed to facilitate the choices other people make for their own wellbeing at the expense of our own. I can see high levels of stress-related sickness among academic staff if things carry on like this. Good luck then trying to cover highly-specialised modules that only one person in the department can teach.

That’s horrendous. GCAcademic. My institution is better than many others but it still seems to pile extra work on us to cater for almost anything students ask. Currently I deliver online lectures, face to face seminars, online seminars, a discussion board and finally written notes for the seminars (despite the seminars being recorded but apparently we have to offer the option of notes for those who don’t want to watch the seminars - wtf). I am hanging in there but it’s getting harder and harder and as staff we’re at the bottom of the list of those whose interests are considered.

I am feeling really stressed and my institution is a lot more reasonable. We are able to decide the online/face to face blend within our own departments and our own courses as long as they don't exceed a certain amount (so not too many on campus at once). Our workload is still high, as online takes so long to do, but it's far more reasonable than what some of you are describing- I offer ftf and online but spread out so I'm only working a couple of extra hours a week. I certainly don't make notes on seminars when students have both a ftf and an online option- bad on them for missing the seminar! We also do get teaching assistant support a lot as well for larger or more complicated set ups.

Even so, I see my colleagues looking more and more stressed and I think that you are right, there's going to be a lot off with stress very soon.

One good thing though I think our institution did was allow online only from the start, so some students chose that from the outset and some have opted into that as we go along. I think that was sensible as it stopped this pressure for everyone to go onto campus which then we couldn't fulfil. As long as workloads don't double and the blend (ftf/online) is divided up I think it's better to offer a mixture- but that does depend on having flexible tech as well. I have my campus students, I have my online students, a few cross overs and a few missing in action (as always) so it seems to be settling down better than some are reporting on here.

To top it off my PhD student has sent me her chapter to read at 5.00pm today for a 9.00 meeting on Monday. I won’t be reading it,

That will be a really good learning opportunity for your PhD student -about collegiality and proper professional behaviour. You’re her supervisor, not her mother!

Ugh. I’m doing terrible. I’ve been in an accident and unable to work for a few weeks - now back trying to do as much as I can but it’s not that much and feeling terribly guilty especially reading how much work everyone is doing that I made my colleagues take over stuff. And I want to do everything now but have to balance realising I simply can’t and better to ask for help ahead instead of when there’s a pile of marking too close to a deadline :( And I’ve completely neglected my research group and feel really bad about that too. Being signed off sick is literally the most stressful thing I’ve done so far in academics. I hear other of my colleagues are signed off for stress (I don’t know who but I can guess - I suspect my chair shouldn’t have even said so much in our fit-for-work interview); I almost feel like being signed off is giving me so much stress I might need to be signed off for stress!

Oh @murmuration you poor thing! That sounds horrible and I hope you feel better soon. I think academia is especially bad when you’re signed off because you often work on outside projects with people who don’t necessarily know what’s going on and will therefore continue to receive emails and things.
I am feeling increasingly frazzled and depressed about everything. It’s probably the time of year and I have other shitty stuff going on outside work but I don’t know if I can hack all this long term. Might try to do an abstract for an online conference today but I feel like I just want to lie down in a darkened room.

@murmuration ugh, this is the worst thing about lecturing- there's no cover staff, so your already stretched colleagues just well, do the best they can and everyone's stress goes up. I had a couple of weeks I was ill this term and it did make the stress worse not better trying to rearrange everything and then having to manage that as there were issues with it. It wasn't relaxing at all, I just took the opportunity to catch up to where I was!

Everyone is saying what a shit term it is, and our management emails have started thanking everyone even more profusely for all their hard work (about 10 times per email) and directing everyone to wellbeing, I'm guessing quite a lot of staff are either off sick or near the end of their tether, and there isn't going to be any cover to replace them. We just have to remember a) this is not our fault and b) everyone is in the same position. I've set the bar so blinking low this year it's unbelievable, I've jettisoned basically anything except getting teaching done and staying sane til at least Christmas.

our management emails have started thanking everyone even more profusely for all their hard work (about 10 times per email) and directing everyone to wellbeing

I suspect we work at the same place ...

They say these things, but yet we're still being pushed on REF and research grant applications and admissions ...

I'm very pleased to report I have no more lecture videos to record!

Wow worst - well done! Congratulations!

I've been paralysed with lecture capture this week after some anonymous negative student feedback about one of my modules. They want me to change the assessment mid-semester. I am putting so much extra time and work into teaching, and then this.

I've also applied for a new job this week, but I'm not sure if I'll want to interview if they invite me! Feeling properly fed up with this career right now. Misty-eyed for the days of yore when I went home at night and did other things that I enjoyed outside of work!

Scientifically... I am going to be so happy if a covid vaccine works well and soon. I am sick of only thinking about covid & having only covid projects to work on - well, not really, but nearly. I have just a few bits of last year's research to work on and everything else is covid-themed.

Just Stop It. I am starting to not care any more how people get it, how it could be stopped, which people got it, which people spread it... Every telecon is about ruddy covid. Enough Now.

Well, I'm totally fuming about the position we have been put into as educators by the Minister, Michelle Donellan - governing by press release over the way that students' return home for Christmas is managed.

Yes, there needs to be a plan. We actually needed a plan in September that covered all student travel to & from universities. A plan developed in respectful communication with universities, not demanding letters, or policy announced by press release. A plan communicated properly to those concerned in July, or August at the latest.

And of course, it's university staff who get the flak. Not this shower of shite that we still have to call a government.

I'm still teaching during that travel period in December - but will I get students logging in? I very much doubt it, and I'm a softy when it comes to individuals & their planning (or lack of), so I'll probably make concessions - but the point is, I shouldn't have to.

Michelle Donnellan announced these "plans" by press release, but has there been any kind of communication with universities? Who will have to manage this, and who will be the targets of abuse about fees, accommodation rents and so on.

Grrrrr

I'm still teaching during that travel period in December
So am I and it includes undergrads (I had a moment there where I thought it was only MSc and they are mainly at home anyway).

Yes our term finishes the week after...

Lots of students are going to go the week earlier or even now to beat the rush...I don't mind as long as they turn up online or somewhere, I do have a good group on campus, a good group online and a group of missing students who resist all attempts to draw them in!

It’s so depressing. Did you see the news story about chartered flights bringing in 7000 students to Manchester from China? Wow.

At the same time, I am telling myself that despite this horrible situation, if all unis had refused to teach face to face from the outset and students hadn’t paid for accommodation, there would have been many more redundancies than there currently are. Horrible but true and I’d rather suffer a bit now than lose my job in the middle of a recession. Ideally there would have been bailout from the government but that was never going to happen. So I can see why universities took the decisions they did, even though life is fairly grim at the moment.

I am jealous of all those who have finished their online lectures! I have about 10 to go and am losing the will to live.

One of mine went just before lockdown.

@worstofbothworlds

One of mine went just before lockdown.

Same here. On a f2f module. It's a student who never bothered turning up even before they went home. I'm now supposed to make tutorial provision for them. Because, obviously, my time is so elastic that I have plenty of it available to provide extra tuition to those who fail to engage with the teaching that I already provide.

We have been running an additional online seminar group alongside our face-to-face ones right from the start of term to accommodate those who can't or won't be physically present.

I am surprised other people haven't been doing this. What have you been providing for people who are self-isolating or refusing to come to face-to-face teaching for health reasons or because they are too scared?

With that and having to have more, smaller face-to-face seminar groups, our seminar teaching hours have tripled, but we've been told that there is no other option so we have to do it. At least we were able to pre-record all our lectures in the summer.

a group of missing students who resist all attempts to draw them in!

I wonder if they're the ones whose mothers are constantly complaining about universities and their staff over in the HE forum. I've had to hide threads in there ...