Week 3 and the 1st years are asking if they have to come to lectures, they’d rather watch the recordings

[CameForAVacationStayedForTheRevolution]

🙈🙈🙈🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

OMG, and during lock down students (and the majority of parents on MN) complained about online lectures and poor value for money due to lack of face to face on campus lectures. Lots of complaints after lockdown when it was a bit of a hybrid model for a year.

And now here we are with some students saying they’d rather not drive into town for lectures when they could watch them from home. Bearing in mind on our course our “lectures” are more of a lecture/seminar hybrid as it’s a small cohort so it’s not death by PowerPoint. There are group activities, etc, interactive stuff, quizes, etc. Trying to explain to them that discussion occurs at a better level when people are actually there in person as well! People are more likely to ask questions when not online.

Honestly, I’m baffled sometimes! I get it would save money in petrol and parking as well as less time if you don’t have to commute in but I never press ganged anyone to sign up for the course!

I’ve never seen flipped learning work either. It’s always presented as an educational panacea by educationalists who havent seen inside a teaching room in a decade or two.

How would you suggest I do that for 150 students?

@damekindness @DrCoconut @CameForAVacationStayedForTheRevolution I am not surprised! My DB works in a Uni and he is always talking about being under pressure to retain students and the fees they bring. I realise it’s not that simple in the real world, but it is just rather depressing isn’t it.

She attends his lectures. She won’t go to his office as she’s too anxious.

Bug he is meant to be initiating contact.

Not an academic so feel free to tell me to get back in my box but from observation the main problem is that Uni was designed and structured as education for adults and current 18 year olds are probably at a developmental level which is comparable to 15/16 year olds in the 1990’s. While I think they probably do work harder ( at least at school) than their 90s counterparts, where they’re unprepared for Uni is most don’t seem to have flipped out of “I need to find an adult to fix this” mode into more of a “peer focussed” support network where first port of call is other students/ just trying to figure it out independently. That transition used to happen between GCSEs and A levels and now seems not to.

it just seems that in general 18 year olds are just not mature enough to cope with the transition to Uni and moving away from home etc and the pastoral fall out then gets dumped on the Uni.

Sorry, but honestly just because something is in a student’s learning support plan doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. If our disability team told me to do such a thing I’d be telling them (and more importantly) the student that it wasn’t going to happen.

The team don’t have that level of authority over an academic at any university I’ve worked at and it wouldn’t be seen as feasible. It’s a shame they’ve raised her expectations in such a manner rather than trying to give her tools to work on her issues. There’s no benefit to her long term in enabling her helplessness. An academic can have 90 personal students….if they had to ring/email all 90 of them every week it would be a full time job.

@AllJoyAndNoFun I think that's valid. I also recall that only 10% went to uni - those of us from more ordinary backgrounds had to be very proactive and self-sufficient to do so. There were probably always a lot of 18 year-olds that would struggle - but they mostly just didn't go.

@AllJoyAndNoFun i do agree with this. The level of expectations of students weren’t like this in the 90s. It may well be related to students paying fees and feeling like a customer, I don’t know.

When I did my degree it was pre emails so there was no way of getting hold of a lecturer other than seeing them at a lecture or banging on their office door where 90% of the time they weren’t there. Seeing as 50% of my time seems to be spent replying to student emails I’ve no idea what lecturers used to do! 😁

Have you seen Idiocracy? Even just the final scene?

@CameForAVacationStayedForTheRevolution I sometimes yearn for life before email - and Teams.... 😭

When I was a new lecturer I used to be religious about trying to answer student emails as quickly as possible. A very wise lecturer told me I was making a rod for my own back and to use the 5 day response time and not answer before the 5th day.

Otherwise students will use you like a google search engine when 99% of the time they can find it out for themselves, ie course handbook, assessment handbook, ask another student, look back at the module launch, watch the assessment brief recording!

No, do I need to watch it?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I actually do think he should have arranged to meet with your dd by now or certainly this month and perhaps she could email the contact who told her he would in the first place about this? Tutor is probably snowed under with the beginning of term. Personally, I would have met with her by now (as I do..) but couldn't sustain once a week and would set up some other mutually acceptable schedule. If she's first year - not surprised she doesn't want to make initial contact herself (I have frequently had to say 'why didn't you just tell/ask/come to me?').

Thanks for the kind support.

She has mutism. She had an EHCP. She can’t just ‘get over it’

Whats the point of a learning plan if it’s not followed? I taught for 25 years, we tried to follow all learning plans.

It’s not ‘helplessness’ it’s a disability. She’s on full PIP and UC.

Great to know she’s gone into such a compassionate disability aware sector.

Isn’t she paying for this? We saw the disability support officer and she did the learning plan? And you now say they serve no use? What’s the point?

So how do you suggest he does that? Knock on her option her hall of residence? Call out her name at the end of the lecture?

If she is unable to sneer n email invitation or attend offie hours the she’s not fit to be at university , frankly.

And just because it’s an ILP agreed with student serves, doesn’t mean it’s a reasonable accommodation. The tutor will not have been asked if it’s feasible for him to do.

He’s not a therapist and university is not therapy.

How is she going to work after graduating?

She probably won’t. But she’s extremely clever,

Yes and if it gets boring at all just go to the final scene.

Are you sure the tutor is aware of her plan? Did youe DD send it to the tutor? (Just askingas at my uni the support team won’t automatically forward it to the tutors.)

Thank you for your empathetic response.

She can answer an email. She goes to all the lectures. She doesn’t have anything called ‘office hours’ afaik

Nice disablist post there👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

And I am sorry about that but overall most departments at must universities have had their staff cut by 20-30%. There isn’t the time for that level of support. I see all sorts of things written in support plans which I know is not going to happen. Sorry, that’s the reality. Your Dd is best off emailing her tutor and spelling out to them what it says in her plan (tutor may not have seen it) and asking what they can offer.

To those commenting on 2 hour lectures: for several years in the 90s I taught a course at my local poly-turning-into-a-university. It was intended both for their first year students, and also people in full-time work as it counted towards a professional diploma.

It ran one term only, as did most of the courses, 4 hours at a time (4pm to 8pm), once a week. There was one piece of coursework and an end of term written exam.

Some of the students travelled from a major city which was about 3 hours away by train. I was told that the university deliberately timetabled their courses to facilitate this, so they only came into college a couple of times a week and lived at home/had part-time jobs for the rest of the time. From my naïve position of privilege I remember thinking that university life shouldn’t be like that.

I don’t remember there being any issue with attendance, though. There were only about 20 in the group so it would have been quite obvious to everyone.

You’re not paying for private individual tuition.

So, the tutor calls her name out at the end of the lecture. The next lecture group is coming in. The next lecturer is hovering because she needs to log n and find her PowerPoint slide. There are 3 other students also waiting to ask a question

A selectively mute student stands there. Just what is the tutor expected to do? He’s been given no instruction and the student won’t speak.

Just what is the student expecting? What should the tutor do? Tell her to come to his office during directors? And then what?

It would have been kinder to have directed her to actual therapy to help her manage adult life with a mental illness.

It's the tutor who will have the office hours. Find out when his are, so say Tuesdays 2-4. That's when he can see her or any other student who drops in. Can she email him and say she's coming then?

I know you've said he is supposed to initiate contact but this at least gets things going. Student support is based on the idea that there's lots of help available but you have to ask. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to speak, but she may need to send an email off her own bat. If she is unable to do that, or anything else where she takes the initiative herself, she is not well suited to being a university student.

Yeah, she’s already had that and medication.

Thanks for the advice. Don’t know why we didn’t think of it really. Must try harder next time.

Ots not a ‘mental illness’ She’s AUDHD.