University Fees for on-line Lectures

[Kastanien]

Latest this morning(sorry if it is already on here, I checked and could not see a thread)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52506283

Just wondering how those of you with DC due to start (or return to Uni) in the Autumn feel about full tuition fees for on-line learning?
I feel there should be a reduction as the teaching is not the same on-line as face to face.

Nope. I don't agree with drs or nurses going on strike. Is belonged to the Royal College of Nursing because of its no strike policy. Some professions I don't believe should be allowed to strike. They need to find other ways to highlight the issues and to affect change.

It'd depend on the degree for me. My English degree would have been fine at a distance. But someone doing something like dance, drama, sciences, practical based things, will likely find that no matter how well intentioned their learning won't be the same.

And you're welcome for the advice in my previous post btw hear

Xenia I suspect the lecturing staff will have more diverse political views than you think......
One of things I have been disappointed in with regards the HE sector recently is that it's now quite difficult to express a political opinion that differs from labour or remain.
I've seen first hand university staff being abused for admitting the vote Tory or Leave. They tend to keep those views out of the public eye.

I didn’t strike and as far as I’m aware not a single lecturer at my uni participated in the strike. I saw no flyers, no picket lines and didn’t hear of any strike.

Very different to the previous uni I worked at where the build up to the strike was very noticeable.

Sue

Seriously? What advice? See what help there is for graduates? Yep, thanks. What might be more useful is for her to get the classification that she was on course for before half of this year's course was cancelled.

Wow. You're just really rude now hear

Thankfully many universities are taking the opposite view to you. They are working hard to ensure that this year's graduates aren't seen as the 'lost generation'. Hopefully your daughter will benefit from that.

For those final year students are their universities not offering any solutions. My uni is going ahead with assessments, allowing students to defer with no cap on marks, also will allow students to retake any assessment they feel was impacted (again uncapped). Most of unis I know people at have put in place some assurances and policies to try and ensure students aren't impacted more then they need to be.

I would add that a significant criticism I have of the sector is that approaches to dealing with this (what happens if assessments impacted) are not more uniform. It amazes me how much unis can create their own policies and academic regulations and the amount they differ from each other. I think a more unified approach would give students and parents more assurance.

Bristol has offered all kinds of solutions to my twins in their final term eg both of them - BA and BSc were only going to have 1 or 2 exams anyway and both of those instead will now be an essay to be written over a relatively short period of time eg a week which is a fair solution particularly as loads of their marks are already banked in a sense - good marks in year 2, essays this year. Dissertations - one had to be in at Easter - which he did and the other's must be in fairly soon and I think there are automatic 2 week extensions.

Some of the rules were changing a lot at the end of last term however. One of my sons had saved a screen shot from the University website (you can tell his mother is a lawyer when people do that....) was evidence of XYZ time extension. His lecturer 2 days later said - no time is not extended for that thing.... my son could show the screen shot to prove it although by that day the website had reverted to no extension for that item but I think by and large the staff have managed it all very well. It has just not been the year they expected, not the last term they wanted and the strikes were not great either.

I just hope employers do not mark 2020 down as people with dodgy grades whether GCSEs and A levels with teachers' input so important and degrees without quite the same final exams.

Automatic extensions - I do have a beef with my uni about those as they told all the students there would be automatic extensions to all coursework before they told the lecturers! Which understandably led to mixed messages going to students. (It's not that I'm against them having the extensions, but it would have been handy for me to know that was uni policy before students started emailing me about it.)

Other than that, the uni's not been bad and everyone in my department has been working their socks off to help students and sort out alternative assessment arrangements.

That said, I and other lecturers I know accept that students this year have a raw deal and that online teaching (particularly online teaching sorted out quickly as a replacement for face to face) is not as good for them as face to face would be. We'll do all we can to mitigate, but I personally completely understand if students feel they've paid for something they haven't had. It's not the uni's fault though - so maybe it's up to the government, who told us to close, to compensate students?

Incidentally, I'm currently vulnerable (pregnant) but not shielded. I'd be happy to stand at the front of a lecture room full of students tomorrow from the point of view of my personal risk.

Her uni has a no detriment policy but isn't making it clear on what basis the floor grade will be assessed. Is it only on grades achieved this year, or 2nd and 3rd year combined? She also has to "pass" her final essays but all of those have been completed on modules that she has had no teaching on, no supervision, no guidance (due to strikes and then lockdown) and for a fair bit of the time, no access to the library. So get last modules have been entirely self taught. So, yes, it's good there's a no detrimement policy but that doesn't mean students won't suffer detriment.

My nephew has final exams to sit. His uni have said that any modules not taught because of strike action will still be included in the exams. Apparently other universities have agreed to not include modules missed due to strikes.

And I do think students from the 2020 cohort, be they GCSE, A level or graduates, will have their results looked at suspiciously, as though they may not have truly earned them.

That said, I and other lecturers I know accept that students this year have a raw deal and that online teaching (particularly online teaching sorted out quickly as a replacement for face to face) is not as good for them as face to face would be.

Thank you. I'm glad some academic staff acknowledge this.

Lots of us have acknowledged that some students this year have had a less than ideal experience. But we've also tried to add some positivity and demonstrate what we're doing to mitigate the negatives and highlight the support available.

It's like you just want us to say 'yeah you're right. It's all gone to shit let's just give up'

It won't do this year's graduates any favours to constantly push the narrative that they're at a disadvantage. That will have a longer lasting negative effect.

But they are at a disadvantage. The few steps taken to try to mitigate that disadvantage doesn't remove the disadvantage.

Just as the way the GCSEs are being assessed. They still need to be broadly in line with each individual school's past attainment. My son has had to rank his students grades. So, all of the say grade 9 students have been listed in order of how likely they were to get a grade 9. If, the exam board decide that they can only have 8 grade 9s this year, because that's what they e had previous years and this cohort's data supports that, then the lower students will be awarded an 8. Well, that's not at all fair is it because those students might well have got 9s in the exam. Some higher placed students might have mucked up and not hot a 9, so, individuals will lose out because of what is happening. Students will be adversely affected. Why are we all pretending any different?

Well what shall we do about it then?
What are your suggestions? How do we make it better for students graduating this year?

And some of the support packages being put in place aren't small things. They're huge projects offering significant support to this year's graduates.

Students will be adversely affected. Why are we all pretending any different?

I'm not sure we are are we? We know students are adversely affected - all of them, some more than others - particularly disadvantage students. Secondary, sixth form, university. But all we can do is try and mitigate that as best we can. It won't succeed in all cases agreed - your example of GCSE grades being ranked for example. There'll be a few 9s awarded that shouldn't have been, and some 8s awarded to kids that would have got 9s (although marking errors could also produce the same result!). Hopefully though at least having the mitigation in place means that the class of 2020's results, whatever level they are, will be regarded as robust enough to enable them to progress to the next stage of life.

And some of the support packages being put in place aren't small things. They're huge projects offering significant support to this year's graduates.

Firstly, coming from only some institutions, not all so not at helpful or relevant if you aren't being offered any of this help. Secondly, surely the biggest help is to ensure that you graduate with the classification that you would have got, without the year long disruption? Is it helpful to award a graduate a 2:2 when they would have got a 2:1 but offer them some career guidance?

Titchy for some of those students, getting a grade lower will hold them back. Maybe they won't go to the sixth form they wanted to go to (happened to my dds friend. Needed an A in English to study A level English at a particular school but she got a B so they refused her entry. She asked for a re mark and got an A, but it was too late). Students at A level might miss out on a university place or find after graduation that they can't get into a graduate training program because an A level grade was too low, having been arbitrarily awarded this year.

On GCSEs and A levels I said at the time keep schools open, do the exams. That is what I would have done about it. However we are where we are so having the school etc assess them and then having a right which I hope is available for most subjects to let people resit in August is a good plan for GCSEs and A levels.

My son's place at law school depends on a 2/1. i am pretty sure he will get one - in fact his tutor told the law school he might get a a first so we are not too worried. Law firms also (good ones) only take people with a 2/1 and AAB A levels or higher so a lot of things do depend on it.

I don't support the lockdown and prefer the Swedish approach and did so even before Sweden adopted it but we are where we are and there are lots of unfairnesses around, not least in how some people still have jobs and 1m+ do not, how some get furlough money and some not a penny etc etc.

It sounds like we about to have the worst recession/depression since the 1709 Great Frost in the UK and no doubt elsewhere.

O on-line teaching if my son's postgrad law course will be entirely on line - it is an 8 month course starting in Sept, then I can see no reason the London branch where he is "going" should charge £2k more than what all the regional branches of the same body charge. So I wonder how much in person tuition he will get in London before the course ends in April or May (it is 2 terms). If it is not going to be much in person then everyone registered to London is going to wantyto move eg to Leeds. Let us hope they open as usual in September in person.

Well what do you suggest? All you are doing is complaining and dismissing the many examples of mitigation and support available for students.

Career guidance is incredibly valuable and even more so this year. It's already a key strategic priority for universities. These services will get further investment this year.....I've seen examples of this already. This happens to be one of a few areas of HE where there is often a collective approach and universities share best practice. So I would be very surprised if your daughter's university wasn't doing something to specifically support 2020 graduates.

This includes employer engagement teams who are working hard across the sector to facilitate work placements and internships even in the current climate.

Titchy for some of those students, getting a grade lower will hold them back.

Yes I know. What's the alternative?

This includes employer engagement teams who are working hard across the sector to facilitate work placements and internships even in the current climate.

What companies are in a position to offer placements and internships? Nowhere is open.

From what I've heard, some students that had these arranged pre lockdown have had them cancelled. My husband's company has certainly cancelled apprenticeships because they are not in a position to be training and working alongside people.

My husband's company has certainly cancelled apprenticeships because they are not in a position to be training and working alongside people.

The irony....

There's a company which works with a number of organisations ( Most of them FTSE 100) and Universities - they broker placements and internships. They're working on ways to provide these remotely in the current situation. They're plans are fantastic and really Innovative.
I'm hoping to use their concept for my students in September if we're still social distancing as I have a compulsory placement element.

Also, some of my students are still working for their placement organisations. Those where they've moved their operations online or to remote delivery are still functioning albeit differently.

Remember, not all organisations have closed ....they've just closed physical premises. My husband has had two new members of staff start during lockdown. People are still working.

*their ( bloody auto correct)