Tips for coping with uni online

[IndigoApple]

DD is in 3rd year of a 4 year science degree. In a flat with nice flatmates, has a part time job, and not had to self isolate or anything, but she is really struggling with uni being online.

She should be spending a lot of time in labs this year but will only have 2 lab sessions between now and Christmas. The rest is online - either watching someone doing something on video or doing some sort of web-based simulation from what I can gather. Lectures all online and she doesn't seem to have tutorials or 1:1s or anything. DD is an extrovert and loves being around people and enjoys lab work best.

I have tried to come up with a few suggestions e.g. setting up regular Zoom/Facetime catch ups with people on her course, making more use of the class group chat, trying to book slots in the library (she says it's really difficult) and trying to set a routine even just stuff like getting a Starbucks on a Monday morning or a M&S sandwich on a Friday etc.

Anyone got any suggestions? She sounded so defeated when we spoke yesterday.

that we favour the weak and old over the young

Oh I love a bit of MN ageism.

You know quite a few of our best/Nobel-prize winning/top teaching/ superb pastoral care/general all-round fabulous academics are over 60? Or teaching & researching while suffering from cancer, or carrying chronic life-limiting conditions such as diabetes?

Some staff fitting into these categories may even e teaching your precious DC. But let's just let them become seriously ill or die, shall we?

Xenia, I absolutely did not agree with encouraging students to move into halls when a lockdown or partial lockdown was inevitable. I really, really do not agree with the way students are being treated.

At the same time your comment about favouring old over young rather seems to ignore:

a) the fact that you also complain about students not getting enough access to university staff- many of whom do fall into the older or vulnerable category. How can they teach if they are dead or signed off work with LongCovid?

b) the fact that there is no evidence that LongCovid spares young people. Young people are less likely to die, they are more likely to survive intensive care- but not necessarily to survive without long-term complications.

I already have students ill or testing positive. I worry about them. That is not the same as favouring the old. It just means that I care about my students.

I also know that I myself, though I do turn up for f2f teaching, am considered to belong in the vulnerable, though not high-risk category. I am the only specialist in my subject at my university. I don't insist on people caring greatly whether I live or die- but I would like to point out that if anything does happen to me, my expertise won't be available.

And as it so happen, ground-breaking work is being done at my university which may actually help with finding the vaccine to this illness. You know what- it's not all being done by bright-eyed 25yos in perfect health! It might be a good idea to try to keep our older staff safe, if even for the most selfish of reasons.

@corythatwas you're more high-minded than I am - I don't expect anyone else to mind if I died (although I hope my immediate family might just miss me), but I don't want to die - certainly not from doing my job.

I find this conversation generally really interesting but a bit frustrating - parents seem to be somewhat conflicted & asking for contradictory things: for their DC to be safe, but still living life as normal; for universities to have "done something" but not happy with what we are managing to do (at huge extra cost to universities, and university staff of all areas & ages) . It's almost as if parents have a kind of consolatory fantasy about universities as some sort of place where COVID doesn't matter & won't hurt anyone ...

And like Cory I have a couple of students I'm worried about - very ill and unexpectedly so with COVID. Bless them, they're still turning up to online seminars (although one had to keep leaving to throw up, and another was so exhausted they took class still tucked up in bed - camera off of course). I worry and am almost ready to go round with food parcels, but I remind myself these are 21 year olds (my final year students). At their age my parents had one child and another on the way.

@ProperVexed - that is rather worrying re your DS not having any in-person (even if online) teaching - and very unusual for a 1st year student: at my place, we guarantee around 9 hours of face to face teaching in first year across the whole university (my department does nearer 15 hours in first year of timetabled face to face classes).

Could your DS set up a meeting with his Personal Tutor? Or ask a tutor or module convenor to set up small study groups? We're doing a lot of that - facilitating students meeting up in small cOVID-secure groups in person, or online.

Could he also get involved with a club or society via his student union? Most university student unions are doing something either face to face or online. Our student union officers are working their butts off trying to keep a sense of activities and extra-curriculars going. In fact, we just got a message last week that our student union is gearing up to do live in-person stuff once the case numbers go down on campus. There's a minority of freshers who will really have to start to take the laws of the land seriously, and start to be sensible about distancing & not mixing - at the moment, the doubling of cases in the city means there's nothing in person. It's that old story of a minority spoiling it for everyone else, I'm afraid ...

It's almost as if parents have a kind of consolatory fantasy about universities as some sort of place where COVID doesn't matter & won't hurt anyone ...

That has struck me too. As if we had some magical powers to keep their children safe.

I watched last year as my daughter suffered viral complications not dissimilar to LongCovid. As far as we know no lasting lung or heart damage, but she lost the ability to speak or walk and for a while even to swallow. It came back gradually, but it was a year before she could keep her balance reliably or walk in a straight line.

During that whole year of recovery, her education suffered. Of course it did. She kept fainting in class, her vision was affected, she struggled to understand what the teacher was saying. Of course she couldn't do herself justice.

In her case, it was probably a flu virus, meaning such complications are very rare and certainly not something she or her school could have foreseen or should have taken precautions against.

But the thing with LongCovid is, we do know and it's not that rare. Previously healthy young people are affected. For those affected, it will wreck their studies and have consequences for their whole future.

“I don't think Uni staff actually appreciate how hard it is for them being stuck inside all day, staring at their computers/phones, and being bombarded with chat room/discussion board messages/emails”

This is exactly what we as university staff are facing all day every day too.

DD doesn't actually mind the online learning. She seems quite disciplined and it suits her. But she's back home, after just ten days at uni, but still working her part time job to pay rent (includes catering and cleaning) when she isn't there.

It's galling that universities haven't stepped up to offer refunds on even catering. I understand that they are in dire financial straits but so are the students they're fleecing. What other business props itself up by making customers pay for goods and services they're not being provided with?

@rawlikesushi

DD doesn't actually mind the online learning. She seems quite disciplined and it suits her. But she's back home, after just ten days at uni, but still working her part time job to pay rent (includes catering and cleaning) when she isn't there.

It's galling that universities haven't stepped up to offer refunds on even catering. I understand that they are in dire financial straits but so are the students they're fleecing. What other business props itself up by making customers pay for goods and services they're not being provided with?

Well said. They conned students to sign up for accommodation by making out there'd be at least some F2F, and other activities etc. In reality, there's little or nothing worth being there for.

@Zippy1510

“I don't think Uni staff actually appreciate how hard it is for them being stuck inside all day, staring at their computers/phones, and being bombarded with chat room/discussion board messages/emails”

This is exactly what we as university staff are facing all day every day too.

Many jobs are the same, but customers of other businesses aren't getting such a poor service for the same cost!

@MissMarplesGlove Thanks for responding. I'm going to try and talk to him again to put some of your suggestions to him. Trouble is that he doesn't say much! His older brother graduated from same university last year and still has friends there so he might try and see what is happening and if anyone can help.
Hard times.

user1497207191: They are paying for an education and resulting qualification which we are doing everything in our capabilities to provide under the current restrictions. It’s not quite the same as someone getting a bag of mouldy oranges from Tesco that need replacing. We are not responsible for this pandemic. We can’t run more face to face because all our buildings are at capacity whilst accommodating social distancing, it’s not because we aren’t willing to. We are in a situation where a lecture that would take 1-2 hours now takes an entire day to record, edit, produce associated worksheets and run live support question and answer sessions for each student group, which we do alongside running our research groups, overseeing our PhD students and postdocs and trying to bring in grant funding so the former do not end up unemployed in the middle of all this. We attempted to to run more face to face in the form of tutorials which resulted in a high number of students and staff getting covid and being forced into 2 weeks isolation and as a result nearly having to close labs due to understaffing- the one thing we really can’t do online and that students would really hate. We understand it’s hard for students but it’s hard for us too and we are doing everything we can working under extended hours and pay cuts. You can complain but we can’t fit any more into a day/ night than than we already are. You are extremely unlikely to get any money back and if everyone did, you are risking massive job cuts, courses closing and possible university closures- meaning there’s less opportunities for future students.

@YerAWizardHarry

I'm a third year student too. Surprised your DD isn't getting online workshops/tutorials, the vast majority of my work is in small-ish groups of about 20 and then we are often split into smaller breakout rooms too

Yes this is what I expected DD would have and why I started this thread as I was really surprised. But some of the responses from uni staff have confirmed this not happening at all unis, unfortunately.

Very much happening at ours: between 1/2 and 3/4 of our teaching is online anyway, plus catch-up sessions for anyone who can't attend f2f. As far as I can see, this kind of provision is essential (even if it does result in a sense of over-supply for some students).

What you can run depends upon cohort size though. On my course I have around 60 students so I can convert a 2 h lecture into a 1 h recording and then do 3 x 20 people live online workshops/ support sessions. If you get any higher than 20 students online at once it’s difficult to get that interactive environment as everyone’s trying to talk over each other. So my 2 h lecture becomes a half day of recording and editing and then 3 x 1h of live online slots. Some of the courses in other departments have 500 students- so it’s not going to be possible for that member of staff to covert that 2 h lecture into a recording and then run 25 x 1 h long support sessions to support that lecture.

@Zippy1510 yes I think DD is in a very large cohort

That is very true, Zippy. It is bound to be easier in Humanities which tends to have smaller cohorts.

One thing my department has done is pull all research leave so we have more members of staff to compensate. But of course that is going to cause trouble later on when we need to produce those publications for the REF. And it also means the department losing money from research grants.

I appreciate the academics on this thread contributing as hearing both "sides" is useful and helps each side understand the other.

I don't disagree with having "conned" students back actually as had none gone to universities this year then even more lecturers would have left their jobs and perhaps even some institutions might have gone bust and some students would have been less happy even than now as at home with no job and not even on line lectures to do.

I would have more face to face things however in person even in parks or marquees even if the lecturers have big microphones and are a big distance from the students . We need to do much more to get students out of their rooms every day, a bit like if you want to keep a toddler happy then at least once every day you get it out of the house and into the rain in the park. Instead we seem to be locking them in.

I also notice that as with many school teachers the fear of CV19 seems to be more than in the general population. I know we could swap statistics until kingdom come but CV19 does not kill most people and long covid is not a major issue for most either, just as flu each year and also students who get flu or glandular fever then followed by ME are relatively rare. I am not saying CV19 is flu of course not. We have had 26,000 excess deaths in the UK so far I think and have 600,000 deaths in a normal year.

Lots of people have had to work face to face throughout including in March such as my son who delivers groceries for a living, my sibling who is an NHS doctor.

We're getting a bunch of recorded and pre-set tasks - of varying degrees of quantity from a 30 minute session to watch up to a 15 page booklet to work through and multiple journal articles to evaluate (some are being a bit overenthusiastic and haven't quite got the workload pitched right yet bless them - we're patient, we know it's a steep learning curve), then usually a session online a week where they'll go through it all and extend/clarify certain points from the advance done stuff.

Quite what people will get from that stuff is dependent upon them actually doing it and there's a bit of a nasty witch hunt emerging against a lecturer who has a bit of a formidable reputation - who doesn't spoon feed the way some of the others can tend to do and doesn't have the clearest structure to her resources so you need to do a bit of your own legwork to get it into a way that makes sense to you. I'm really really uncomfortable with that as actually I've found every interaction with this lady to be lovely - she's genuinely passionate about her area of research and really is trying desperately to take on board all the feedback and be as kind as possible - whenever I've emailed just asking for a little bit of clarification on something to confirm my thinking's on the right track, she's been lovely. I imagine she's very blunt to the ones who want it handed to them on a plate - who are the ones loudly complaining!

We have 2/6 modules where we have minimal face to face and the rest are online only. It's working better than I was expecting - apart from uni IT which is shit, the autologout on Blackboard which is driving me fucking insane and one lecturer with a ropey internet connection who I don't think knows how to reboot the router!

I do find it a bit isolating though - like I say - we have some virtual classrooms left open just for us to pop in and chat or work through things together depending on how motivated we are, and I'm lucky that I have someone else doing my course who lives around the corner (considering I commute in that's a pretty big coincidence). We're all further on in the course though and have a working relationship built with the staff - so moving that online hasn't been too tricky really. I don't know if it would be as easy if we were first years coming in cold to it all.

We want to do more face to face it’s not that we are scared to go and do it we just can’t fit everyone on campus whilst adhering to the governments social distancing guidelines. We are also now allowed to head to a nearby park (even if we had one nearby) to conduct a lecture unless we are plan on doing it with 5 students at a time as that would also be against government restrictions.

*not allowed

I don't think the fear among teachers or lecturers of catching CV is necessarily more than anyone else, it's just that it's been more discussed because we're both in situations where us doing our job in the usual workplace has been contentious. Some jobs can't be done online, but some can, and there's a weird fetishization of 'face-to-face' at the moment.

With cases rocketing where I lecture, I freely admit I'm worried I'll catch it and I don't want to catch it, though!

All my career I've been receiving emails from absent students saying they couldn't make the lecture or seminar because they feel a bit unwell/slept in/have the plumber coming round but that I shouldn't worry because they'll catch up in their own time via the resources on the VLE. Now suddenly we're asked to believe that students desperately want to be in a teaching room, even wearing masks, even being unable to have group discussions, even having to sanitise everything, and that nothing else is good enough and if they don't get it they're not getting their money's worth!

That said, I know my students (or the ones who are engaging) are doing their best to structure their weeks, they're working hard, and I feel very sorry for them that it has to be this way for now. But it just does.

I think the problem is that students aren't getting what their Unis promised them to get them onto campuses (i.e. to get the room rentals!). If Unis had been honest and basically said it's nearly all going to be online, with virtually no activites on campus, then many students wouldn't have gone. Now they're there and tied in to 40 week letting agreements, they do feel conned. Yes, I understand about finances, but it's not really fair to have coerced current year students onto campusus just to get their money for their rooms.

Yes, it was blindingly obvious that the return of students was never going to work out well. The government didn't listen and the VCs didn't listen, and the victims are the students and the lecturers.

I am laughing at the idea of four-times-a-week meetings with lecturers in the park in the rain though - I doubt even the most diligent student would bother with that.