Students full return to campus

[DoNotBringLulu]

This came up on my Facebook feed:

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/apr/13/university-campuses-in-england-will-not-reopen-until-mid-may

If this is true, Boris et al have some explaining to do.

Wish the UCU would shut up and go away as they are causing so much anxiety

Agreed.

For my course, those modules on my course which included practical, interactive elements actually worked far better online.

Ditto @DelBocaVista - indeed, one of my undergrads said halfway through a module (which we'd fully prepared to teach in-person, until the January lockdown was announced with 2 days' notice) that they couldn't imagine how they would have achieved what they'd achieved if they'd been in person. And this was a practical module.

And all the sweeping statements here by people who are not actually teaching undergrads: there is a mix of responses to online teaching. You cannot extrapolate from your 1 or 2 DC. I've actively asked students in modules I've taught & convened - so I've heard from around 200 students - we asked them what we might keep from this year's online work. A significant number of them enjoyed having flexibility over when they watch/listen to online lectures.

I think others have taken advantage of us not monitoring their online attendance, and have just sloped off ... But that's their loss, although the cost of the number of staff hours involved in chasing them doesn't bear thinking about.

And I think they've all appreciated my place's very lax administration of deadlines (in which academic staff are not involved). Extensions are granted with no questions asked. It makes marking & getting feedback to students at an appropriate moment, a total nightmare. And a focus for unreasonable student complaints from a vocal minority (feedback demanded almost as soon as assessments submitted, no matter how late the submission).

They will have to get used to keeping to deadlines in the 21-22 academic year, and attending to timetable.

If I have 5 tutees who I offer to meet for a coffee outside, what about:
1 tutee who can only get to campus by public transport and is CEV
1 tutee who is an international student and has not returned to the UK this semester as per their government guidance
1 tutee who has remained at home and is now juggling degree work with their very poorly mother who relies on them to take her to hospital appointments because COVID has meant that getting other relatives etc to help with this is now much more risky

Should I meet the remaining 2 and just shrug off the others? Or do I do double the work and meet some f2f and the others online? How long do I have to keep doing double the work for?

(FYI - I have 16 tutees overall and the above situations or similar apply to approx a third of them)

I'll be teaching f2f on Monday, but there will be about a quarter of my students who for various reasons will be online contributing at the same time, mostly those who are international students or CEV. In order to do this teaching the group sizes are smaller, so have to be repeated more times. Thankfully the students have more time available as their lectures are online so it works.

This is why universities are not like schools, my students do not live within 5 miles of the campus and have very different personal circumstances. All students should be allowed to return to campuses now, but demanding that they all have a full programme of f2f teaching now and in September is not feasible. Universities are never going to alienate their substantial fee-paying overseas students (whose fees subsidise facilities for home students) so that home students can have the full university 'experience'.

No one likes it, but honestly I think the best situation for September is that as many people as possible are on campus with everything that is small-group being f2f, except lectures (honestly 200 students crammed into a hallway waiting for a lecture in winter is not going to go well) and larger labs being split into smaller groups, so that if/when this all goes south again we can easily revert to online with minimal disruption to everyone. If individual universities are doing substantially less than this then complain.

It would honestly be so much easier if universities were like schools, so please, to the posters who keep saying 'but in schools...', maybe consider that there might be a reason all of the university staff on this thread keep saying that they aren't.

Smaller groups done f2f. Make use of the larger lecture theatres to have more space, or rotas so everyone had a decent amount of f2f each week

You don't teach in a university, I am guessing from this suggestion. I think we'd need to extend teaching timetables to be totally 7 days a week, and starting at 8am and finishing late at night to accommodate this. My university is a medium-sized institution, which has expanded in the last 15 years - the expansion has pretty much outpaced the space available pre-COVID. Our teaching day is from 08:30 to 18:30.

We pride ourselves on offering a lot of small group teaching and a lot of hours (all degrees must offer a set minimum number of hours face to face in the 1st year, and we publish that).

We have about 20,000 students - probably 15,000 of those undergrads. The teaching timetable was crowded pre-COVID. So would you like to come & sort us out? And, of course, do it within our current workload models, which allow time for research - because that's also a central activity of the university, and community service (I chair a national association), and pastoral care, and preparation of new courses and modules, because it's important we keep up to date.

And so on.

@MeltsAway Yes to all of this. Our day is 8-6, Wednesday afternoons for sport have been abolished this year, Easter break shortened and exams pushed back to allow for more teaching time (meaning a turn around time for marking exams of 1-2 weeks) and there was a suggestion we may need to go to Saturday mornings too!

My university is a medium-sized institution, which has expanded in the last 15 years - the expansion has pretty much outpaced the space available pre-COVID. Our teaching day is from 08:30 to 18:30.

Prior to becoming an academic I used to work in a department of my university which organised events and open days. We often had to pay for an external venue due to lack of space on campus.
Yes campuses are big but we have lots of students!

So if none of the suggestions from those not in universities are workable - and I understand why, it's like when those outside of schools try to work out what may or may not work - can those working in universities find a solution or not?

What has happened at most universities this year has clearly not been enough for many students, so things have to change ready for next academic year at least. Students can't be expected to keep paying full whack when they aren't getting what they should be getting. And students shouldn't be having to pay for accommodation when they don't need it.

Hopefully it can be just a return to near normal 🤞🏻 as by then at least all home students will have received (or been offered) at least one, if not both, vaccines as will the staff.

can those working in universities find a solution or not?

We did at mine...blended learning! Up until the government made us move online we ensured that all students had at least one 3 hour f2f session on campus. The only time that changed was when we had an entire team off isolating so all sessions were moved online for 2 weeks.

My students had 2 sessions per week on campus but they requested more online sessions as they preferred them. Out of all my students across 3 courses ( close to 100 students at one point) only 2 have said they preferred more on campus but they went out of their way to say it was a personal preference and no reflection on the quality of the online teaching.
Interestingly, as soon as I announced we would be offering blended learning my applications almost doubled and pretty much everyone applying this year has expressed an interest in a blended version of the course.

I'm not saying that my course is representative of all courses and students but I am getting pretty fed up of the assumptions that no thought or planning has gone in to the last year and suggestions that all students have had a poor experience.

and that was one f2f session per week. ....

Example:
In before-times: a year group of 200 students have say 3 hours of lectures every morning and one lab session a week (each lab class has 50 students). The labs are used by another year group in the mornings. So the labs are used say 9-12 and 2-5pm 4 days a week (obviously this is a simplified example)

If we suddenly have to change things due to COVID - e.g. go back to social distancing and now labs can have a maximum of 25 students per class. If we haven't already planned for this, how do we fit all of the labs in? The whole thing falls over it it means very sporadic labs for everyone while it gets sorted

However, if we plan to have smaller groups in labs now we can do as follows:
Labs 9-11:30, 12-2:30, 3-5:50 5 days a week, however due to this timetable it means some students will be in labs when they would normally be in lectures. So instead, we do all lectures online in order that the labs can run.

This is the kind of planning universities are doing for blended learning so that they can maintain as much as possible, regardless of COVID. If you just plan to do everything f2f then there will be a couple of weeks scrabbling around trying to sort labs out and pre-record lectures as these can't be streamed 'live' now.

I should add that this new timetable still puts considerable pressure on the technical staff to run this many labs and they will end up working longer hours, but at least the students get practical experience

Well, you know, it's not as if we haven't been teaching ... In fact most of us tripled our teaching hours for face to face - online, but still face to face, not recorded.

So students have been taught, unlike the very patchy provision that most of my friends with school-age children have told me about. I'm pretty confident - from the quality of my undergrads' work - that our published Intended Learning Outcomes have been met, to a higher or lower standard according to each individual student's ability & work.

@DelBocaVista

can those working in universities find a solution or not?

We did at mine...blended learning! Up until the government made us move online we ensured that all students had at least one 3 hour f2f session on campus. The only time that changed was when we had an entire team off isolating so all sessions were moved online for 2 weeks.

My students had 2 sessions per week on campus but they requested more online sessions as they preferred them. Out of all my students across 3 courses ( close to 100 students at one point) only 2 have said they preferred more on campus but they went out of their way to say it was a personal preference and no reflection on the quality of the online teaching.
Interestingly, as soon as I announced we would be offering blended learning my applications almost doubled and pretty much everyone applying this year has expressed an interest in a blended version of the course.

I'm not saying that my course is representative of all courses and students but I am getting pretty fed up of the assumptions that no thought or planning has gone in to the last year and suggestions that all students have had a poor experience.

I wonder if it is because of the average age of your students perhaps? It seems higher than many of the courses Dd and her friends are on.

Dd and her friends have all said they'd prefer more f2f. However, I guess they've not all experienced university 'proper' as many are first years. Her 'bubble friends are a mix of courses and year groups and they've said they preferred f2f, but that's only a very small number of younger students, all under 21/22.

Oh well, guess it's just a case of fingers crossed🤞🏻 for the next academic year and see if they get what they signed up for or not. Too late for this year anyway.

but I am getting pretty fed up of the assumptions that no thought or planning has gone in to the last year and suggestions that all students have had a poor experience

Indeed. I had a student accuse us in a large group meeting of 'making it up as we go along.' It was a disrespectful thoughtless insult - we started to plan absolutely concretely at least a fortnight before the first lockdown was announced last March. We had Plan A, B, and C.

And we're still planning for 21-22 - because we have CEV staff, staff over 50, and over 60, CEV students, black students. We will still need to require students to isolate if they have symptoms, and if they are not too ill to undertake study, they will want to keep up with their work - so we'll be teaching 'blended' classes for quite some time, I think.

In winter-spring 2019, I taught a practical class where we had a bit of a run on mumps. The students concerned had to quarantine; they missed quite a lot of scheduled class time - nowadays, we'd be able to keep students in that situation learning and keeping up with class work.

So students have been taught, unlike the very patchy provision that most of my friends with school-age children have told me about. I'm pretty confident - from the quality of my undergrads' work - that our published Intended Learning Outcomes have been met, to a higher or lower standard according to each individual student's ability & work.

Again it appears that the offerings have varied a lot between universities and between courses, just like it did in schools.

But anyway - this isn't about individual lecturers or individual students.
It's about a government decision and planning, and a continued uncertainty for the coming year.

I'll bow out now as I don't want it to become about individuals and I certainly don't intend going down the route of saying all universities or all schools have done xyz or not.

I do remain annoyed with the decisions the government have made for our students this year. It does feel like they've been very let down, at least from a parents point of view.

I hope everything sorts itself out for everyone come September/October next year.

@CupcakesK
I think one issue is its varied so much between universities. I know 2 science students who's labs have all been online, as well as their lectures, all year. There's so much catching up to be done now

@wooliewoo I know, i do feel sorry for students who have been let down by their uni this year, I hope they get a better education next year

I was trying to explain how next year could work, it means sacrificing in person lectures so e.g. all labs/tutorials/placements can run. Its unrealistic to expect everything f2f next year and I think all students need to be aware of this so they can make decisions. But I think most students would sacrifice lectures so they could do the more practical parts of their course?

Knew some teacher bashing was coming my way 🤷‍♀️. As has been said by many of you, some did it well and some did it abysmally. Not one student I know has had any f2f teaching at all since Sept. Not one, covering over 20 Unis.
But that's the past. It's done and can't be changed. Now it needs to change.
And quite frankly I don't care if students can't be on campus - they need to now come back in Sept as normal if they want an education. No one is banned and they quarantined fine Sept last year.
We need to ensure our kids (who have had a shit year to protect us and the older generation), have a fair chance of an education. I am v sure everyone has taught all their learning objectives, but are you sure your students fully understand them ? Because I know my own have had to self teach a lot themselves. But are still expected to get the same grades as previous years. No allowances being made for the lack of support.
And lectures are normally recorded at most places - this is not a reason to keep them on line. My 3rd year DD has always been to every lecture (as have over 80% of her course) and then rewatched lectures as revision.
And we are all working longer hours to make this work. I don't live near the school I teach at and I am doing on line and f2f at the same time. Not sure why Uni staff can't do this too - half in lecture theatre, half at home (as I keep being told lots can't be there or like being at home this should work fine). I do practicals in lessons and exams and have discussions - it's not that hard. And I do it with 11 year olds.

Yes I think you're right @CupcakesK
Everyone (lectures included I'm sure) would be happier if they could be certain at least labs and tutorials could take place in person next year.

And just to reiterate what others have said, I think many lecturers have gone the extra mile and really tried to deliver the best education they can under these dreadful circumstances. Unfortunately I think some establishments got very anxious about having any students on campus even before the winter lockdown so they've had labs, libraries, lecture theatres lying empty!

@mumsneedwine You keep saying you don't know why uni staff can't do exactly what you're doing in secondary school. Well which do you think is more likely, that the uni staff at all 20 universities you know about are all lazy and can't be bothered, or that these are two completely learning environments with different teaching requirements?

For example, how much of your workload is dedicated to teaching? As I said, in my faculty it's only 40%. That limits how many extra hours we can put in.

People have tried to explain throughout the thread all the space and scheduling issues.

I certainly don't assume I know anything about how secondary teachers can do their job, they are such different environments.

Liverpool deserve massive credit for this. Admitting will likely be blended learning. At least year 13s can decide what to do now - I have 2 already who have decided fo defer (or reapply) with this information. They don't want this and have seen their older siblings have such a rubbish year.

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2021/04/14/update-on-covid-19-guidance-and-teaching-arrangements-2/amp/?twitterrimpression=true

Why would large groups be a prblem at all if everyone old and vulnerable has had the jab and are moving on the winter boosters however? Why not just let it fun riot in those who chose not to have a vaccine?

@dreamingbohemian I have never ever said any of those things. Please don't attribute words to me that have never been said.
I do struggle to understand why some students have had no f2f at all year, especially as some of you on here have managed it so well. It's frustrating when it can be done but isn't being.
Let's hope from Sept most places are back to normal. My year 13s are deciding in the next few weeks whether to go or not so I can pass on some of the information from here to help them decide. If it's blended then I doubt many will go in 2021.

I do struggle to understand why some students have had no f2f at all year, especially as some of you on here have managed it so well

If I'm honest, I wouldn't say we've managed it well. Students were happy that we offered it, or rather they couldn't be angry because we didn't, but as well as it being really difficult to facilitate discussions and to repeat the same session over and over again, numbers were really low. That was partly because increasingly as the weeks went by they would be self-isolating, or have covid, and partly because lots went home as soon as tiers came in, and even more after we went into lockdown. It really wasn't a very good experience for anyone. I'm sure it'll be much better next year, but for the students who didn't get any on-campus teaching this year, it's important to be clear they didn't necessarily miss out as much as they might think.

One thing you might all be able to help with. My DD's friend now has a major eye issue from being on line so much and has been told to stay off a screen. But she can't as everything, including her exams, is on there. Who should she contact because she'd be fine if all in person as normal but going to struggle if can't see the screen. She wants to do her exams on paper.
DD has much worse eyesight now than 12 months ago, due to over use of screen. I think this is going to be a major issue if things continue on line next year - what about those who can't access that ?
Thanks.