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.

🤷‍♀️ on line may be successful for staff but it really is not for students. They may be learning stuff but they are not enjoying that learning as it's so lonely. And hard to stay motivated. And hard to chat to others you've never met to better understand.
We asked for feedback from our 6th formers (many only a few months younger that the first years) and they universally said they missed being in class with teachers and each other. Because humans need each other to bounce ideas off.
I'm glad some VCs are being vocal - hopefully things might change.
I just don't see why Universities have to adhere to such strict guidelines when 6th form colleges don't. Some have 3,000+ students yet are running full f2f classes, within the 'law'. Come Sept I fail to understand the need for rigorous SD if we have all been vaccinated. Baring wild nasty variants of course.
I spend my days in cramped, unventilated rooms with kids who wear masks pretty much anywhere but over their mouths. I'm sure 18 year old students would be better at this than 11 year olds. My year 13 class are all 18 and all in class every day with me. But from September they might have to stay home. To them, this is bonkers. To me it looks like something had gone wrong in our guidance to either schools or Unis.

I think the situatation is very different depending on year groups, and hands up to that one - first years who can't go to their halls are in a different position. We do know that a significant amount across all year groups have returned to their university cities, though, and I was thinking of those, but I am sorry that that precludes many first years.

It's clear from online teaching that some are in family homes and some are not (I mean from what they say, not observations of their background view). But either way, we haven't forgotten them in any sense. I know (I've got one of my own) that students have had a crap time in terms of social activity this year, as indeed has everyone - it's just really difficult to know how a tutor could do much about that. All we can do is teach the absolute best we can, in whatever environment the government or VCs tell us to.

It is frustrating though that often the debate goes in the same breath from 'online teaching is crap' to 'it's not about the teaching, it's about the socialising'. How can we win?

@mumsneedwine

🤷‍♀️ on line may be successful for staff but it really is not for students. They may be learning stuff but they are not enjoying that learning as it's so lonely. And hard to stay motivated. And hard to chat to others you've never met to better understand. We asked for feedback from our 6th formers (many only a few months younger that the first years) and they universally said they missed being in class with teachers and each other. Because humans need each other to bounce ideas off. I'm glad some VCs are being vocal - hopefully things might change. I just don't see why Universities have to adhere to such strict guidelines when 6th form colleges don't. Some have 3,000+ students yet are running full f2f classes, within the 'law'. Come Sept I fail to understand the need for rigorous SD if we have all been vaccinated. Baring wild nasty variants of course. I spend my days in cramped, unventilated rooms with kids who wear masks pretty much anywhere but over their mouths. I'm sure 18 year old students would be better at this than 11 year olds. My year 13 class are all 18 and all in class every day with me. But from September they might have to stay home. To them, this is bonkers. To me it looks like something had gone wrong in our guidance to either schools or Unis.

I wouldn't say it's successful for staff - I'd say we've worked as hard as we can to make it the best we can. Yes, I really hope we won't have to do all the SD stuff in the autumn, because that doesn't make for good teaching either.

In terms of schools, the argument is that unless you board, you stay in your own home and local area for school, so there aren't swathes of people moving up and down the country. Not sure how far that holds in the context of many being back already, but that's the argument.

University staff have no say in any of this. It’s all controlled by what the government says and how the VCs respond. We want to be back on campus- online teaching is nobodies method of choice. We have already been told it will definitely be a mixture of online and in person delivery in the future- not just over the next year. We will be running labs face to face, tutorials face to face but large lecture theatre based sessions are gone forever. We will however be running classroom based sessions to support the online lectures- so for a cohort of 200 instead of giving a 1h lecture we get to give 10 x 1 h sessions in groups of 20. Which will be good for the students but considering most of us are already over 100% workplanned it’s going to break staff.

@TheMerrickBoy I've never said it's about the teaching as I'm sure that has been great from lots of Unis. My own
DD included - oldest was writing a dissertation so bit lucky on timing. She's now on wards stabbing people.
I think sometimes it seems staff are concentrating on the learning outcomes, quite understandably, while forgetting how tough emotionally this has all been. And there doesn't seem to be any concrete plans to end it. On line is not as good as in person, however brilliant you are. My opinion only.
If Unis came out, as a group, via VCs and said from September things will be back to as normal as we can, with f2f guaranteed for 50% minimum then students could have something to look forward to. Baring nasty variants.
This is the VCs job. It's what they get paid mega bucks to do, look after their students.
Some Unis blocked the key cards to halls so students (mainly first years) couldn't return. Even though they were still paying for their room. Parents are quite rightly fed up with this being allowed & seeing how lonely and demoralised their kids have become. Enough now. If pubs are open then so are Unis.

I am a student and I am angry and disappointed about this. Please, if you haven't already, sign this petition to let us go back. And share it wherever you can. It is probably futile but at this point I am desperate enough to try anything. At my university you have to go through a dehumanising application process to be able to return to accommodation if you don't have in person teaching and it is very strict - at my college at least. One of my friends told them he was suicidal in his application last term but was still not allowed to return to college accommodation because he hadn't actually made an attempt yet.

Crap I forgot the link petition.parliament.uk/petitions/582345

@Zippy1510 that is bonkers ! Stuff them into lectures - they'll be stuffed into nightclubs and festivals from
June 21st so what's the difference (maybe another if booze 😂).

@mumsneedwine I agree! But we have no control over how the university decides to operate.

@TheMerrickBoy at DDs Uni about 80% we're back last term. And they had 19 cases in the whole term (staff and students). Both my DDs Unis publish their daily stats and I was amazed how few cases both had, especially as everyone was testing twice a week. Think that blows the government's theory about moving around being an issue.
Oh and you can now go on holiday anywhere in UK so that's allowed, but not being at Uni.

@TheMerrickBoy
To reply to your last question, I think that you need to be less defensive about students’ disappointment.

It needs to be acknowledged that students’ learn from each other as well as from staff: via exposure to others’ views and work and this happens outside the teaching environment even more than within. This is why universities are able to charge per year and not per teaching hour.

Incidentally, it is not just first years who are in this affected group. Some universities, such as my son’s, have extensive accommodation for other years. He is in his second year and has been at home with us since first week of December.

No complaints about the online teaching (excellent) but very concerned about how demotivating the home learning experience is, and its effects on his progress

@Zippy1510 It's madness. It's like the people in charge are just out to make as much money as possible and don't care at all about their staff or students. I can see many many students not going in the future as why bother if you can just learn on line much cheaper via on line courses. V short sighted policy on behalf of institutions that require public funding.

@RosaDiazRocks keep going ! I'm trying my best to raise the issue where I can. Have you tried contacting Lewis Goodhall via Twitter ? He's a journalist who was instrumental in highlighting the exams fiasco last year. He's on Newsnight and was talking about Uni return yesterday and his mad the decision is.
Not giving up !!

[quote mumsneedwine]@GCAcademic not sure where I'm blaming University staff - I'm blaming University bosses. Those VCs earning hundreds of thousands of pounds who could lobby government to change the 'law' (it's actually guidance - otherwise schools would be breaking the law daily).
I'm angry that some staff have told my kids they'll likely continue on line in Sept because 'no one has complained'. I'm angry at the person who told my DD she preferred working from home and would not be providing f2f tutorials next year as they were an inconvenience to her 😳.
I am angry that some Uni staff keep banging on about the quality of on line learning which, however amazing it is, is no substitute for being in person with your peers. Returning is about our kids mental health which is not great, having been isolated in their rooms for a year.
So I don't hate Uni staff, I hate the apathy that means our kids are being let down. Yet again [/quote]
Hear hear

[quote Helleboring]@TheMerrickBoy
To reply to your last question, I think that you need to be less defensive about students’ disappointment.

It needs to be acknowledged that students’ learn from each other as well as from staff: via exposure to others’ views and work and this happens outside the teaching environment even more than within. This is why universities are able to charge per year and not per teaching hour.

Incidentally, it is not just first years who are in this affected group. Some universities, such as my son’s, have extensive accommodation for other years. He is in his second year and has been at home with us since first week of December.

No complaints about the online teaching (excellent) but very concerned about how demotivating the home learning experience is, and its effects on his progress[/quote]
You know what, you're probably right. It is really dispiriting when you're working your socks off and all you see is viral tweets about how shit it all is, and you can't do much about it. It's another thing that's been difficult in a year that's been difficult for everyone.

I am 100% in agreement that students learn from each other - so much has changed in terms of how we deliver over recent years that recognizes this, and I and most other tutors hate the idea of a kind of top-down face-the-front and listen model that we've spent years trying to dismantle.

We try to replicate that as much as we can via breakout rooms, and when you have a really good session with lots of students responding to each other's points, it's great. (And, sorry to bang the drum, but can work better online than it did in a room with a very small number of students very far apart.) And yes, meeting each other in the library, coffee shops, wherever, and chatting about their work is really important, and it's desperately sad that hasn't been able to happen for them this year. No disagreement there.

They do need to be with each other, hearing each other, and seeing each other, and I have every confidence that'll be the case in the Autumn. I don't like being in the house all day every day either, and I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing them in what I hope will be a much different scenario after the summer.

@TheMerrickBoy

I will still offer tutorials online next year as well as f2f: I think they've been one of the revelations of this year - students realising they can have a one-to-one chat with us without having to come onto campus is something I think lots of people might want to hang on to. Tutorials, not seminars, though. Online tutorials mean it's marginally less frustrating when they book and then don't show up, too.

I don't think anywhere will remain wholly online next year unless something unexpected happens, though. I do think students are very keen for us to hang onto recorded lectures they can watch at their leisure, pause, rewind, etc, though, so I think that might stay.

I've been really impressed with lots of my students this semester who have done very well with online learning - probably because it's been clearcut and consistent with the national lockdown since Jan - they've not been continually unsure about what's happening next or whether it's fair. They've also had significantly more contact time and support than in a normal year, to be honest. And actually I think that coming back for two weeks after easter to a different form of engagement would have been quite disruptive to their learning, so I think this is the right call- just wish the government had been honest and open about it much much sooner.

Online learning is not necessarily inferior to sitting far apart in a room where you can't hear anyone properly because of masks, can't use handouts, can't have group or small group discussions, and have to clean your desk down at the beginning and end of every session.

I see that but also labs? Drama? Music groups? Field trips? Using equipment? Labs online is ridiculous. Ok as a back up or a revision tool but can’t be ok to carry on.

@Zippy1510

University staff have no say in any of this. It’s all controlled by what the government says and how the VCs respond. We want to be back on campus- online teaching is nobodies method of choice. We have already been told it will definitely be a mixture of online and in person delivery in the future- not just over the next year. We will be running labs face to face, tutorials face to face but large lecture theatre based sessions are gone forever. We will however be running classroom based sessions to support the online lectures- so for a cohort of 200 instead of giving a 1h lecture we get to give 10 x 1 h sessions in groups of 20. Which will be good for the students but considering most of us are already over 100% workplanned it’s going to break staff.

Uni staff surely need to talk with unions?

Surely there is concern in some unis about job losses or increase in students if online persists?

@RosaDiazRocks

I am a student and I am angry and disappointed about this. Please, if you haven't already, sign this petition to let us go back. And share it wherever you can. It is probably futile but at this point I am desperate enough to try anything. At my university you have to go through a dehumanising application process to be able to return to accommodation if you don't have in person teaching and it is very strict - at my college at least. One of my friends told them he was suicidal in his application last term but was still not allowed to return to college accommodation because he hadn't actually made an attempt yet.

I’ve signed Rosa and thanks for your input.

I think tuition fees for this year should be mostly, if not entirely, refunded.

Whenever this gets mentioned you see academics getting really upset and defensive, but we need to get over that. It's not a criticism of our effort. It's an acknowledgment of how absolutely shite this year has been for most students.

I would do this instead of letting students back en masse right now. I think there is too much variation to do it all-or-nothing style. In my department for ex we have very large lectures given in basement rooms with no ventilation. There is no way to break those large groups into smaller groups because we do not have enough rooms to do that for all large lecture groups (that's why they're large to begin with!)

So I would write off the rest of this year BUT refund the students. Unfortunately I don't think it will ever happen.

The UCU and it’s leader Dr Jo Grady have behaved appallingly throughout the past year. Back on Twitter over the last couple of days crowing about how they have managed to delay students’ return so that basically most won’t be back until September. No doubt they’ll be on strike soon afterwards. My DH is an academic, he’s left the UCU because of this but still receives their email communications, they couldn’t give a toss about the students. What they don’t seem to realise by resisting f2f teaching for their members is that they are literally doing themselves out of a job in the future. Once the universities only deliver lectures online and they have massive banks of materials, why pay a lecturer to deliver? Incidentally my DH is in university at the moment teaching f2f on a professional masters course. Two f2f blocks in and not a single lecturer or student has had Covid so far.

Thanks for your support Newgirls and mumsneedwine, I really appreciate it. I don't have twitter but I have emailed Lewis Goodall off the back of a tip on a different thread so thank you for that if that was you! I've also sent letters to all the major newspapers and the BBC so I'm hoping for some response.

Uni staff surely need to talk with unions?

Our union leadership is deranged. They would support eternal lockdown. And then express astonishment when there were job losses. Unfortunately the UCU is a stellar example of what happens when only a few hardliners go into union politics and only a small % of staff vote in elections.

I agree about the tuition fees refund. It won't happen because it would finish off a lot of universities. But the government could do a partial student loan write-off. Although that would not help overseas students who pay even more.

My university has already said that next year, any classes of more than 25 students will have online lectures and f2f seminars. So this will be mostly back to normal, except that large lecture classes will have the lecture part online. I don't think students mind this too much -- when we brought in lecture capture a couple years ago, attendance at large lectures plummeted anyway. Much easier to watch at home whenever you like. As long as they have the smaller seminars f2f, I hope they will be okay with it.

Classes of 25 or less will have everything f2f

My DH is an academic, he’s left the UCU because of this

He's not the only one . . .

@SarahMused very well said. Has occurred to me that once Unis have a full years worth of lectures on line they no longer needs that lecturer to lecture. Bang goes their job. I'd be fighting to go back if I was Uni staff.
Please thank your DH as so few are offering f2f it is really appreciated when some do. Like he's found out (& I have in school) it can be done safely now.
I really need to go mark year 13 assessments. My DD has just shown me a beautiful drawing of a testicle - one advantage of her being home 😂.