Another year online?

[Ellewoods20]

Despite the easing of restrictions in June, some universities have informed students that lectures will remain online in the next academic year. What’s the point? :(

[quote Stirmecrazy]@sendsummer. I guess I mean new recording . The one my Dd showed me as typical was a live on campus lecture recorded last year so you get all the audience noise and then half way through break away group activities which are not applicable if you are watching it yourself
Ultimately the lecturer must have had that slot allocated in his work timetable so I was expecting to see an online designed version which was easier to watch and appropriate to a online audience why wouldn’t it be produced . It is the main criticism by my Dd of online learning that these are so difficult to watch. This year has had it so tough I am devastated to see they are not even getting medium appropriate learning material .[/quote]
That is really poor practice.

Ultimately the lecturer must have had that slot allocated in his work timetable so I was expecting to see an online designed version which was easier to watch and appropriate to a online

If they did, it would probably have been an hour. Creating the equivalent online lecture can take days.

Stirmecrazy
I agree with you, what’s the point of a recording with poor audio, however situations may not be ideal.

It is interesting to know whether students and parents prefer lectures to be delivered by world leading researchers or by dedicated teaching lecturers. The first often fit in their lectures into very busy schedules and may have poor delivery and to be honest usually don’t have teaching undergraduates as a top priority.
The second like DelBocaVista would have time to research and deliver best educational style for undergraduate level material. Although what their students say they want may not suit students at other universities or courses or even reflect the majority of their students. IME students want the choice to attend live lectures, especially when given by big personalities. ‘Blended’ learning can be used to shortcut that.

@sendsummer

Stirmecrazy I agree with you, what’s the point of a recording with poor audio, however situations may not be ideal.

It is interesting to know whether students and parents prefer lectures to be delivered by world leading researchers or by dedicated teaching lecturers. The first often fit in their lectures into very busy schedules and may have poor delivery and to be honest usually don’t have teaching undergraduates as a top priority.
The second like DelBocaVista would have time to research and deliver best educational style for undergraduate level material. Although what their students say they want may not suit students at other universities or courses or even reflect the majority of their students. IME students want the choice to attend live lectures, especially when given by big personalities. ‘Blended’ learning can be used to shortcut that.

Tbh I don't have extra time ..... I've had to work 60+ hours a week to prepare my teaching as well as try to keep up with my research commitments.

I've not had a proper break since Xmas 2019. I'm broken.

Please bear in mind that a lot of people are recording and/or delivering these lectures in their own homes using the cameras and microphones on laptops.

It is unreasonable expect professional standards of production.

I've not had a proper break since Xmas 2019. I'm broken.

I empathise. My institution has asked for volunteers to leave. My application is in. I have had enough.

Good to see yet another thread about the appalling student experience has just been taken over by the lecturers complaining about making their lives easier/harder.

No one gives a shit about the students basically. The universities lied/were economical with the truth as fuck to get students to re-register for this year and not take the year out... we were told time and time again that we would have "blended learning" with lectures recorded and lots of face-to-face seminar time. What we actually got was about a day a month on campus with 3 hours of face to face stuff - subjects like phonetics being taught by a masked lecturer in a massive room so was utterly fucking pointless. I think I've been onto campus 2-3 times in the last year - and one of those was to pick up a parking permit.

We are now being spun exactly the same shitty lines in preparation for this year coming up.

I'm sorry - but I'm paying 9k a year to watch lectures recorded two years ago (the end of course stuff was obviously hit by covid last year as well so we're onto the 2019 lectures), with everyone's coughs, chattering, the "talk about this to your partner" bits and parts where the lecturer walks away from the mic to point at something on the slide (which obviously we can't see) so things like the "and if you look at this area here you can see the structures of the cells has been damaged' is a bit of guess work for us and obviously we have no opportunity to ask questions etc!

It's bullshit.

We've not had more than "blended again" as a comment from our uni.

I am what is termed a 4 researcher and very senior academic. My focus is on international impact. I have done many recordings for requested international talks in the last year and I am happy to deliver occasional live undergraduate lectures and press the recording button for that lecture. However no way did I have the time or inclination to jump the hoops for delivering online content that DelBocaVista* mentioned in PPs. Therefore I just stopped undergraduate teaching over the last year. My seniority, research standing and outside positions allow me to do this (and it is a 7 day week anyway). Whether that is a loss for undergraduates I don’t know, possibly not. I am however fairly typical of other senior international researchers. That loss of teaching time is not going to help other over-stretched academics who can’t say no.

Ultimately the lecturer must have had that slot allocated in his work timetable so I was expecting to see an online designed version which was easier to watch and appropriate to a online audience why wouldn’t it be produced

Do you know how many hours that takes? On home computer equipment ie laptop or desktop, built in mic and camera.

Most academic workload models allow extra time for prep if it’s a new lecture. Maybe 2 hours ....

But a lecture that’s one that is given each year, with annual updates to ensure that the data remains current (and in most disciplines, the basic stuff doesn’t change) would not receive any prep allowance. Lectures are where we outline the basic stuff and communicate the information students need for underpinning their own learning; seminars and workshops are where we work with the details and facilitate and push student learning.

I think you totally underestimate the extent of the demands on academic staff over this last year.

And that’s before we start on the contractual requirements we all have to maintain our research, particularly in the last 12 months before the REF submission (deadline 31March 2021), global pandemic notwithstanding.

One of the lecturers on DD's course is French and has a very strong and difficult to understand French accent. Several students (including DD) deliberately did not choose his module this year because his lectures are so difficult to follow.

I do love the racism here being justified.

It's a lot of work to produce entirely new and differently structured lectures. Especially when you are also having to redesign all your seminars to work both online and for smaller face-to-face groups, and teach four times as many of them.

I know some people who have re-used existing recordings and many more people who have re-recorded their existing lectures with minor tweaks rather than extensive overhauls.

There not being infinite hours in the day, choices have had to be made between offering as much socially distanced face-to-face teaching as possible and undertaking extensive redesigns of lecture content and delivery.

We have prioritised face-to-face teaching, at least tripling the teaching hours of every single member of our teaching staff, because it has been our belief that getting out of their rooms and interacting with others on their course and their lecturers brings the most benefit to the students both academically and in terms of their personal well-being. But perhaps we should have just designed some fancy lectures and left them alone.

They have been super cautious and could have done more this term.

You do know that in January 2021 we were not allowed by law to teach in person? From late March, there was a dispensation for in person teaching for disciplines which were deemed to need face to face - lab based subjects in STEMM, drama, music in Arts. That situation continues.... it’s the current law.

@AllThatisSolid

One of the lecturers on DD's course is French and has a very strong and difficult to understand French accent. Several students (including DD) deliberately did not choose his module this year because his lectures are so difficult to follow.

I do love the racism here being justified.

Maybe if I had left out that he was French and just said that he was difficult to understand would you have criticised that as well?

This was absolutely NOT intended as a racist comment. So please wind your neck in

just pondering on what you said what would unis normally do for staff losses . Lectures would still need to be delivered surely . There must be policy for this

Most academics teach when ill. We aren’t simply replaced by other staff. If we are too ill to teach, we postpone and reschedule, but usually it’s easier to drag yourself out of bed, drug yourself up, and get to work, than try to reschedule. I’ve taught in chronic pain (4 hourly strong opiates got me through the worst couple of weeks). I know other colleagues who’ve refused to take medically-recommended sick leave.

If there’s long term illness, we can sometimes get funds for a short-term replacement. But overall, most staff teach through most illnesses.

I think COVID has made us all rethink this.

I’m a university tutor, the reason I have worked such long hours (to the detriment of time with my own young children and my own research publications) is BECAUSE I care about the students’ experience. I work with a lot of international students and find it heartbreaking how isolated they are. I’ve done everything possible to make my teaching collaborative and interactive within gov and uni covid guidelines.

It take a lot of: time, skill, equipment, training and experience to deliver online and blended teaching effectively. Every tutor and lecturer I know has been on a roller coaster crash course on this over the past year. No one I know or work with is trying to stiff students, but we are talking about a massive shift in delivery during an ongoing pandemic.

I teach in a practical, creative field, trust me there is nothing I want more than to be back in a room with my students. HE teaching staff are on the front line, at the mercy of policy decided elsewhere

@CoffeeWithCheese absolutely . I have accepted that some universities will inevitably use online learning next term and a few have already disclosed their intention and many lecturers have even said this is possibly their new policy for some subjects moving forward. Fine.What I want to know is what rights have students on the quality of these lectures . Regurgitated on campus lectures are not appropriate for exactly the reason you have said above. A collection of PDf files is definatley not a lecture. Quality of online lectures across universities has not been controlled and whilst some have produced excellent new learning material others are literally downloading old files
Students should have the right to online produced lectures designed for this audience. It should be written into the univeristy contract so students have a right to appeal if standards fall otherwise where is the accountability of the university on delivering a useable product. I went to all the open days and it was all about gold star/ silver star teaching . This means nothing now. I haven’t got an issue with online learning if it is seen as a useful tool it’s why I quizzed my DD in the first place but it needs to be a quality product to convince students of its appeal and universities need some accountability on delivery of these.

HE teaching staff are on the front line, at the mercy of policy decided elsewhere

Exactly this.

And policy for universities often decided by press release, as an afterthought.

The HE bashing on this thread is unreasonable. How many more times do we have to say: we are in the middle of a global pandemic. We have been legally required to either cease in person teaching, or undertake it with strict COVID safety guidelines - masks, social distancing.

Schools closed and pupils’ lessons were patchily delivered. The NHS cancelled huge numbers of treatments and procedures.

Universities have kept going. We have taught courses with a commitment to the published intended learning outcomes. I know my students have learnt a lot this year - including things they’d never have learnt or done in the pre-COVID world.

If you’re angry, rage at a human created world where this virus emerged. Not at universities which have kept on doing their job. A lot of you sound like toddlers screaming at their parents that it’s not fair. No it’s not fair, but your hostility to university staff who have gone above and beyond is totally unreasonable.

I'm a lecturer, we are apparently remaining online for lectures but moving from recorded to live, which I much prefer. The reasoning is that we have many students who won't be able to travel to our campus given travel restrictions. However I have asked if I can conduct my lectures face to face and live stream them. We are then doubling seminars so we do one face to face and one online. It's insane for workload but they won't invest in tech to allow us to conduct more interactive sessions both face to face and online so we just have to suck it up.

The online delivery worked very well for one to one meetings (the students actually turn up on time! And I could record so they could play it back to remind them of what we discussed) but I hated everything else and I think most of my colleagues would agree.

'We have prioritised face-to-face teaching, at least tripling the teaching hours of every single member of our teaching staff, because it has been our belief that getting out of their rooms and interacting with others on their course and their lecturers brings the most benefit to the students both academically and in terms of their personal well-being'

This. This is what I believe too (above was earlier in the thread posted by a lecturer). I know this year has been rubbish for everyone, but all we are asking is that next year isn't. If rules allow from June 21st then things should be back to normal for September. Nothing purely on line. People need to learn with people, whatever the pedology states about best learning.
Let's give our young people some chance to have a normal life. They've given up so much to protect us oldies.

@AllThatisSolid

just pondering on what you said what would unis normally do for staff losses . Lectures would still need to be delivered surely . There must be policy for this

Most academics teach when ill. We aren’t simply replaced by other staff. If we are too ill to teach, we postpone and reschedule, but usually it’s easier to drag yourself out of bed, drug yourself up, and get to work, than try to reschedule. I’ve taught in chronic pain (4 hourly strong opiates got me through the worst couple of weeks). I know other colleagues who’ve refused to take medically-recommended sick leave.

If there’s long term illness, we can sometimes get funds for a short-term replacement. But overall, most staff teach through most illnesses.

I think COVID has made us all rethink this.

I once taught so ill with tonsilitis that I had to type what I was saying onto word on the overhead screen because I couldn't get words out.

Another time I felt so I'll I forced myself to get through a seminar and then vomited in my car on the way out.

There is no time off at all.

They've given up so much to protect us oldies

And when schools resumed in-person, the whole country went into a second lockdown in the autumn, to enable schools to reopen, and contain the disease spread which came inevitably from that. Added to that, the huge movement of university students across the country at the same time (the infection rate multiplied by 10 times in my university town over Sept-Oct).

So I think it's fairly balanced in terms of who's given up what for whom.

No one gives a shit about the students basically.

I do. I really do.
I'm sorry you've had a poor experience and I would urge you to complain but please don't make sweeping statements about all universities and all staff.

I once taught so ill with tonsilitis that I had to type what I was saying onto word on the overhead screen because I couldn't get words out.

The only time I cancelled a lecture was when I had severe bacterial tonsillitis. I took two days off and a student put in an official complaint about the missed lecture ( which I actually delivered on another date and recorded it for those unable to attend) and that I didn't reply to his email quickly enough.

I once had a very badly broken wrist, in a huge cast, dominant (writing hand). I was in chronic pain for 18 months - partly because we were so short-staffed that I couldn't take the sick leave required for another op to fix the pain. Students complained about late feedback on essays.

I once gave a lecture with scurvy, one leg hanging off, in a hole in the road, two hours after I went to bed, during a power cut...

Sorry!