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? :(

Ooh is it a who taught with worst symptoms competition? I taught the day after my colleague died of COVID. Because schools were open from September - Dec when everyone else was at home.
And yes, young people have given up loads to protect the older generation and have had a rubbish year. No end of school, no long summer, no chance to meet anyone at Uni.
I'm afraid most (not all @DelBocaVista ) staff on here don't seem to want to acknowledge how rubbish some of the provision has been. And some seem to want it to continue next year. Surely if it's such hard work (& I know it is as I've done it too) you'd be clambering to be back f2f in Sept. If not, why are you not striking ? Because we know you can.

Because if we went on strike the students would get no teaching at all?

@Phphion

Because if we went on strike the students would get no teaching at all?

And we've had that one as well. We're now doing old lecture recordings, to build upon lectures that weren't delivered at all in our first year because of strike action.

Hope no one wants healthcare workers who actually know what they're doing!

I taught the day after my colleague died

I can actually beat that by some margin, but I'm not going to go into details.

@Etulosba

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!

You may laugh but when we've got people telling us we don't give a shit we're going to react.

Unlike schools, we don't get supply teachers in to cover sickness. If I'm off sick there is literally nobody else who can cover my teaching so it just wouldn't get done. My conscience won't let that happen.

And I've never gone on strike.

You may laugh but when we've got people telling us we don't give a shit we're going to react.

Sorry. I have a twisted sense of humour.

I know what it's like. It's what I do too. I take solace in that our students haven't been feeding back any serious issues. Not through the SSLC anyway. They are consulted at departmental level on future teaching policies so there should be no surprises from us in the next academic year. Outside influences? Who knows?

I've never gone on strike either.

@CoffeeWithCheese I'm with you in that. My medic DD didn't see a member of staff from March 2020 to Jan 2021. All on line. Fortunately now on the wards and picking up all the skills she'd missed.
Previous to that all the lecturers were on strike for a month. As most of hers were also doctors they ignored the strike and carried on teaching thankfully, but some of her friends had nothing then too.

@Etulosba

You may laugh but when we've got people telling us we don't give a shit we're going to react.

Sorry. I have a twisted sense of humour.

I know what it's like. It's what I do too. I take solace in that our students haven't been feeding back any serious issues. Not through the SSLC anyway. They are consulted at departmental level on future teaching policies so there should be no surprises from us in the next academic year. Outside influences? Who knows?

I've never gone on strike either.

I do have a sense of humour I promise! It's just been severely tested this year!

@Etulosba out of interest how does a first year feedback on whether they'd like f2f lectures or not if they've never had any ? Question to DD was 'do you like the lectures being recorded'. DD said yes. This was taken as students were happy with recorded lectures. She'd much prefer them in person with the option to watch back (like they usually were). But wasn't asked that.

@Etulosba and I can beat my comment too. Many times over unfortunately. But was using my example as a teacher. I'm sorry you've had loss too. It's been a tough year for some.

we had lectures online and tutorial F2F before the pandemic anyway. Students can re-listen to lectures when they are recorded, and they can press pause or re-wind if there is a point they are unsure of. They can also listen to them on the bus, or in bed. Most seem to prefer them.
But I am dying to get back into a classroom for tutorial teaching and actually see their faces.

F2f is best. I may have been scared witless in the autumn term but I did love seeing the kids every day. And it's lovely to be back now - with a vaccine in my body. Masks are now just another part of uniform (& work just as badly).
I really hope Unis don't do anything on line that doesn't have to be next year. Students are crying out for lectures so they can meet each other. Please please please do all you can to make this happen for them. Their mental health as a group is not great and many are talking about dropping out. Half our year 13s are now intending to defer because of the threat of stuff still being on line.
We all want normal back and students are just the same. Please.

Etulosba out of interest how does a first year feedback on whether they'd like f2f lectures or not if they've never had any ?

Unfortunately, unlike higher years, our first year students have only experience of online lectures so really can't make any comparisons. They are aware that lectures are likely remain online next year but we have had nothing back to suggest that they are unhappy with that. We may get a better picture at next month's meeting when they will have had more time to mull over the policy and feed back to reps.

Like other unis, we had been experimenting with online lectures and flipped classrooms before covid.

Face-to-face teaching was restricted to labs, seminars and tutorials in the autumn term. Which, incidentally, are resuming this term.

Social distancing is the killer. It has to go if any sense of normality is to be regained.

@Etulosba as a teacher I forget social distancing is even a thing 🤷‍♀️. It's due to go on 21st June, so plenty of time to plan for Sept full reopening.
Please ask your first years if they'd like in person lectures together. I'm pretty certain they will say yes if directly asked. They'll also likely say yes if asked if they have managed with on line, both are not mutually exclusive !

I’ve just been sorting out room bookings for my programme for next academic year. The majority of lectures are staying online, seminars and practicals will be face to face. Looking like this will be permanent.

Think some of the anger towards lecturers is unfair. No one chose to be in this position and many lecturers didn’t have the equipment or skills to produce professional videos off the bat. Also no choice but to teach in a mask and at a distance if on campus. Not pleasant for anybody.

In my department, we have been teaching live online since last July (yes, all over summer for incoming international students) and have carried on from then. It’s been difficult, but rewarding.

We are currently having to plan material that can be taught all online, all in classroom or some hybrid of the two. Everything takes longer. The uni can’t commit to all in person because they can’t count on that being allowed, so it has to be blended but easily adaptable.

We really do sympathise with the students and understand it’s not what they want either. Whether they should defer or not is a really difficult decision and a very personal one. I don’t know what I would do in that situation myself.

My medic DD didn't see a member of staff from March 2020 to Jan 2021. All on line.

@mumsneedwine how many times are you going to make this baseless unreasonable complaint?

My university suspended teaching face to face on 17th March and sent students home, in advance of the national lockdown announced from 23rd March. I vividly remember an 8:30 staff meeting on Monday 16 March when we worked out how we would teach and assess our students from that point, and how we could salvage something from this terrible disease. From that point on my colleagues in our department leadership group were making Plan A, B, C, ... and waiting for some sort of government guidance.

When lockdown was lifted in the summer, it was Exam Boards. Most degrees are not fully taught in the summer term (bar Oxford, I think, and I know tat medicos have different teaching year schedules).

Then the Autumn term: we were allowed to teach in person under COVID secure conditions - these were a legal obligation - so capacity of teaching rooms was cut by around 75% in my department - rooms that previously I'd taught 20 students in were legally only permitted to have 4 or 5 people in them.

The country was also in a "soft lockdown" and a series of tiers - where we were required to work from home if it was possible to do so.

Then January 4th, another 'hard' lockdown was announced, and universities were told, as were students, that travel was not permitted, and that we could not teach in person. Again, this was a law.

The only dispesnation - from mid-March 2021, was for subjects which required hands on/lab work etc.

So, if your DD is a medic undergrad, there have been 2 shortish periods where she might legally have been permitted to have in person teaching. In total, around 16 weeks, depending on the length of normal teaching terms in her degree programme.

However, in my department, also eligible under the lab. ruling, we have prioritised final year students when there's a question of space or timetabling capacity - this might seem harsh to you or your DD, but we are looking at overall fairness, and final year students are a clear priority. I presumably don't need to spell out the reasons for that.

So your claim that your DD didn't see teaching staff for a year is - to be charitable - an exaggeration, a colouring of the truth.

And if she's being taught on-line, presumably she is in live sessions with teaching staff, so again, you are making quite OTT allegations.

@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.

We don't know the race of the lecturer, so there is no way this can be a racist comment.

@AllThatisSolid 🤷‍♀️ I was in every day from September - December and there were NO rules preventing Universities doing the same at the start of the academic year. So not baseless, as it actually happened. Why can't you accept that ??

And some seem to want it to continue next year.

You continue to mis-read what lecturers here are saying @mumsneedwine. There is good pedagogical research going back (in my knowledge) around 30-35 years to say that lectures might be an efficient way to get a lot of information to a large group, but they are not necessarily an effective tool for student learning (there's a distinction here between teaching & learning).

So academics have for some time been experimenting with 'flipping' the lecture theatre, for example, and trying other ways of getting the basic information into students, without recourse to big group lectures. We've been doing it in y department because there is a consistent response from students that they don't "enjoy" lectures, and they find them "boring." The lectures are given by the same colleagues who are annually nominated by the same student body for teaching awards so it's not that we are "bad" lecturers.

So your understanding of university teaching is quite limited, I suspect, and quite conventional - perhaps you think university teaching is just school teaching but a year further on ... it's not.

The pandemic has forced us to switch very quickly to teaching differently, mid-stream, as it were. But that shouldn't stop any of us reflecting on what works for our students. In my department, we've had feedback that the short pre-recorded lecture is a good way for students to gain an introduction to a topic, and I've seen how this works myself. So I'll probably keep tat aspect of my modules for next year. And you know, if I approach the same seminar topics as last year, I may well just use the same short lecture. Why not? The data hasn't changed.

there were NO rules preventing Universities doing the same at the start of the academic year

Yes, there were. I actually work in a university, and I know I was not allowed access to my office etc, except with a prior appointment & accompanied or overseen by a security person. The laws for schools & universities were different.

[quote mumsneedwine]@AllThatisSolid 🤷‍♀️ I was in every day from September - December and there were NO rules preventing Universities doing the same at the start of the academic year. So not baseless, as it actually happened. Why can't you accept that ??[/quote]
But we did have to social distance while teaching. This had a huge impact on room capacity.
We couldn't magic up extra space, staff or time to deliver sessions multiple times.

So yes, we were allowed on campus but in many cases there was no way we could fit all of the students in the space available!

@MangosteenSoda the only anger I have towards staff is when they try and negate the actual experiences of our kids. @DelBocaVista gets it. Sounds like her Uni have been amazing and realise what can be done. I've just been told I'm a liar for stating what my DD has experienced. Lots of us are saying how bad it's been and we are continually told well that's not true. Our kids have had a shit year and can't he changed now.
But why are Unis (not all) still intending to do on like in September? That's what is making parents cross. Rest of us intend to be back to normal.