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? :(

Why have all HE staff who’ve replied to my comments been rude and defensive- it was uncalled for!

How would you feel if people who have never worked in a school constantly told you how to do your job, criticised you for following the requirements set by government, told you that you don't care about your pupils, that you've done a shit job all year..?
Followed by ...my child's nursery is open so I don't understand why schools are only opening for key worker children.

Because that's what this thread and the dozens that have come before have been like.

I appreciate that students want to socialize but strictly speaking thats not why I get paid or why students pay over 60k for their degree. They take a humanities/social science degree to learn certain skills/gain certain competencies that eill hopefully land them a job. In today's employment market you need a degree for most jobs and thats why students do it. The old idea of a degree being as much about an experience etc is long gone. Now its basically a very expensive piece of paper that allows them to get a job.

I care about my students' welfare but I actually dont care whether they have a nice social life. Thats not my job.

To those saying all restrictions will be lifted by June - thats what Boris says now. Our scientists frankly disagree. Plus we have four different scenarios and I think onlynin one of them is all social distancing done away with. But we will all be cery pleased if thats indeed the case.

Large lectures are frankly a pointless waste of time for most social science/humanities subjects. Having 150kids in front of me as I recite a pre prepared lecture for 50mins is antiquated at best.I can pretend to make it interactive but realistically you might as well listen to a recording. Very very very few lecturers are truely engaging enough or have thebtime to make every lecture good enough. Yes, I would love more IT support for that but the idea itself is not a bad one.

I work at an RG and can assure you that there has been no lack of effort!

It’s not the same as in person, but that’s not uniformly terrible either. It’s also out of our hands. No one here chose this.

Tbh, students can work together, collaborate on documents, chat and learn in the small group teaching I have been doing. They wouldn’t have been able to collaborate so closely at a social distance in a physical classroom. Nor would they have had as much tutor input because we would have had to have scheduled really short sessions to fit them all in. I don’t even know if that would have been possible. These are the rules we have had to adhere to, not something arbitrary we made up.

Uni students are technically adults and they have been treated as such under the government’s Covid policy. It really is different to school. People from all over the country moving en mass and living in communal settings. The first years I have had contact with enjoyed a lively social life in halls and were definitely not sticking to the rules which meant Covid spread a lot. It’s a really different situation for public health as well as other considerations such as parents ability to work which drove policy re school age children.

In my department about 60% of us were happy to be scheduled for physical f2f when we were asked. It never happened because of local and national lockdowns. The other 40% had vulnerable people at home, health issues etc and that’s fair enough.

I think we cannot bridge the gap - the lecturers on the thread have one view and the parents another.
Hopefully September will be better for everyone and after 21 June total freedom day. My son's lease is until mid July so it is going to be an incredible last couple of weeks.

is that for humanities taking away ftf lectures devalues the offer and significantly reduces the time those students spend with their peers and reduces their ability to get to know others

This is just flat wrong - for the Humanities subjects at my institution at any rate.

In my department (Humanities), we have NO lectures in any module after 1st year. We teach in seminars, workshops, tutorials, and small groups within larger groups. Students do a lot of collaborative work, and group work, assessed as groups, as well as marked as individuals. They know each other very well!

And that is not by any means unusual - in fact in all of the universities I've worked at, lectures were seen as the least desirable part of our offer by staff. We did them because they are an efficient way of getting a lot of information to a group all at once. But we would never run a module which was just a lecture course. That would be lazy & bad teaching. As I have repeated several times on this thread, there is pedagogical research which suggests that the lecture is not always the best mode for student learning.

And as for face to face hours - I guess you must think Oxford Humanities is the most "devalued" university in the country: optional lecture series and just one or two 60 to 90 minute supervisions each week.

This academic year (202-21), when permitted by law to teach in person, in my department we prioritised workshops and small group work, and what we judged needed most to be taught in person, and which cohorts we would prioritise (Final year modules, then some 1st year modules, for obvious reasons in both cases).

We then taught other things online. This teaching was live (synchronous), and face to face if online, and supported by a lot of other asynchronous materials - pre-recorded lectures, resources, work sheets, online readings etc. My students' feedback was that socially distanced, masked in person teaching, and online teaching both had pros & cons. They appreciated that there were advantages & disadvantages to both modes.

And mostly (with some difficult exceptions) they were pretty sensible about the fact that we were all in a dreadful situation, and weren't taking out their anger at the pandemic on staff. That there was nothing we could do, except work with the law & cope.

How would you feel if people who have never worked in a school constantly told you how to do your job, criticised you for following the requirements set by government, told you that you don't care about your pupils, that you've done a shit job all year..?

Yes thank god they’ve not done that!!! Seriously though some of the criticisms levied at schools has been valid and it’s important to take it on board and learn and adapt. No one is perfect and things which seemed a good idea at the time and should only paper be great can sometimes turn out not to be. I find this reluctance to see that somethings could be done better in some instances and refusal to consider anything different to be, quite frankly, depressing especially coming from academics.

As I said in my first post if you are taking away ftf lectures from humanities you are taking away contact time and the opportunities they have to make contact with other students. I did not mean this from a social point of view but in terms of getting to know the people on their course so that they can share ideas and work collaboratively with them - I’ve recently been in a breAk out room with a load of faceless people and I can say categorically that it is not conducive to academic discussion!

I disagree that students are only going to university so that they will be able to get a job. I have a child in year 13 so have spoken to / know about a great many children / parents who are currently applying to university and can count on one hand those whose motivation is this. The rest are, quite literally, going for the experience and to study something they enjoy.

As I said in my first post if you are taking away ftf lectures from humanities you are taking away contact time and the opportunities they have to make contact with other students.

This isn't happening though 🤷🏼‍♀️

Students do have to be proactive and take responsibility for their own engagement and interaction in the same way they would in a physical environment.

So they need to engage with each other in group activities and in breakout rooms. They are a private space for people to communicate, so of course they are fine for academic discussion.

As a tutor, I work really hard to facilitate good breakout rooms because they are key to successful group work. My breakout rooms are usually engaged, on task and collaborative. It’s really hard work though. I am genuinely amazed at how much planning I have to put into getting this right.

I’m much more shocked at how crap breakout rooms are in professional events and training. People wouldn’t sit in silence with a bag over their head in person. Don’t do the online equivalent ffs. I think my students are comparatively pretty good at them!

This isn't happening though but it is - replacing a ftf lecture with a pre recorded one on line is doing exactly that.

I find this reluctance to see that somethings could be done better in some instances and refusal to consider anything different to be, quite frankly, depressing especially coming from academics.

Then you have misread many posts on this thread.

We constantly adapt and what most of us have said is that we are taking the bits that worked well and continuing with these.
Most of us were moving to a blended model prior to covid and this has just accelerated this. This is based on research not a desire to wfh.
Blended doesn't mean all online. I have run blended courses for years and there is always a significant amount of f2f.

@KittyMcKitty

This isn't happening though but it is - replacing a ftf lecture with a pre recorded one on line is doing exactly that.

I teach a humanities subject and have never done that. Neither have my colleagues.

I shared a lecture from last year once but that was only because my 'live' recording failed, those that attended got the promised live lecture.

Some pre-recorded context can be beneficial but only to support other content and not as the only learning resource.

I was also surprised to see that some Halls of Residence (at RG universities) don’t offer either wifi or a wired internet connection which surely they should be required to if they have stated that they are offering blended learning.

Also just wanted to add that my experience this year is that student are really not bothered with live-streamed lectures where they can ask questions. For my own modules, I started of recording three 20mins lecture and then had a live Q&A once a week i.e. my student got an additional one hour per week for that module i.e. we went from two hours to three. I had about 20% of students who bothered with the Q&A. I then decided the Q&A wasnt worth it and to motivate my students to attend the live-streamed lectures - cut the Q&A and just live-streamed the lecture (while recording it). Again only about 15-20% of students bothered. Mine was not an isolated experience. Most of our students prefered pre-recorded lectures they could watch in their own time. Honestly, I have spent so so much more time this year on ensuring the lecture component went well and frankly it was a massive disappointment and waste of time.

@AllThatisSolid

And what a stunted education they are going to receive.

It's one year out of three (or four or five, depending).

OK - so I'm going into 3rd year of a 3 year course.

Year 1... relatively OK (the odd cancellation due to illness etc which is expected) until the UCU strikes. Then masses of disruption, a campus which was fucking hellish to be on for the bloody noise and their shitty strike playlist blaring. From that we pretty much ran into Covid starting to hit - so everything stopped March time and we had a bit of a ragged online bodge it together end to the year and placement hours lost we're going to have to find at some point. So we probably had 1 1/2 terms of "normal" running there.

Second year - has been a nightmare (and I was pro online to start with) - so isolating, depressing, boring - I'm incredibly motivated - I really really want a first - but I'm struggling now. There's no spark to any of the sessions anymore - the few (that includes me in there) who have tried have now given up as well. All terms of the year disrupted.

Now it looks like heading the same way for next year (I'd really appreciate some honesty on this one my dear university)... it's just absolutely soul destroying for us, we've had lecturers almost in tears with frustration with the technology not working. Yes, there are bits that I think we all would like to keep - things like scheduling short meetings on Teams rather than on-campus are brilliant for those of us (staff AND students) with long commutes... but it's just totally been a rip off and I resent paying that money for recordings of 2 years ago to be honest.

CoffeewithCheese I’m totally with you and can’t see how the retention of online learning can be justified after staff and students will have been vaccinated and vulnerable staff may get boosters in autumn. Such a travesty. You all need to get out and protest this summer and use the uni complaints procedure to bombard unis with requests fir fee reductions. My son won’t have a graduation this summer, I can’t see why unis can’t adapt more and have small outdoor ceremonies. No effort made. No imagination.

No effort made. No imagination.

How many universities have you worked at during the last year? How many graduation ceremonies have you organised?

@Cleebope2 sorry having just gone through a pandemic - literally, a graduation ceremony is really the least of our problems.

to clarify - one of the reasons why there may not be f2f lectures is because many scientists (and crucially whenever we get our latest communication regarding covid my uni always references our own scientific advice and not the government's official position even though the scientists are all the same ones as most of SAGE works for us - but thats because we can listen to the science when the government cant) do assume there will be social distancing come September. Everyone hopes there won't be - but they are being cautious. It is not to mess students around.

Plus lectures are a bit pointless to have f2f and once the students are back on campus they will be able to see each other face to face anyhow.

Staying online next year is nothing to do with covid rules for UK students and all to do with international travel and for the huge number of international students to be able to access their degree content. It doesn't matter how many concert venues or festivals can go ahead if people from India/China/America or wherever can't get on a plane.

@Duplobuplo agreed the international student market is v v important especially for top unis

@FHOJfinf18 @Duplobuplo thank you for clarifying what we all suspected. UK students can stuff it, as long as the money comes in from abroad. V v sad state our education system is now in. Our own young peoples mental health is less important than £££.
Back to marking.

If you think graduation ceremonies are meaningless then you’re not in touch with public feeling on this. I work in a secondary school and we have bent over backwards to create experiences for pupils and families. I am very angry at my two children’s experience this year and their level of debt for a shit year.

[quote mumsneedwine]**@FHOJfinf18* @Duplobuplo* thank you for clarifying what we all suspected. UK students can stuff it, as long as the money comes in from abroad. V v sad state our education system is now in. Our own young peoples mental health is less important than £££.
Back to marking. [/quote]
Not at all, it's about providing a balance hence why many universities will be offering both face to face and online learning despite it doubling (note like tripling) workloads.

Universities are not schools - we are not public sector institutions but enterprises. the government wants universities to be businesses so yes whoever pays the most is the most important customer.

I think it's ridiculous that we are not state-funded/state-run, but that's not the academics' fault.

the reality is that so long as students come, universities will do what they do. and no one is going to not take a place in a top uni because they will have online lectures.

@FHOJfinf18

Universities are not schools - we are not public sector institutions but enterprises. the government wants universities to be businesses so yes whoever pays the most is the most important customer.

I think it's ridiculous that we are not state-funded/state-run, but that's not the academics' fault.

the reality is that so long as students come, universities will do what they do. and no one is going to not take a place in a top uni because they will have online lectures.

What a sad indictment for the future of higher education . We are world leaders for research , universities have moulded some of the greatest minds, brilliant collaborations have been created in universities . Largely through personal interaction across all sectors including the arts. Are we genuinely going to stand by as universities close down these opportunities by introducing more online learning so they can increase Uni numbers as not constrained by lecture theatre size and appeal to a remote overseas student market. Universities are not all about the degree paper especially in RG universities . My DD and many students are doing vocational degrees which mean they should walk out fully trained and into jobs . It is not the piece of paper that facilitates this but the teaching at Uni. This is why I personally am so concerned . And also Because I don’t want to see one of the sectors of the UK economy ie Education which we excel at be eroded and governed by money at the detriment of creating our future innovators.. These future innovators need opportunities to interact and mutually create don’t let us deprive them of this for the sake of cutting costs. We all parents and lecturers should be fighting for this as a shared goal

@DelBocaVista

yes I get that there are different rules - you’ve mentioned it before 😂 but surely yiu must agree it’s idiotic!

Well why compare the two and slate universities for not doing the same as schools?
You can't blame universities for following the rules that are specific to the sector.

No but we can blame Unis for going over and beyond the laws/rules applying, can't we?