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? :(

The narrative is already written for next year.

Have you missed pretty much every single post by an academic which says:

"We don't know yet what will exactly be the case, because virus, law, government regulation BUT we are working on the assumption we will be teaching in person in September 2021."

Or the posts which say

"My university is making several plans and keeping an eye on contingencies. What we do will be dependent on conditions in late September"

Or the posts which say:
"I am currently teaching in person." (I start next Monday - the exact day that the law allows us to)

Or the posts which say:

"I am planning on teaching in person in September 2021."

Dof FE are apparently currently writing guidance for universities. Hopefully they release that soon.

Yes, we had an All Staff email from our Registrar yesterday just after the 5pm press conference (don't we just lurve policy via press conference?) saying that it was confirmed that we could teach in person from next Monday, but obviously socially distanced and masked, as those are still legal requirements.

But that they didn't have any more detail and were waiting for a letter from the Minister.

It would be nice to have government guidance about their requirements more than a few days before they expect us to implement such requirements ...

I'm doing a whole lot of optional teaching events - enrichment, prep for next academic year, extras, employability, all that sort of stuff - from next week - it'll be interesting to see if students actually turn up.

@CovidCorvid

Dof FE are apparently currently writing guidance for universities. Hopefully they release that soon.

It'll be out on Friday....

@CovidCorvid

been in a meeting today at work to discuss this and there is still no change to the current govt advice about guidance regarding social distancing, etc. My biggest cohort is 280 students who we normally fit in a lecture theatre which seats 300. Now that theatre can seat about 60. Lecturers do not have capacity to repeat a physical lecture x5. I already work 50-60 hours a week.

There's also the issue if someone in that lecture theatre tests positive does that mean all students in there have to isolate? Does the lecturer? If the person was on the front row/s then possibly. So then who does the teaching while the lecturer is isolating? It's not like we can get a supply teacher in. What happens if the lecturer catches covid and dies (as has happened to more than one colleague of mine). Though I accept the latter is less likely as people get vaccinated. But the first point is an issue especially if 18-21yos don't have a great uptake on vaccines.

There is still no information from the govt about social distancing for Oct onwards. Maybe it'll be better, maybe it won't. What do we do for room bookings now?

Stop being dramatic you do exactly what everyone else has been doing you carry on unless you are contacted by test and trace. Of course everyone dosent need to isolate how do you think businesses have been able to operate for the last year! Sorry about your colleague but assuming your uni has been adopting safe practice at Uni with social distancing and following guidelines I don’t think this is a uni/student issue (my teacher friend caught covid in jan when she was teaching online despite working with hundreds of students the previous 3 months so you can catch it outside work!) Who said 18-21 won’t take up vaccines my 18 dd is vaccinated as is all her cohort they needed it for placement , no one objected where is this information coming from? Book your room if you plan to F2F and stop being hysterical I predict things will definately not improve with hysterical over reactions like this

I did a quick poll of the students in my seminar this morning asking who preferred our online lectures to face-to-face.

Twenty one students. One preferred face-to-face. Three or four said that initially they didn't like online but have since changed their minds.

I have another seminar in a minute. I'll ask them too.

Into I think that guidance you received is wrong. Masks are not mandated in schools from Monday 17th so it would be weird if it were the law university must force students and lecturers into them. I presume from 17th lectures can be unmasked.

Thanks @stirmecrazy.... Was simply relaying some stuff back from the meeting which I thought people might be interested in. Not my thoughts but stuff which are being talked about and considered by people much higher than me. But feel free to call me hysterical.

I'd love to book rooms but I'm not allowed. Don't know how many times I need to say as a lecturer I don't have that authority. I teach how I'm told to.

@Xenia masks are not lifted from the 17th. You still need masks in shops, museums, cinemas etc

so yes, we will still need them at uni. maybe not after June but we have no idea for now

we also cant currently teach students without social distance. if we can do so in September so much the better. Social distancing at uni is pretty rubbish as you cant do group work and students have to work on their own which defeats the purpose of a lot of the things we usually do in a seminar

Book your room if you plan to F2F and stop being hysterical

If only it were that easy.

@Stirmecrazy- so we have never provided recorded content until COVID- therefore our online recordings were all produced as a new online provision rather than being video captures from live lectures. We will be using some of this years recorded content but likely editing it/ updating it as we are bioscience so the contents, particularly at MSc level, will have changed. I cant speak for other universities though who already have recordings taken from previous live lectures.

I'm the opposite of hysterical. The course I teach on is one of the few which has legally been allowed to teach f2f this academic year.

I have taught some limited f2f skills sessions in sept, oct, nov, dec last year. I'd have loved to have taught more but because of govt imposed distancing it's impossible. So last week I taught what should have been a 2 hr session, but had to repeat it 4x to get everyone through. So took me 8 hours. It's not possible to do that for every session.

Then in Jan I had another f2f session scheduled which the students refused to come in for as they said they didn't feel safe. I had a total mutiny and ended up doing it online. I wasn't been hysterical. I'd have happily done it.

Also I agree with @CovidCorvid- we cannot book rooms. At my HEI we actually were able to do this pre-covid. But timetabling across campus is now so complicated the booking system has been closed.

My assumption is that the biggest single variable, pandemic or no pandemic, is the extent to which students engage.

On line learning brings a few more barriers (DD ended up sitting in our car parked outside a neighbours house borrowing their wifi in order to "attend" something crucial whilst my heart dropped to see cable technicians last week digging in our street on the morning of one of her finals. Luckily they were BT not Virgin.) But at the end of the day not attending an in person lecture gives you as much learning as not attending an on-line lecture.

Actually the latter gives you a chance to catch up. A night binge watching a series of maths lectures is not quite the same as the latest series of Grays Anatomy, but hey, you can always hope.

The social side is grim though, and that brings complications. However I am not sure that Universities can do that much. Its been grim all round. Something blended, and a chance to meet coursemates will make a massive difference.

Sorry @CovidCorvid my comment was uncalled for. you are absolutely within your rights to be concerned about your personal safety and your students.

@PuttingOnTheKitsch, your method of delivery is the one which many other organisations other than universities, plus some individuals (e.g. tour guides) have adopted, but the need for a second person to 'man the chat room' was something that I understood (from an early post, iirc) not generally to be workable? Do you double up with academic colleagues to organise this for each others lectures?

Incidentally, my previous question was not, Why does it take so much longer to prepare a lecture to be given online? (which is perfectly understandable, with a change of medium), but, Why does it take so much longer to deliver it?. This was prompted by another poster's comment that their DC had 'attended a lecture which would have taken an hour 'in the flesh', but online had gone on for nearly twice that. I was assuming that they didn't mean, including time for Q&A, but may be wrong.

Incidentally, my previous question was not, Why does it take so much longer to prepare a lecture to be given online? (which is perfectly understandable, with a change of medium), but, Why does it take so much longer to deliver it?

Yes, I realised that just after responding.

I think the issue with delivery time is basically Murphy's means that something will go wrong at the end of the section rather than at the beginning (IT fail, interruption) plus in a live lecture if you stumble over a word you gloss over it, correct it and move on, but in a recording you feel much more need to redo the recording to solve the issue because it's recorded (and the absence of audience changes the character of the lecture)

I work at one of the mentioned unis (MMU) and if the COVID roadmap is on track and there is no social distancing expected in September then the plans are absolutely for everything to be back on campus with just as much face to face contact as there was in 19/20.

There are plans being put in place for other options including back to 100% online IF and ONLY IF the government advice tells us we have to. Planning for this is a pragmatic decision because I don't want to have to rewrite my entire course in less than a week again. So we plan for the best and worst scenarios and hope to god well all be back on campus (which is the current plan).

Thanks, Bakingdiva. That’s reassuring.

I guess there are people at either end of the “fear” spectrum. My local council thinks we are Italy February 2020. I don’t know whether they truly believe we are in deadly peril at the moment, or whether it suits them to spin this line...

FHOJfinf18, masks in shops and trains are special legislative rules which I agree remain in force. Masks elsewhere including in offices and at work are not the same and not forced on anyone by law. Therefore if the state says from 17 May teenagers cannot be forced into a mask by their school www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57059407 there is no reason universities have to force students into masks either as they are not a shop or train.

@Xenia universities are not free agents. They will get guidance on this from Dept of Educationif their guidelines for unis change.

My students don't seem to mind wearing masks. However, they would rather sit six feet apart rather than wear a mask and a visor.

Rather too many rathers.

@IntoAir

Yes, we had an All Staff email from our Registrar yesterday just after the 5pm press conference (don't we just lurve policy via press conference?) saying that it was confirmed that we could teach in person from next Monday, but obviously socially distanced and masked, as those are still legal requirements.

But that they didn't have any more detail and were waiting for a letter from the Minister.

It would be nice to have government guidance about their requirements more than a few days before they expect us to implement such requirements ...

I'm doing a whole lot of optional teaching events - enrichment, prep for next academic year, extras, employability, all that sort of stuff - from next week - it'll be interesting to see if students actually turn up.

I'm not sure students will suddenly decide to move across the country back to their student accommodation so late in the academic year after having been told to go/stay home for most of it. There's so few weeks teaching time left, I really don't think it means anything if F2F isn't well attended so late in the day.

What is more useful is the proportion of students still living on/near campus who attend what scraps of F2F teaching they're offered in these last few weeks.