"Nice" end of year email from lecturer (not)

[Badbadbunny]

DS has just forwarded me an email from one of his lecturers. When he saw the sender/subject he thought it was going to be "happy holidays" kind of email as they officially finish the year this week end and are all packing to go home.

What a shock when he opened it as it's a real old rant.

"Us lecturers have been working flat out all year....."

"I've started marking the end of year exams and am appalled at the standard of answers....."

"We've already lengthened the exam times to allow for technical problems...."

"We've already reduced the pass marks required...."

"You're all going to have to pull your socks up next year if you hope to get a degree....."

This is on the back of none of his lecturers actually being on campus all year, he's had no face to face teaching, seminars, etc all year. Many of the "live" lectures were actually recordings of the previous year with just a "live" introduction for a few minutes at the start from the lecturer. A few pieces of work he submitted before Easter still havn't been marked. Even work that this lecturer has marked hasn't included any feedback, just a "raw" mark with no comments, no suggestions, etc.

He's absolutely gobsmacked that a lecturer has sent that email and him, and lots of others in the groupchats have already complained to the Uni. It's not just this email they're complaining about, it's sparked them to complain about the other aspects too.

What a lovely ending to a truly miserable year for them!

I lead distance learning courses and I always ask people to be honest about the number of lectures they attended pre-COVID. Many students attended less than 50%. Online teaching is actually preferred by many for its flexibility.

Maybe the lecturer is trying to put a rocket up their backsides as many students have phoned it in due to COVID and abused extensions and more flexible resit regulations.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

Lectures recorded from the last year Wow that is next level 'dialling it in' I would not be happy at all with that level of effort being passed off as lecturers 'working hard' They will put themselves out of a job surely if they just do that. I mean why not have them watch a TED talk??

Is that any different from digging out the notes from years past when giving the lecture in person? Do you really believe lecturers rewrite everything every year?

While the email should not have been sent, every lecturer i know, myself include, has worked pretty much constantly since last March. Many making themselves ill in the process. This guy could very well be teetering on the edge.

Online teaching and support are much more difficult. There is so much work and preplanning involved and it’s soul destroying when students won’t engage. It sounds like this guy has tried so hard.

This is appalling and unprofessional.Speaking as mother of son who has just finished 2nd year of uni, who has had pre - recorded maths lectures and was having socially distanced seminars with 7 other students wearing masks in a very large room last October which ended then and were not resumed it is disgusting the lack of teaching and support.I suggested to my son that he request to meet tutors in a beer garden as that was permissible.The mental health impact on students has been awful - one of his friends knows someone who committed suicide.As for lack of engagement could it be that students struggled ???

If anyone wants too enlighten me as how to engage students online apart from:
Prerecorded lectures and online quizzes
Weekly online scheduled seminars
Weekly online drop in sessions, extra ones for assignment time.
Blackboard discussion boards
Regular group emails
Individual emails and phone calls (phone never answered) to those who aren’t engaging online.
I also got permission for 2 on campus sessions but most of my students had stayed at home and couldn’t come.

NO ONE wants to be doing this online, lecturers or students and it’s up to both groups to make the best of a shitty situation.

The situation should be changing in September with everyone double vaxed

@lovescats3

The situation should be changing in September with everyone double vaxed

The situation MUST change from September onwards. Students can't suffer another year of this. Fair enough if large lectures can't go ahead at first, but all the other face to face, such as tutorials, seminars, etc NEEDS to start again as normal right from week 1 in September/October. All adults would have had the chance to be double jabbed by then, so there's no excuse not to be back to normal for most teaching sessions. Likewise, all the usual student support services, such as IT support, MH support, library, etc must be back to normal with staff etc on campus and doing whatever F2F support is needed.

totally agree but they must have lectures as well because why wouldn't they ?

Plus all the socialising needs to resume on campus

And I say this as a health professional- I think young people made a lot of sacrifices and now it's time to prioritise their well-being

@TravellingPancake exactly what you said. We have worked so hard this year and frankly, no one has really cared about our mental well-being. It is still not good enough to have sent such an email but honestly that is how a lot of us have felt over the course of the year

Everyone has had a tough year both staff and students and everyone is hoping that we can regain some sort of normality this coming September.

@lovescats3

Plus all the socialising needs to resume on campus

Definitely for the clubs & societies, sports, etc which have basically been banned all year for no obvious reason.

A lot of "socialising" has been happening, which is fine for the extraverts who are in to booze and drugs etc., as parties etc basically never stopped in the halls/flats/houses etc.

But, lots of "quieter" students rely on the clubs, societies and sports for their socialising and have really suffered this year as there was little reason to leave their tiny rooms for, so have become more introverted.

I agree with travellingpancake and other lecturers in the thread about how hard they are working & the extra time and tiredness of extra preparation and teaching online. Not to mention backache and eye strain! Very difficult to engage existing students online and beyond challenging with new students you have never met.

We much prefer f2f teaching and interaction with students too. And I agree that pre-COVID a significant cohort of students did not engage with all that was on offer then complained when they did not do well.

We were required to re-record all our materials and not allowed to use existing recordings of live lectures. Obviously the approach to online teaching needs to be different eg making a series of 15/20 minute ‘mini lectures’ and designing extra individual/group activities and opportunities to collaborate and feedback. I was given one week to complete this (when I was still marking prior annual leave) to convert 80+ hours of teaching!! For comparison, we were given about two years to set up one online course previously and with lots of technical/design support which was no longer available.

Is that any different from digging out the notes from years past when giving the lecture in person? Do you really believe lecturers rewrite everything every year?

It's completely different. Any kind of live lecture would give the opportunity for students to put their hand up and ask for clarification/ further information in real time.
Learning from what is effectively a video is very difficult - if you don't understand what has been said there is no opportunity to ask the lecturer to rephrase. It doesn't even sound like the student had the opportunity to rewind the video given the live intro and someone else controlling the video.

Yes, I do have actual experience of this too. I finished a lengthy and technical professional qualification in the middle of the first wave under these circumstances. It was incredibly challenging.

Actually I think online lectures are fine , more flexibility , and to be honest with lectures there is a limit to the level of real interaction possible with 100 plus squashed into a lecture theatre. ( with the possible exception of first years for whom lectures can be a useful grounding and point of social reference) . But universities have to find a way to do seminars, labs, tutorials f2f for the sake of the mental health of both the staff and students .

There is however no excuse for work not being marked and feedback given, and no excuse for whole course emails of this nature which may make the writer feel better in the short run but which will frustrate and perplex those students who have done their best to engage and be like water off a ducks back to those who have not. Stuck in the middle will be those who have struggled to engage with online learning with no peer to peer contact and lecturers who they have had at best only a fleeting acquaintance with and who may truly benefit from more thoughtful and targeted support. Those students may just throw in the towel and not return.

And really if you have ordered an boiled egg and someone sends you a omelette it doesn’t matter that the chef says it took longer to make and is actually better for you , it’s not what you ordered.

@ClaudiaWankleman having done a degree plus a post grad and having one graduate and one current student I don’t recognise the interaction you refer to. It just doesn’t happen with a room full of hundreds of students.

Although having said that pre Covid there was very rarely 100% attendance at lectures which were widely recorded and available online in order to satisfy accessibility criteria in any event. Most students I have spoken to or heard about actively prefer online lectures as they can stop, look things up, rewind to aid understanding or just to catch up with note taking.

But yes small groups (where the discussion / clarification does happen) must resume, there’s no reason at all not to

actually, if the government has slapped rationing on you and th restaurant and thats the only food you're likely to get that day - I reckon you'll be pretty damn pleased with a boiled egg

@@ClaudiaWankleman students don't ask questions in lectures and honestly, I dont have time to fully answer their questions even if they do as we have quite a lot of material to cover. I mean, I do of course throw a few out there to make it feel a tad interactive but that not the point of a lecture - that's what seminars are for

@fhbn2025

actually, if the government has slapped rationing on you and th restaurant and thats the only food you're likely to get that day - I reckon you'll be pretty damn pleased with a boiled egg

Not if you're paying the normal price for the normal service. You'd not be happy paying full price for a meal and only getting a cheap boiled egg.

If students were getting their education free, then fair enough, they take what's given, but today's first year students are paying their Unis up to £15k for the course and the campus flat (which they were conned into with the Uni promising face to face teaching), but getting an online experience they could have bought for a fraction of that.

@user1497207191 I find the hyperbole about what students are “paying” for a bit tiresome. Very few are actually paying. Very few will actually repay the loans they have taken out in order to cover the costs - which actually don’t cover the costs of providing the course.

[quote VanCleefArpels]@user1497207191 I find the hyperbole about what students are “paying” for a bit tiresome. Very few are actually paying. Very few will actually repay the loans they have taken out in order to cover the costs - which actually don’t cover the costs of providing the course.[/quote]
Doesn't matter how many pay in full or part or whatever. A large proportion will pay it off in full or a significant proportion of it, especially if they go onto get good full time jobs, and they'll also be paying ridiculously high rates of interest on top of the borrowings. Just because some don't pay it off doesn't mean you can ignore it.

@VanCleefArpels that’s not strictly true , more than 50% will pay back the principal of £27,750 for a 3 year undergraduate degree. Very few will pay off the principal plus the interest .

And many families this year have had to stump up thousands of pounds for accommodation that the universities have encouraged them to sign up to whilst arguably knowing at the time that the majority of the teaching would be online . Students have had a very tough deal this year being pushed from pillar to post. I accept that the universities were boxed into a corner by the government but the students have been all but powerless and the first years in particular also had to deal with the A level debacle.

@GlencoraP I think you are slightly splitting hairs given the total amount repayable includes the interest (obviously) then my point still stands.