Those of you with kids at uni may be interested to know what is being planned at one of London's big 3 universities right now. We are being asked to record all our lectures for the second semester (beginning in Jan 2021) as we have started doing for semester 1 (which begins in a couple of weeks).
This means my college has already resigned itself to distance learning. We have to plan in advance since the logistics are very complicated, with tens of thousands of students, rooms to book and timetables to make, and if thousands of lectures need to be recorded this has to be done well in advance. I started recording lectures for the first semester more than a month ago (and it is a spectacular pain in the arse, taking many hours to make a 1h lecture). The system tends to crash, too.
The plan is not yet public as the committee that made the decision met only on Tuesday (one of my pals sits on it).
I have asked about other forms of teaching and assessment, such as laboratory practicals, and have been told that a decision has not yet been made. Clearly we can't cram hundreds of students into lecture theatres and maintain social distancing, but there is an aspiration to attempt to run practicals with social distancing as part of a 'blended approach' which means run as many labs as you can and do the rest by video. My expectation is this will soon be abandoned as a plan. Logistically it will be a nightmare. It will mean a change to course content (for example a course I run boasts 'hands on laboratory experience with data generation and analysis in a research environment', and there is no way I can deliver this, or even make an ersatz version, any more than you can replace lessons in the arts of love with a tub of vaseline and an old copy of Fiesta).
Bottom line is that other universities will be having the same conversation:
I hope those of you who were able to take my advice and get your kid to do a gap year this year did so. I am truly sorry for those of you who have had to pay for expensive accomdation long in advance with not possibility of a refund.
The students I teach have been extremely accomodating and phlegmatic. Maybe this will continue. However with the government flapping and changing its guidance every few weeks . . . . boy, we need that vaccine.
Covid may now be killing hardly anyone, and may have mutated to a less lethal variant. Why is there apparently no research to test this possibility? Without governmental leadership, guidance and clarity we will be stuck with bodies like my employers making the decisions, and they have no option other than to act conservatively, protecting staff and students from incubating the next wave of the pandemic.
This means my college has already resigned itself to distance learning. We have to plan in advance since the logistics are very complicated, with tens of thousands of students, rooms to book and timetables to make, and if thousands of lectures need to be recorded this has to be done well in advance. I started recording lectures for the first semester more than a month ago (and it is a spectacular pain in the arse, taking many hours to make a 1h lecture). The system tends to crash, too.
The plan is not yet public as the committee that made the decision met only on Tuesday (one of my pals sits on it).
I have asked about other forms of teaching and assessment, such as laboratory practicals, and have been told that a decision has not yet been made. Clearly we can't cram hundreds of students into lecture theatres and maintain social distancing, but there is an aspiration to attempt to run practicals with social distancing as part of a 'blended approach' which means run as many labs as you can and do the rest by video. My expectation is this will soon be abandoned as a plan. Logistically it will be a nightmare. It will mean a change to course content (for example a course I run boasts 'hands on laboratory experience with data generation and analysis in a research environment', and there is no way I can deliver this, or even make an ersatz version, any more than you can replace lessons in the arts of love with a tub of vaseline and an old copy of Fiesta).
Bottom line is that other universities will be having the same conversation:
- When do we have to decide whether we can resume normal teaching in Jan 2021? Er, in the next week or so.
- What are our options? Well, we can't say we are going back to normal it if there is any chance we can't, because after the next week or so will have no time to set up an alternative means of delivering teaching and assessment, so we must make up our minds in the next week or so.
- How confident are we that we will have a vaccine in time for Jan 2021? Not confident at all.
- **** it. Distance learning it is, then.
- What about small group teaching, can't we still do that? Erm, let's look into it....the union probably won't like it....or the older staff.
I hope those of you who were able to take my advice and get your kid to do a gap year this year did so. I am truly sorry for those of you who have had to pay for expensive accomdation long in advance with not possibility of a refund.
The students I teach have been extremely accomodating and phlegmatic. Maybe this will continue. However with the government flapping and changing its guidance every few weeks . . . . boy, we need that vaccine.
Covid may now be killing hardly anyone, and may have mutated to a less lethal variant. Why is there apparently no research to test this possibility? Without governmental leadership, guidance and clarity we will be stuck with bodies like my employers making the decisions, and they have no option other than to act conservatively, protecting staff and students from incubating the next wave of the pandemic.
