Colleges in the 2021-2022 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 2)

[mtmind]

Below is a recent post from another thread by @college1styr, a faculty member. To my mind, @college1styr does a great job of explaining the practical “pedagogical reasons” for the recent moves to temporary online:

@college1styr

As a faculty member, one thing I think a lot of parents miss is that there are pedagogical reasons for the current short-term moves to remote. At the end of last term, I had so many students quarantining that about half of my class was zooming in, with the other half in person. This is a terrible way to teach and learn. While I prefer in person, if the choice is between virtual and hybrid, without any warning of who will or will not be in the class, I firmly believe (temporary) virtual is a better pedagogical option. At least this way I can prepare materials and activities that fit in a virtual class, instead of finding out thirty minutes before class that half of my students will be trying to participate via zoom. My understanding of schools moving temporarily online is that they are partially trying to spare students the pain of missing classes in the first week or two of the term (hard to catch up from). Because students will come back from break with COVID (or exposed), and they will have to quarantine. The logic, I believe, is that it is better to have a couple weeks virtual and then move fully in person than deal with significant educational disruption by trying to do in person and winding up with half of the students behind, missing the first days, at the Omicron peak.

This last point keeps getting lost in the discussion of whether these measures are useful in stop the spread. It isn’t just about stopping the spread, it is about providing the students with classes without disruption even when a substantial portion are unable to attend.