It is an opinion that seems to be most applicable to residential colleges where nearly everyone lives in campus housing, the campus is distinct from the surrounding communities, and both academic and non-academic activities are mainly done on campus. While that may match the bubble of colleges that this forum focuses on, it is not very applicable to colleges with lots of commuters, colleges whose campuses bleed into the surrounding community (particularly in a densely packed city), and residential colleges where most students live in off-campus housing and/or do non-academic activities in the surrounding community.
@twoinanddone this Naval Academy midshipman who lives in Hawaii is having to get up at 3am for a class that starts at 3:30am his time.
I would love to see that be the new standard, post COVID-19. In-person classes recorded and made available to students. I could see where a student may want to review what was said in class. My D is an avid note-taker. She loves the recorded lectures so she can stop and restart, to take better notes. And, as @1Lotus said, would be good in case of illness too.
Not necessarily. If a student population is low income and/or has poor access to reliable internet, asynchronous is the most accessible form of course delivery. I have seen this for K-12 as well as colleges. In my area, private and public middle and high schools in wealthier neighborhoods are able to provide real time classes; while the schools in poorer districts are providing asynchronous class materials to be more equitable for all.
For universities and colleges, it’s not necessarily laziness or a lack of adaptability on the part of the faculty or the school administration to go asynchronous. Even without COVID, schools with lower-income student bodies traditionally have offered some asynchronous online classes for students that need flexibility to work or fulfill family duties while going to school.
Additionally as @1lotus has mentioned, recorded lectures and other forms of asynchronous learning are better for students that will have to make up work missed while being ill.
Synchronous and interactive lectures with recording for later playback is undoubtedly better than asynchronous only lectures. That’s basically what I said. Do you disagree with that? I fully understand the former isn’t always possible for certain students.
Yes you do. All you really need is a smartphone. You could make it nicer with high-end video equipment and an interactive whiteboard. Look at all the newscasts and concerts being done from people’s home now. Garth and Trisha just did one.
My point was that was 28 years ago…ancient times before the internet. You think with all the advances in tech we could put together a pretty good format for online learning.
My company just had a happy hour over Zoom. It worked pretty well.
For those professors who have limited experience with virtual learning (assuming there are some), seems like this summer would be a good time for universities to bring them up to speed on some effective alternatives.
I want a glamour photo like Jane Jetson had to use on Zoom for my meetings when I’m not really ready for prime time viewing.
Yes, but colleges also have to make sure that the recordings are accessible to students with disabilities, at least for classes where students needing disability accommodations are enrolled in.
So… one of the schools my S20 was admitted to just sent an email stating that if campus remains closed in the fall, COA would be adjusted to remove R&B charges and to reflect a lower tuition rate. Is this the first school to state this? I have been so impressed by how the school has handled this crisis, from their communication to the online admission events they’ve scheduled to replace the in person events. Have to say, this is his #1 right now and I am feeling good about that.
Well all schools will remove R&B charges if they don’t have students on campus. Some would (should) remove other fees like health center and student activity fees. My kids got hit with a lot of technology fees and I’m not sure those would go away since they will be using more technology, just not the free printing. Around here, students would also save the transportation fee which gives them access to the public bus and light rail system.
Tuition? Most schools have declined to do that because the student paid for 15 credits and they received 15 credits of instruction.
Not sure I understand the concern. If they are having in-person classes and also recording those in-person classes and making the recording available to students in the class. (again, post-COVID-19) Can you expand on the concern about making the recordings accessible to students with disabilities? Seems like it’s only adding more accessibility, not less.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, but it is the reduction of tuition that I am flagging as I would assume all schools would not be charging R&B if the kids can’t be on campus. Seems to me that a lot of other schools have already stated they won’t be reducing tuition if fall is moved online. Haven’t heard reports of any school reducing tuition if fall semester is online. This is totally the right thing to do given the almost universal agreement that distance learning is not the same as in person instruction, however, the reality is that most schools couldn’t take the financial hit.
An example would be if a sign language interpreter were used in the class that a deaf student was taking. After everyone leaves campus and does distance education, the college would have to make sure that the interpreter were still available, and have the video include the interpreter, or have closed captioning in the video, for both live and recorded video.
@lemontree I assume, if Bowdoin has online classes, we would get charged for tuition and of course not room and board. We didn’t really have any “fees” so I think they are all included in tuition and aren’t broken out. As much as I would like tuition to be dropped for online, I understand why schools can’t really do that. One, they are already losing out on room and board and, two, how would they even decide on a price for what their online classes are “worth”? That’s not something they can put a dollar amount on as it’s not something they ever offer. If colleges that don’t do online courses start putting a new lower price on online classes then they are admitting they are “lesser” than class on campus. It’s just not going to happen.
Colleges that are not already built around a distance education business model are unlikely to find doing distance education to be less expensive to provide. Basically, it costs about the same to provide what many students value less.
@ucbalumnus @homerdog I totally agree with both of you and was not expecting any school to reduce tuition for online learning. That is why I am doing the happy dance now - because the school my son is likely going to WILL be reducing tuition ?
@Lemonlee So they are lowering tuition? By how much?
@lemontree I wonder if the college that’s lowering tuition if online is struggling with yield. There’s definitely competition out there for students to commit.
We just heard from the Baylor President today that they are working out the plan for students to return to their dorms and get their stuff.
Waco has a shelter in place through April 30th so I am guessing it will be the first couple of weeks in May. Staggered by dorm.
Even if D’s fall semester is online she needs to get back to her school community. She is having trouble focusing and creating a study environment when S is distance learning and H is working from home. I just try to stay out of the way.
She has an apartment leased for fall, we will have to start paying rent in August whether school is online or not. I think she will be much happier being in her apartment, with her own space. She has become very independent being 2000 miles away at school.
All of her friends are going to be in off campus apartments, many in her same complex. I think it would do a world of good for her mental health to have her friends close by.