I just caught my D listening to a recorded lecture on double speed. LOL. The nice thing is I heard her go back a couple of times to some of the denser material.
Seriously, though, my D’s Profs have all been doing a terrific job with their on-line classes. I’m sure it helped that Brown paid student TAs over the summer to help the profs with transitioning their classes to on-line. A lot of thought has gone into this. It will be interesting to see how the classes are next month when some of the classes will be both in-person and on-line. For her on-line classes, even within the same course the classes are sometimes synchronous and sometimes not. Lots of breakout sessions and lots of TA sessions. So overall, academically this semester is going surprisingly well.
It made me so sad to read @sdl0625’s post. And surprised too as most of the profs I know love to teach and have spent many, many more hours preparing for their classes to try to do the best they can for their kids. For most kids this is their only shot at college. This is their experience, and I hope they are able to get what they need out of it.
$10M for the semester is a cost of over $5,500 / student. It’s not a realistic “test case”, it’s a well-funded marketing campaign with live models. The NBA has had success in their bubble as well…but that doesn’t mean anyone else will be playing basketball this winter.
Williams had about 200 students “change their plans away from studying on campus” right after the official deadline. There’s been no word how that shook out in terms of remote learning versus non-enrollment.
@melvin123 – Yale must have recognized the tech needs of some of the profs, so they created a new position for this fall: Undergraduate Technology Asst.
Assigned duties may include: assisting faculty with Zoom, Canvas and other online tools; ensuring links to live online sessions are created and shared with students; managing student participation by monitoring chats and noting hands raised; and other related needs. UTAs will join all synchronous meetings of the course to which they are assigned and will meet as needed with the instructor to discuss technical issues related to remote instruction.
I read the Wesleyan piece. Does the college allow “odd road trips” in the community? I thought colleges like Amherst didn’t want kids going off campus for ice cream or bagles or whatever take out.
Middlebury College bars 22 students from campus for violating COVID-19 policies. On the front page of the Boston Globe this morning. The students had clustered in groups that exceeded the campus limit of 10 people per indoor gathering, according to The Middlebury Campus, the student newspaper, which first reported the violations.
Yes, unlike Amherst and Middlebury, Wesleyan allows students to travel within 25 miles of campus which doesn’t include an awful lot. It might get you as far as Hartford, but not New Haven, for example. All of that is conditional, of course, upon everyone - Wesleyan and the surrounding community - maintaining their present, relatively low, infection rates.
Since colleges are quick to blame off campus students for outbreaks why do so few test them and report the cases? Most dashboards only report “campus” cases. A school like South Carolina that aggregates both on and off campus cases on their dashboard gets pilloried by the press for being transparent. I find it odd.
I assume that the state DPH will be billing BC for their work. Northeastern and BU are spending many millions to do this in house without having to reach out to the state to save them from closure.
Got a call from my kid yesterday who just needed to vent and was feeling uber stressed out about all the exams, projects, and labs she has due this week.
I got off the phone thinking that was the most “normal” conversation I’ve had with her since school started!
Purdue seems to be holding their own. Positivity rate is slowly trending down, only 38 isolation beds occupied (down from 52).
Semester is a 1/3 of the way over. Flu shot clinics in full swing (everyone needs to be vaccinated before the middle of October). Kinks (aka long waits) worked out for dining and covid testing.
She only has one prof who is struggling with technology. Thankfully she has him in person but some of the class are taking it remotely. Thankfully they have a fabulous TA who is making up for it and helping work out the kinks.
Does anyone have kids or grandkids in online kindergarten? It seems to me that would be an enormous waste of time. OK, I’m a homeschooler so I’m biased, but what are kids getting out of it?
I’m not offering an opinion about whether school districts should go online, just saying that if they do, they’re sacrificing any worth of kindergarten. Kindergarten is about socialization and daycare, but online kindergarten provides neither.
If this is really what is happening, then the students should inform the department chair and the school dean. Faculty are obliged to “meet” their students according to the terms of the syllabus and the union agreement. However, I would also be initially skeptical of student accounts. Maybe the faculty member who is not “meeting” with the students is actually posting online asynchronous content and assignments, and publishing feedback online. That’s doing your job, even if the students don’t like the method or find it onerous. I have students who show up for my weekly Zoom class but don’t do the asynchronous tasks. They might complain that I don’t “see” them enough. I’m still teaching them.
But faculty members “giving up” and not providing instruction at all is a breach of contract. They should to be reported and the situation brought to the attention of the administration.
Well don’t tell that to my daughter that has an awesome job as a Educational Pod Facilitator…
She has 3 - 5 year Olds. They all know each other and were together all summer. She goes to one house. They are all online but different teachers. First week was chaotic since one school is very efficient and the other school is not. Kids do projects in groups online. They also get almost 1 teacher to like 2 kids alone time since things are scheduled like that. Kids have projects all day. They do get tired being online. My daughter got them all on schedule so they can go outside and play together.
Parents are a bit nuts. One kids password didn’t work and he missed 10 minutes of art. My daughter had him do it with another kid. The parent came running over to take him home since he was missing art!! But once he got there he saw my daughter got him back online… Lol. She looks at him and says “he’s only 5, he will be OK if he missed 10 minutes of art class.” … Lol… Good thing she’s being paid extremely well… ?
Many people in our area opted to not start their 5 years old and are just doing another year of preschool (which are mostly fully open and in person here).
Even with facilitators, online does not always work well for young children. I have new client with twin boys who are in first grade doing digital learning with a facilitator (two third grade girls are there as well). She said it is a nightmare trying to get the boys to focus on the zoom meetings and complete work.
Update from Vassar about some changes in community standards due to 14 days with 0 cases. The students are still not allowed to leave campus, but some things are better for them.
The changes:
Within the houses, students may begin to “pod” within residences with four or fewer students. This means, you may select rooms with which to pod, ideally proximal to your room and inclusive of all roommates in those rooms. With these four students, you may remove masks and reduce 6 feet distance. You may eat together inside or outside, and generally treat each other as a “family unit.” Note that if any students in the pod have a positive test, all pod members will be separated and will self-quarantine for 14 days. This change does not affect the THs, TAs, Socos, suites, and quads, in which the apartments are already set up as pods. Please use this form to register as a pod. If you have any questions, please refer to the following FAQ page ■■■■■■/vassarpods or reach out directly to your House Advisor. Pods must be registered with your house advisor; reports to Campus Safety or the Community Cares Team will be cross-referenced with the pod registration information.
For classes held in tents, faculty and students may remove your masks if you are all stationary and 6 feet apart from everyone, and if the instructor and all students in the class are comfortable to have masks removed. Faculty will convene discussions with the class to come to a consensus decision for the class. Regardless of the decision of the class, individual instructors and students may continue to wear masks if preferred. As always, everyone must complete the health assessment daily and not come to campus if you have symptoms or are feeling ill.
Open Tennis and Basketball is now available to the Vassar campus community at the Josselyn Outdoor Tennis Courts by reservation. For further information and to reserve a spot, please visit here.