Thanks midwestmomofboys! That’s really encouraging. i can’t imagine the workload for faculty – hats off to all of you to try to figure this out too.
Hampshire College in MA opened up their dorms after sending students home in March to the local homeless population to ride out the quarantine safely. And apparently put them in touch with needed social services. I thought that was pretty great.
Purdue announced a reading day for students on 11/4, an extension of the add/drop period, and the option of going P/F this semester. (Not an option for D but a hopefully can take the pressure off other students).
I agree that universities have much more “control” over their students than local governments. Students had to sign pledges before returning to Purdue and had to agree to all kinds of testing and behavior to remain. Lots of students have been suspended and sent home since the start of the academic year and whole houses are still being put under quarantine (just heard of one sorority this week). Obviously local governments can’t do that to their constituents.
I will also add that we see first hand the impact of being in a college town and will say that universities add much more than just increased revenue for local businesses. At least at NU, they host all kinds of courses and shows for the general community; they partner with the local HS so accelerated students can take courses at NU; they donate money to all kinds of local projects; students volunteer their skills and time to local community agencies, etc… They can add a ton of value. I will say that overall, the community misses having all the students back on campus.
As casing are rising across the country lets commend all the colleges who are fighting the odds and having a successful fall term. Also, lets keep up the good work as numbers climb.
Most College students can be trusted to do the right thing.
Hopefully this is an example of how we can do this right for the spring semester.
This is happening all the time at the 3 state schools D has been accepted to. I follow on the school parents of engineering fb page and see so many upset parents and kids. Kids in danger of losing scholarships.
I have a bad feeling about this homestretch period. The surrounding communities are headed for a second or third wave. For some, the town/gown case counts will rise in tandem. In others, there will be a disconnect between the low case counts on campus and the community spread going on just outside its walls. You can already hear the pitchforks coming out. If you’ll remember, this was exactly the situation back in April when - even without any sort of testing - many colleges decided to end the semester early. Thanksgiving IMO is looking farther and farther away.
Tulane’s spring plans:
I’m not faculty, this is just an observation from DS’s school that has just gone through the first rounds of midterms. As usual there was lots of noise from the first year engineering students. This happens every year as the adjustment from high school to university can be quite a shock and most students’ grades drop somewhat. For some it’s a significant adjustment. For Calculus I (both the engineering and regular version) however there was a really big kerfuffle. The overall average on the exam came in significantly lower than it historically does and the grades did end up getting adjusted. The same thing happened to DS’s Intro to Differential Equations class and another 3rd year Math course. The difficulty seems to be with the platform being used for the online assessment. They are being auto graded and once an answer is submitted there is no opportunity to go back and make adjustments and since they aren’t submitting their written work for assessment, there is also no opportunity for partial marks. They also seem to have misjudged the amount of time students would need to complete the exam. It’s been a learning curve on the part of the math faculty even though you would think they would have gotten the kinks worked out during the spring/summer semesters. On the other hand, for DS’s Calc III exam, they were required to scan and upload their work and it was marked so obviously not all professors are doing the same thing. Also for the exams where they are required to upload their answers, they are being given extra time to do so. For his Calculus exam they were given 2 hours to do the exam and upload their answers but the expectation was that the exam itself would only probably take an hour.
Northeastern will require most professors to teach on campus in the spring.
For my in-person/synchronous course, I’m doing what I can to adjust to the situation, but there is definitely a give-and-take issue. There is a core group (maybe 60%) who are working, which is lower than normal. I have more students who have vanished, and attendance at Zoom lectures and even in lab is much lower than it would ordinarily be. Some people are not turning in assignments. If they are not even trying then there is nothing I can do for them.
As for changing the syllabus, it’s my understanding that the syllabus is a legal contract with the students and we are not permitted to modify it without agreement from the class. In the past when I have had to make modifications (having 2 exams instead of 3 for example), it was only after discussion and agreement from the students.
“Northeastern will require most professors to teach on campus in the spring.”
Wow, that is excellent news for Northeastern students. In NYC at most colleges all students are on campus (although with hybrid instructions), with the exception of Columbia University. Columbia announced all remote instructions for the fall semester at the end of August, and has not announced their plan for the spring, Originally it was supposed to be freshmen and sophomores on campus for fall, and juniors and seniors on campus for Spring. Students are taking their courses from home or off campus right now. It is a very difficult year for them.
I am curious how Northeastern has configured their classrooms and labs to accommodate social distancing, which AFAIK is still required by the state of MA and probably will be for the foreseeable future. One problem on my campus is that as long as we all have to stay 6 feet apart, masked, etc., we can’t offer all classes in-person because we simply don’t have the space. Until the state changes the rules on density of indoor gatherings, a significant portion of our classes will have to be taught remotely even if we don’t want to do it that way. Do universities in MA have some sort of “carve-out” from having to follow the same indoor-gathering rules as businesses?
In other words, I wonder if Northeastern’s requirement that most faculty teach in- person on campus in the spring is a wish rather than a plan.
(The Globe article might have addressed this but it’s behind a paywall.)
stay positive!! last spring we didn’t know anything about the virus, now we have better treatments and more testing. We had high cases back then with only a fraction of the testing as we do now. So most likely our cases back then were much higher.
I think nearly all their classrooms are now configured to allow students to zoom in remotely or be in person. So perhaps they will rotate students - half in person this day, the other half in person the other day. It is a big investment in technology.
@Faithabove that makes sense; the faculty are teaching in-person, but the students aren’t necessarily learning in -person.
I don’t know. Teaching in-person, to me, also means learning in-person. Otherwise, it’s still zoom class. If NEU can get kids into their classes at least once a week, that’s way better than not at all. I hope that’s what they mean.
A professor at my D’s school did the rotation thing this year. He’s teaching 2 sections of the class, both with about 48 students. He contacted the students prior to the start of class to see what their plans/preferences were. In D’s section, enough students were planning to participate remotely that those who want to go in person, can. In the other section (the one that’s not early in the morning) more wanted to participate in person so they rotate days.
Institutions are desperate to retain students and tell customers what they want to hear. Will they actually be able to deliver in-person instruction for most students in Jan/Feb? No one really knows. I would caution administrators from overly rosy scenarios because promising an experience you can’t ultimately deliver will anger customers more than underpromising and overperforming will.
I think many private universities will have no choice but to offer in-person instruction soon, though, or go out of business. Administrators are sending warning shots over the bow that faculty should not get too used to teaching remotely (i.e. don’t start seeing this aberration as the new norm). I think university administrations will start to require faculty to go through HR and adhere to ADA accommodations procedures in order to get permission to teach remotely in the future (rather than leaving it as an option that the faculty member doesn’t have to justify).
Between the shift to online teaching last spring, and the coming spring’s pressure to get back into the classroom, many older faculty may decide to retire.
Instructor here: hearkening back to the earlier discussion of student success my students are on a U-shaped curve right now. And conversely from some of your students’ experience, my classes are a bit easier than they would be in the past. There are points for just Doing the Thing–write a draft? all the points. Do the Discussion Board? all the points. Major essays are graded a bit more leniently than in the past, to take into account the difficulties of the situation. So the vast majority are getting A’s and B’s right now. That may change as assignments get more difficult, but the completion points will keep anyone who stays with me afloat.
But the converse is, for those who are just not doing the work, the non-participation 0’s are taking a toll.
I think it’s roughly about 70% doing very well, a few in the middle, 10-20% bottoming out or in danger of it. Maybe more J shaped than U shaped.
But they probably feel like it’s more work. I’ve structured it to be half sync, half async, so we only Zoom once a week. The other part is “engagement” and it means a discussion board, a Padlet, a peer review, something like that. So yeah, it probably feels like more work than sitting in a classroom where you might be able to coast in without participating, for those who were only minimally present in class in normal times.
Overall, essays are shorter and easier than in the past.
Also, I might have people do some group activity in class, but I never EVER assign group projects. I hated’em, my kids hated’em, and the only reason they exist is to make good little workers. That’s not what I’m teaching.
Northeastern’s classrooms were configured for hybrid before the start of the fall semester. Students sign up online for in person classes and there is program that divvies up the in person slots fairly. There have been complaints that students can have difficulty getting from in person class back to dorm/off campus housing when the timing is tight. My son just skates into one of his classes on time after a remote class in his dorm. He’s pretty laidback so he isn’t put out. All in all, my son has been pleased with his fall semester considering the circumstances.