If I remember right, you’re in the same school district that my sister is in. I’ll ask her what she’s doing with her kids (elementary and middle).
I am extremely concerned about the academic cost of at-home education for one of my kids, not so much for the other two. And the social cost for all three. Our district hasn’t announced any plan yet.
I don’t know if this will be helpful to anyone else, but I’m putting together a portable outdoor classroom for my fall courses. My plan is to teach outside as much as possible through August/September, with the assumption that we’ll be sent back to online instruction by October/November at the latest (and probably earlier).
Classroom setup is pretty simple:
If this is actually happening as described, it sounds pretty well managed. We’ve been vaguely promised that we’ll get training and best practices, but that hasn’t really come through yet.
Cobb County?
If everybody did remote schooling like they did for the fourth quarter, I wouldn’t be concerned with the social cost. In fact, my son has probably been socializing with his good friends more now than he did before, since several have VR. My daughter talks/plays games with her friends daily, as well. But if they are missing out on making friends when others are in school, that’s tough.
My youngest will definitely need help from me academically, but that was going to be the case, regardless. He’s smart as hell, but he’s not an academic kid. My oldest, on the other hand, is a total nerd and completely self-motivated.
It hasn’t been perfect. For some of the faculty the line between best practices and “do it this way” has been a challenge. And others feel lied to about how long it should take to set up these classes (we’re getting paid for up to 10 hours but it certainly took me way longer). But the way I see it, now having fully online classes set up and not having to go on to campus for anything is a dream come true in many ways.
This is college?
Yeah. Should have clarified.
Cool idea. I wish my daughter’s kindergarten class would do that too.
Have tenure clocks been affected at all?
Right, it’s considerably more work for presumably zero more pay which sounds exactly like something they’d ask of faculty. In my old department at a major state university, the pay for designing an online course was typically equal to the pay for teaching that course (which was lower pay than an in-seat equivalent but at higher cost to students).
Tenure clocks have been extended a year across the board at my university. I’ve seen a lot of other universities do the same thing. Seems good, even though you could argue that it should have been tailored. For example, a physics lab that can’t be accessed for a year will stall research and publications, and definitely warrants a tenure clock extension. But for someone like me, who just does a bunch of statistical analysis on databases that I can access remotely from anywhere, it doesn’t make as much sense.
It’s really frustrating - I’m likely to be designated in-person because of the small enrollment in the classes I’m scheduled to teach. But at the same time, the admin is encouraging everyone to prepare for an online experience because it will be easier to make a last minute switch from online to in-person, as opposed to the other way around. My strategy so far as been to be paralyzed with indecision about what to do, and just be consumed by anxiety.
As for extra money, I don’t think there’s any leverage to say, “I am entitled to the money that you’d normally get for developing a new class, even though moving the class online is effectively the same process.” We are being asked to do more work, but (fingers crossed), we haven’t taken pay cuts or furloughs yet. Many of my colleagues around the country have. So it’s not the extra unpaid effort I mind, it’s the uncertainty and lack of guidance.
I think across the board is good. Maybe not the most just but probably the most reasonable. Imagine a field where about half the faculty rely on the lab and half don’t. Might result in some weird department dynamics and possibly legal exposure. That could be especially bad for the colleges out there already credibly accused of discrimination.
https://twitter.com/rkelchen/status/1278313049485688834
This is a really good, but dismal, thread. I am supposed to be preparing for teaching in less than 2 months, but I have no idea what format my classes will be in and we’ve been given no best practices or recommendations on how to actually teach online.
Not great, Bob!
Barring a second wave, school will be open as usual starting September. This would be terrible if I was in America. But I’m not. So it’s cool.
I assume that all teachers will be required to present a negative covid19 test before the school year in order to teach. Then again, teachers didn’t get tested before going to an outdoor graduation ceremony with no social distancing and (for the most part) no masks.
I still don’t know what I’m doing about my kids (both in middle school). We have until next Friday to decide if we are sending them to school or keeping them home. Keeping them home is a full semester commitment.
My sister, who I confirmed is in your district, is facing the same choice. She’s pretty unhappy about it. Apparently the district will not require kids to wear masks? WTF are we all doing?
We’re waiting to hear from our school district. I think two of my three kids would be ok-ish with remote learning, but I think at-home learning would be terrible for the third.
I can totally understand mandatory masks being a problem for little kids. There’s no way kindergartners would keep them on - the teacher’s day would be consumed with helping kids with their snotty, licked masks. There’s no reason why middle schoolers couldn’t wear them.
Even in the CR where masks were made mandatory by the government, they exempted nursery and some elementary school students.
I’m not so sure. Kinder is only 3 hours a day and my daughter (who will be entering Kindergarten) doesn’t mind her mask at all. Mind you, she only wears it for maybe an hour at a time, but I think it could work.
That’s a small sample within a small sample.