I had my usual 3 classes this fall. 2 are usually online, and I dont know that there is much to report. However, I was going over the final grades for a class that is usually fully face to face. it was 80% online, meaning that we had to meet face to face at least five times (we met 6).
The grades so far (the final exam is pending) are much worse. First it seems that 1/3 of the class has dropped already or stopped attending. That is a particularly high number given that this is a required class for the major.
I had 2 webex meetings a week. I never had more than 1/3 of the class attend. In the end, I was down to only 3 students attending with regularity. I did record the lectures for later view, but seldom did anyone email to ask questions about the topics I talked about.
On a tangent, even when people attended the webex, they left their cameras off, so I could not see that they were participating. I would call on them to answer questions and there would be a long pause. I dont know if that means that they were distracted, that there is a longer delay on Webex than there would be on a phone call, or that they were not really paying attention.
Last year, in an attempt to increase their understanding I began assigning the textbook's online material (mostly I had them work the questions at the back of the book, and I gave them bonus points if they did some of the other work that was available in the book). I then totaled the scores and divided everyone's score by the 3rd highest grade. There are grades in the teens and many less 60%.
I gave 19! online quizzes. The top 10 counted (and again, I divided by the high score, after dropping the NINE lowest grades). Many didnt even take 10 of the quizzes!!
Anyway, are you seeing similar inability/unwillingness to even attempt the work assigned as your university moves to online classes as an attempt to deal with the pandemic?
Quote from: clean on November 28, 2020, 09:17:09 AM
I had my usual 3 classes this fall. 2 are usually online, and I dont know that there is much to report. However, I was going over the final grades for a class that is usually fully face to face. it was 80% online, meaning that we had to meet face to face at least five times (we met 6).
The grades so far (the final exam is pending) are much worse. First it seems that 1/3 of the class has dropped already or stopped attending. That is a particularly high number given that this is a required class for the major.
I had 2 webex meetings a week. I never had more than 1/3 of the class attend. In the end, I was down to only 3 students attending with regularity. I did record the lectures for later view, but seldom did anyone email to ask questions about the topics I talked about.
On a tangent, even when people attended the webex, they left their cameras off, so I could not see that they were participating. I would call on them to answer questions and there would be a long pause. I dont know if that means that they were distracted, that there is a longer delay on Webex than there would be on a phone call, or that they were not really paying attention.
Last year, in an attempt to increase their understanding I began assigning the textbook's online material (mostly I had them work the questions at the back of the book, and I gave them bonus points if they did some of the other work that was available in the book). I then totaled the scores and divided everyone's score by the 3rd highest grade. There are grades in the teens and many less 60%.
I gave 19! online quizzes. The top 10 counted (and again, I divided by the high score, after dropping the NINE lowest grades). Many didnt even take 10 of the quizzes!!
Anyway, are you seeing similar inability/unwillingness to even attempt the work assigned as your university moves to online classes as an attempt to deal with the pandemic?
I haven't done a formal analysis of grades yet, but my impression, based on the spring semester's switch to online instruction, and teaching online courses to undergraduates this semester, is that a very large proportion of them simply are not willing to exert the effort needed to succeed in an online course. This is what you get when a university emphasizes the college "experience" over the "education" in its marketing and operations. Don't know if that's the case with your employer, but it certainly is with mine.
Recommending to moderators that this discussion be moved.
I have a direct comparison because I had some discussion/activity sections in person and some on zoom (everyone had lectures asynchronously online-- I essentially flipped the course). We still have one exam and the final project to go, but currently the in person students are averaging half a letter grade higher than the zoom students.
It's not so much the the median is lower for the zoom students, as that there is a cluster of students doing very poorly in those sections, who just seem completely disconnected, are not doing the work, and have poor attendance (and when they are logged in general have cameras off and don't contribute to discussion). Some have home life or mental health problems we know about, but most have not responded to repeated attempts from me or the TAs to meet and help get them back on track, so we really don't know why they are struggling. Some undoubtably would be struggling in a normal semester too, whereas for others online learning is not a good fit or their home situation is causing problems.
Of course, it isn't an experiment-- students self-selected for the most part being on campus vs. not (except the Chinese students who were bared from returning to the US so had no choice). I do suspect that there is some self-selection effect, in that the most engaged, strongest students were the ones most eager to be back on campus despite the requirements for masking, testing, social distancing etc.
My students have been doing okay, but I only taught small upper-level seminars this semester, which could account for the difference from what some other posters are saying. A few students seem like they're either struggling or not taking the class particularly seriously, but I don't know that that number would be different if COVID wasn't happening. I'm curious to see what will happen when I start teaching an online lecture course; my guess is that students may be less engaged in those types of courses, especially via Zoom.
Also, would this thread be better in the teaching sub-forum? Could it be moved?
The real important comparison is not between in-person and synchronous virtual; it's between in-person and asynchronous virtual. There are very few advantages of synchronous virtual over face-to-face, but lots of disadvantages. On the other hand, asynchronous virtual has some distinct advantages over face-to-face, as well as some disadvantages. So some students will probably like it better than face-to-face, while probably almost no-one would pick synchronous virtual over face-to-face if they had any real choice.
I get the impression that my students prefer it, but from what I can see it's doing them no favours academically. From what I gather, most of them are working more-or-less full-time now that their classes are asynchronous. Synchronous discussion sessions (which are supplementary, not mandatory) have been bleeding attendance all semester, and I'm down to about six blank screens in each one. Prompts, prods, and questions no longer garner any responses whatsoever.
I was just starting to figure out how to get this student population to contribute in class when the pandemic shunted us online. In the last nine months, I have clearly not come anywhere near mastering the skill of fostering quality discussion online. At least, not with this student population. I should probably take some time to rethink things, but I'm sorely tempted to just give up on that front.
The ones who would be failing before still are.
The ones who would be acing before still are.
The intermediate ones tend to be doing pretty badly because they relied on absorption of material from lecture and don't do it on their own.
Quote
Anyway, are you seeing similar inability/unwillingness to even attempt the work assigned as your university moves to online classes as an attempt to deal with the pandemic?
Yup. Sometimes, but overall, they've been pretty good about it. We're all having an adventure together and there is some feeling of bonding in the face of unexpected vicissitude. But, really, while I appreciate your asking, there's only one endgame: are my student evaluations up to the required number? Because our chair and his coterie have a crappy attitude toward adjunct faculty, and especially so since we've unionized. Some of them really seem to enjoy picking us off.
Or could it be...there might be a sense of bonding across the great divide of the segmented faculty workforce, for the same reason? Dead end job versus cool career of new phases, one every five years or so? Who knows...
Quote from: kiana on November 28, 2020, 06:02:42 PM
The ones who would be failing before still are.
The ones who would be acing before still are.
The intermediate ones tend to be doing pretty badly because they relied on absorption of material from lecture and don't do it on their own.
This has been my experience, too. What it proves, in my opinion, is that the college-is-for-sorting crowd has the strongest argument. It hardly matters what we ask of our students.* Some will do it, some won't, and society is provided with information about who's who.
*To be clear, my field requires no real knowledge or expertise; science majors must presumably learn an actual thing or two.
I'm teaching virtual synchronous, and it's gone really well. The students appreciated the effort put into it, and all have been taking it seriously. We'd all be happier to be in person, but several have told me that they loved the class and others say that they prefer not to be face to face in a pandemic. I don't teach STEM or big lecture classes, so perhaps that is the difference?
I'm teaching virtual asynchronous. I think we're just giving different people an advantage--people who would have done really well in person might be struggling because a lot of their strategies involve learning from the oral tradition of the classroom; others who maybe wouldn't have shown up a lot in a face to face class (but who were doing the reading) are really shining.
All of our "hybrid" classes are synchronous. A class was assigned classroom space based on enrollment -- we ran rooms at 1/4 capacity, and if that quarter equaled or was lower than class enrollment, we were allowed to hold in-person sessions (all rooms are equipped with teleconferencing hardware so students can remote attend).
The two sections with fewer than 20 students could meet in class (12 on Monday, 12 on Wed, with some of those students attending both). Students that didn't used Zoom to attend.
The two sections with more than 20 students met synchronously Monday and Wednesday via Zoom.
All 4 classes had similar types of assignments, if not the same material.
In my "in-person" classes, the class averages and medians are similar to Fall 2019 statistics of similar classes. Students who attend both M and W are doing better than others.
The Zoom classes show an inverse bell curve for grades. About 25% of students across both classes have less than 50% attendance. The medians for these classes are significantly lower. Same number of As as Fall 2019.
So it looks like the transition to online hurts poor-performing students the worst: they don't attend, they don't take notes, they don't follow directions. I'll also say that I've had more academic misconduct cases go to the Dean's Office this semester than all of my previous six year combined.
Quote from: Morden on November 29, 2020, 09:43:31 AM
I'm teaching virtual asynchronous. I think we're just giving different people an advantage--people who would have done really well in person might be struggling because a lot of their strategies involve learning from the oral tradition of the classroom; others who maybe wouldn't have shown up a lot in a face to face class (but who were doing the reading) are really shining.
This is kind of what I'd expect. I hope that there is enough evidence of this after covid is past that the students who have benefitted from this aren't forgotten and ignored. The students who thrive under this degree of independence should be supported and encouraged.
Like it or not, colleges probably are going to have to realize something that k12 schools are also going to have to conclude, namely, that for many students (though certainly far from all), the online educational experiences of covid 2020 are going to amount effectively to a wasted year, especially in lower performing schools/ districts, and also lower-quality higher ed institutions, and esp if the student has any learning challenges. It will not do to ignore or deny this fact, and we will have to deal with it. Exactly what things need to be done to do that can be discussed, but whatever these things may be, they will take will... and money.
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 29, 2020, 03:42:12 PM
Like it or not, colleges probably are going to have to realize something that k12 schools are also going to have to conclude, namely, that for many students (though certainly far from all), the online educational experiences of covid 2020 are going to amount effectively to a wasted year, especially in lower performing schools/ districts, and also lower-quality higher ed institutions, and esp if the student has any learning challenges. It will not do to ignore or deny this fact, and we will have to deal with it. Exactly what things need to be done to do that can be discussed, but whatever these things may be, they will take will... and money.
This seems wrong. I don't see the situation as parallel between k12 and colleges.
There seems to be some lowering of standards for k12 and some goals are not getting achieved. They just need the students to graduate.
I haven't seen evidence of lowering of standards in college. (Maybe there are some exceptions -- but it's not a huge trend.) I'm failing some more students, but most are doing OK. Seems like a lot of faculty are finding the same. Some students who fail will retake later, others will drop out of college. Presumably colleges will try to find a way to squeeze more money out of those students.
You miss my point. I am not arguing for lowering academic standards, either k12 or higher ed. I am arguing for gearing up to allot big resources, financial and otherwise, to remediate and ameliorate the lost year effects of the pandemic on many students, even college students (many of whom, at lower rate schools and/or of lower socioeconomic background and/or minimal college fittedness, were not thriving before the pandemic, as has often been pointed out round here). Our ed system, moreso k12 than higher ed, is already woefully disparate, and almost wholly inadequate at its lower end, and the pandemic ain't helping. If real steps at mitigating the covid effects are not taken, right quick, well.... and this in any case is a shameful disgrace to America, and contrary to the requirements of our constitution.
It's certainly true that many students, both k12 and college, have learned less due to the move to online ed. This will continue at least into summer 2021.
But can anything be done to make up for this? To reverse the losses in learning? What would that look like?
As far as I can see, schools will continue to teach as best they can. Even if there were money available to make extra effort, which seems dubious, what would we do it with it?
Quote from: downer on November 30, 2020, 04:33:48 AM
It's certainly true that many students, both k12 and college, have learned less due to the move to online ed. This will continue at least into summer 2021.
But can anything be done to make up for this? To reverse the losses in learning? What would that look like?
As far as I can see, schools will continue to teach as best they can. Even if there were money available to make extra effort, which seems dubious, what would we do it with it?
What everybody else is doing. That's how we measure ourselves, isn't it? If slippage from inadequate staffing, physical facilities, improper class size and other stuff were not to be tolerated, we would have been out of business before my career started.
Quote from: kiana on November 28, 2020, 06:02:42 PM
The ones who would be failing before still are.
The ones who would be acing before still are.
The intermediate ones tend to be doing pretty badly because they relied on absorption of material from lecture and don't do it on their own.
Yep, that's what I'm seeing as well. The students who benefit from the structure of doing assignments in-person in class are the ones who are really struggling. Taking a quiz is easy if it's handed to you in class. Taking a quiz that you have to
remember to log in to the LMS to take is harder. The grades in lab are nearly bimodal - cluster of really high grades, a long tail, and a cluster of really low grades.
I gave a low stakes quiz on a chapter from the textbook in one course. I just told the students to do the review questions at the end of the chapter. I'd forgotten that the answers are available at the end of the book.
But so too had half the students, so results were quite mixed.
Quote from: the_geneticist on November 30, 2020, 08:41:44 AM
Yep, that's what I'm seeing as well. The students who benefit from the structure of doing assignments in-person in class are the ones who are really struggling. Taking a quiz is easy if it's handed to you in class. Taking a quiz that you have to remember to log in to the LMS to take is harder. The grades in lab are nearly bimodal - cluster of really high grades, a long tail, and a cluster of really low grades.
Yes. Especially if you have to also upload your work in a separate assignment, and due to the online structure I **have** to be more rigid on work than I normally would be.
Normally the rules on things like factoring are "if you do it in your head it's either 100% or 0" but I can't let that slide this semester just because I have no verification that it was actually the student who did it in their head.
I am teaching a hybrid model with synchronous virtual lectures and in person labs. Overall, I think the students are doing really well and based on the midterm they are picking up the material as I would expect in a normal year. I had to make some changes to the labs and assignments that will likely make the average grads higher than normal, but I think the actual learning is probably on par with normal.
We recently did group presentations online, and I think it was actually better quality than normal...
While the situation is not ideal, it has forced me to do a number of things that are actually working really well and I will incorporaqte into my class regardless of the future. My lab has also been broken into smaller sections that meet less often, but it has really highlighted that my lab was too crowded before and the smaller groups is much better. I think they are getting more out of the labs this year even though we meet less. In the future, I will probably request to break my lab into multiple sections...
Of course, my experience is for a smaller, upper year elective with generally good students...
I know that significant efforts at remediation of the covid ed deficits many kids are and will still be enduring need to be made, and that these must be made.. and that they will likely cost real money, which must be allocated and redistributed from wealthier areas/ people. I am much less confident I know now in what form such efforts should take... thoughts?
Class started with 33. I issued 21 grades (including 1 incomplete). 6 As, 5 Bs, NO Cs!! 5 Ds and 4 Fs. I have not had a class of this kind with NO Cs!!
There were a bunch of Fs from those that quit attending and several that dropped. I have not had that percentage of people start and not finish before!
The Fs, and many of the Ds just didnt bother to do the homework (the problems at the end of the chapter that I started to require 3 semesters ago (before the CV issues popped up)).
Did you see similar issues in online classes this term?
You have no idea who is really doing their work!
Quote from: kaysixteen on November 30, 2020, 02:25:09 PM
I know that significant efforts at remediation of the covid ed deficits many kids are and will still be enduring need to be made, and that these must be made.. and that they will likely cost real money, which must be allocated and redistributed from wealthier areas/ people. I am much less confident I know now in what form such efforts should take... thoughts?
No one will be doing any remediation, unless the pandemic lasts long enough for us to be in real danger of losing multiple cohorts of nurses, doctors, engineers, and other professions where we were short before the pandemic. I do expect programs to arise that will help people who were in process finish up more quickly once the pandemic has passed and people can do in-person intensive courses.
The poor people who needed school the most are just going to be shorted. At best, they will continue from where they left off when they dropped out to focus on their job or caretaking responsibilities. At worst, they will never come back for more formal education because their lives have become too complicated.
The poor kids in K-12 are just out of luck in most cases, especially the ones who were mostly out of luck pre-Covid in crummy schools that were functioning more as food distribution and child care than any sort of formal educational institutions.
QuoteYou have no idea who is really doing their work!
Perhaps, but the majority of their exams are face to face, or given with Examity proctoring.
online quizzes had Respondus Monitoring as well. SO I can not prove who did the text assignments, but NOT doing the homework would disadvantage the cheater on the exams.
Some of my courses are still running, clean, but I have seen a similar split. I think I have had ONE student with a C out of the two classes that have finished. However, our withdrawal date was one week before the final exam, so I only had two F's.
AR.