Preparing for Coronavirus?

[apl68]

My own school started doing temperature checks at the door for the small number of people who needed to come to campus for hands on work.

Evidently temperature checks have a good deal of potential for false positives.  Our staff member above went home, cooled off, and turned out not to be feverish after all.  She still missed an appointment that she'd had scheduled for some time due to the false positive.  I've heard that some doctors' offices are trying to let people cool off for a bit before doing the temperature check, to avoid penalizing those who just came in from a hot trip to see them.  One more wrinkle to consider.

[marshwiggle]

I'm not wild about the LVL part, but I'm not going to argue; I guess this old dog can learn a new trick.  My previous F2F Comp II class should make (it's at 9 now); I kind of hope the F2F Early American lit doesn't, just because I'm leery of how it's going to work in a synchronous format (I've taught it many times fully online/asynchronously). 

This sounds odd; if the class has been taught "fully" online in the past, why wouldn't they just have the existing online format in the Fall, instead of a FrankenF2F version?

FrankenF2F makes sense for things which have never been online before, since they presumably haven't had the same effort put in to completely adapt them. But courses that have already adapted should already be, in principle, as good as F2F.

Just because a class has been taught fully online in the past doesn't mean that all the students are going to do well in an online format or that the instructor is going to be good at teaching it online. That's the logic gap in this argument you keep making.

ANY of the scenarios I've seen for hybrid (or whatever they may be called) courses are much more cumbersome than EITHER F2F or online, so it is at best an unproven assumption that these can be "almost" like F2F. (Especially if students are supposed to be able to hop back and forth whenever they want.)

Given the choice between that and a properly-designed online course, which has already been running and has had the kinks worked out, I would be surprised if any more than a tiny fraction of students would be worse off in the fully online course.

[Caracal]

I'm not wild about the LVL part, but I'm not going to argue; I guess this old dog can learn a new trick.  My previous F2F Comp II class should make (it's at 9 now); I kind of hope the F2F Early American lit doesn't, just because I'm leery of how it's going to work in a synchronous format (I've taught it many times fully online/asynchronously). 

This sounds odd; if the class has been taught "fully" online in the past, why wouldn't they just have the existing online format in the Fall, instead of a FrankenF2F version?

FrankenF2F makes sense for things which have never been online before, since they presumably haven't had the same effort put in to completely adapt them. But courses that have already adapted should already be, in principle, as good as F2F.

Just because a class has been taught fully online in the past doesn't mean that all the students are going to do well in an online format or that the instructor is going to be good at teaching it online. That's the logic gap in this argument you keep making.

ANY of the scenarios I've seen for hybrid (or whatever they may be called) courses are much more cumbersome than EITHER F2F or online, so it is at best an unproven assumption that these can be "almost" like F2F. (Especially if students are supposed to be able to hop back and forth whenever they want.)

Given the choice between that and a properly-designed online course, which has already been running and has had the kinks worked out, I would be surprised if any more than a tiny fraction of students would be worse off in the fully online course.

Depends on all the details. I don't have a bunch of online courses just hanging up in the closet ready to be taken out, however, so its all a bit irrelevant. If I do end up doing hybrid courses I don't think they will be almost like f2f. I think they will allow for classes to take place, in part, in a format I believe in, and have experience teaching. The truth is that pretty much whatever I do next semester is going to be an adaptation of face to face classes. I'm not going to try to redesign three classes in the midst of a pandemic for a format I don't want to teach them in going forward.

[AmLitHist]

I agreed to teach the lit class when it appeared, out of the blue, on the F2F schedule we all chose from in the spring.  (We always do a round robin to pick our classes:  first in seniority picks four classes for load, then on down the line, and once everyone has load we go back and choose OL sections.  I'm low-man on the seniority list.)  The American lit was sitting there all alone, and while I've done it online at various schools over the years, and for a long stretch every summer online here, I couldn't pass up the chance to teach it, even F2F. Our students rarely take lit classes as their humanities elective for the Gen Studies transfer AA; besides, I'm the resident Americanist in the dept., and everyone especially hates Early American, so I jumped at it.  Any pay for teaching something that isn't Comp I or II or dev ed is a bonus.

The beauty for me of teaching it online--almost always in the summer, with lots of students from other unis taking it--is that I'm able to really pile on the reading, and even at that, nearly everyone who enrolls ends up with B's or better in a very rigorous class.  Along the way, most of them realize they really DO like Anne Bradstreet and Hawthorne and Thoreau and Emerson and Dickinson and Wigglesworth and Edward Taylor and many others. 

The reason I kind of hope it doesn't make is that I know our own students are loathe to read, so I'm going to have to cut way back on the load. Further, when they don't read in a Comp class, I can work around that, but in a lit, it makes for a lot of dead air and a very long class session if they haven't done the reading.  Adding the LVL to that......yeah.  Not looking forward to it, but if it makes, I'll give it a go.

And I really do think there's good reason to have made this simply an asynchronous online section.  I might argue for that, as the dust settles by mid-July.

[mamselle]

Early American?

Yum!!!

M.

[apl68]

Great to hear that students somewhere are still getting a good dose of early American lit--and often liking it!

[science.expat]

My own school started doing temperature checks at the door for the small number of people who needed to come to campus for hands on work.

Evidently temperature checks have a good deal of potential for false positives.  Our staff member above went home, cooled off, and turned out not to be feverish after all.  She still missed an appointment that she'd had scheduled for some time due to the false positive.  I've heard that some doctors' offices are trying to let people cool off for a bit before doing the temperature check, to avoid penalizing those who just came in from a hot trip to see them.  One more wrinkle to consider.

I had the opposite. I went to get Covid tested and they took my temp 3 times before finally recording 35.9 C. (Normal is 37 C) It's actually an on going issue since when I am feverish it's hard getting health professionals to recognise it because I'm rarely very much above 'normal'.

[Economizer]

o continue my thoughts, perhaps folks should not look too harshly on people not wearing masks inside stores and other "tight spaces"?

scarfs, bandannas, home made by folding a wash cloth and a rubber band (as demonstrated by the Surgeon General)... 

No, it is NOT a money issue
[/quote

But, how much are masks costing in your areas? How much is Coved 19 testing costing  in your viciinties?

[Puget]

My own school started doing temperature checks at the door for the small number of people who needed to come to campus for hands on work.

Evidently temperature checks have a good deal of potential for false positives.  Our staff member above went home, cooled off, and turned out not to be feverish after all.  She still missed an appointment that she'd had scheduled for some time due to the false positive.  I've heard that some doctors' offices are trying to let people cool off for a bit before doing the temperature check, to avoid penalizing those who just came in from a hot trip to see them.  One more wrinkle to consider.

I had the opposite. I went to get Covid tested and they took my temp 3 times before finally recording 35.9 C. (Normal is 37 C) It's actually an on going issue since when I am feverish it's hard getting health professionals to recognise it because I'm rarely very much above 'normal'.

It turns out "normal" body temperature isn't actually "normal" anymore:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/time-to-redefine-normal-body-temperature-2020031319173

[clean]

But, how much are masks costing in your areas? How much is Coved 19 testing costing  in your viciinties?

I dont know what places are selling masks for.  It does not matter.  As I understand the rules, a 'mask' is not required, but a 'face covering' is.  AS I indicated above, a 'face covering' can be a bandanna, a cut t-shirt and rubber bands.

I dont know IF testing has a cost.  I know that you can call the county and get approval and schedule a test without leaving your car.  You drive up, open a window and they stick something in your nose.  I do not believe that the patient bears a cost, but I do not know.

IF the republicans had not whipped "ObamaCare" then we would all be required to have health insurance and insurers would be bitching about having to pay for tests.

So I return the question:
Are you required to wear a Mask in your area?  What defines "mask"?
What do you see that the official item costs where you are?
Are tests not provided by your local public health agency?

[apl68]

My own school started doing temperature checks at the door for the small number of people who needed to come to campus for hands on work.

Evidently temperature checks have a good deal of potential for false positives.  Our staff member above went home, cooled off, and turned out not to be feverish after all.  She still missed an appointment that she'd had scheduled for some time due to the false positive.  I've heard that some doctors' offices are trying to let people cool off for a bit before doing the temperature check, to avoid penalizing those who just came in from a hot trip to see them.  One more wrinkle to consider.

I had the opposite. I went to get Covid tested and they took my temp 3 times before finally recording 35.9 C. (Normal is 37 C) It's actually an on going issue since when I am feverish it's hard getting health professionals to recognise it because I'm rarely very much above 'normal'.

It turns out "normal" body temperature isn't actually "normal" anymore:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/time-to-redefine-normal-body-temperature-2020031319173

All I know is that when I went to the doctor today (ear cleaning), I registered 98.4 F.  They were okay with it, and so was I.

The ear cleaning felt a bit like they were trying to do a virus swab through my ear.

[secundem_artem]

I generally find Scott Galloway to be a mostly annoying gadfly, but this time, I think he's onn to something.  American optimism has most uni's saying it's business as usual come fall.  As if the virus is listening.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-colleges-reopening-this-fall-are-putting-elderly-faculty-danger-2020-6

[nebo113]

Are you required to wear a Mask in your area?  What defines "mask"?       YES.  Seems to be cloth face covering
What do you see that the official item costs where you are?      Not sure how you define "official item"?
Are tests not provided by your local public health agency?        Only if you're already half dead and jump through so many   hoops that you're completely dead by the time you get the test. 

[hmaria1609]

Late development--Gov. Northam of VA announced a limit on bars in restaurants:
https://wtop.com/virginia/2020/06/in-late-reversal-northam-moves-to-keep-limits-on-bars/

In Delaware, beach bars will close on Friday:
https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2020/06/delaware-beach-bars-to-close-again-friday-phase-two-to-continue-indefinitely/

[spork]

When K-12 schools re-open:

https://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-schools-work-practical-guide-for.html