Covid-19 Response: Evidence of How Higher Ed Can Be Completely Restructured?

[Parasaurolophus]

I wonder how much longer snow days will even be a thing in our region?  Snow itself is rapidly becoming a thing of the past here.

Yeah, I think they're goners. It's too bad, because they're one of the absolute joys of being a kid. But then again, there's hardly any snow where I live now to begin with. Freezing rain days aren't anything like as fun for anyone as snow days are/were.

Regions that get lots of snow usually bet on a certain number of snow days in the schedule, though, so I'm not sure how or whether they'll adjust that.

In general, climate change isn't going to result in less snow. In fact, it might result in more, at least as far as I understand it. I'm sure it might vary by local area, but we should actually expect more extreme weather of all kinds.

I wasn't clear, but FWIW I wasn't talking about climate change, but about snow days being replaced by zoom days.

[apl68]

I wonder how much longer snow days will even be a thing in our region?  Snow itself is rapidly becoming a thing of the past here.

Yeah, I think they're goners. It's too bad, because they're one of the absolute joys of being a kid. But then again, there's hardly any snow where I live now to begin with. Freezing rain days aren't anything like as fun for anyone as snow days are/were.

Regions that get lots of snow usually bet on a certain number of snow days in the schedule, though, so I'm not sure how or whether they'll adjust that.

In general, climate change isn't going to result in less snow. In fact, it might result in more, at least as far as I understand it. I'm sure it might vary by local area, but we should actually expect more extreme weather of all kinds.

More extreme weather, including heavy snow falls, in the near term.  In the long term snow will probably become less common, and eventually cease, across wide areas.  Where we live an already rare phenomenon is now disappearing entirely.  Farther north snow is projected to get more uneven and extreme for a time, then eventually fade as climate change progresses.

That's one argument for using the term "climate change" instead of "global warming," even though it's warming that's driving the change overall.  A lot of people in areas that still have snowfall get honestly confused when they keep hearing about "global warming," and yet their winter storms seem to be getting worse.

[Aster]

In my region, we have "hurricane days" now formally budgeted into the Fall semesters. It was a lot less formal a couple of decades ago, but with hurricanes pounding our region like clockwork almost every year now, it's nice to have a couple extra days built into the term schedule for potential floodings, power outages, campus closures, regional evacuations, etc...

At some point, I'm wondering when to start seeing institutions budget in "fire days", "heat wave days", etc...

[spork]

This is additional reason to permanently put online whatever can be put online, as discussed in this IHE editorial. Don't know about my colleagues, but I'm never holding in-person office hours ever again. As for meetings, attendance has been higher since they moved to Webex and Zoom. For the rest of my career I will do my darnedest never to have to drive to campus just for a meeting.

My life would be easier if the university turned my office into a dorm room.

[mythbuster]

Zoom days in lieu of snow, hurricane, etc days only work if you have power.  The last hurricane that hit us, my house was out for 2 days, but other parts of the city lost power for over 2 weeks.

I will say the pandemic has forced me to do what I've long wanted, which is to flip my classes and use our gathering times for case studies and more active learning. Now to just get the students used to that idea.

[apl68]

In my region, we have "hurricane days" now formally budgeted into the Fall semesters. It was a lot less formal a couple of decades ago, but with hurricanes pounding our region like clockwork almost every year now, it's nice to have a couple extra days built into the term schedule for potential floodings, power outages, campus closures, regional evacuations, etc...

At some point, I'm wondering when to start seeing institutions budget in "fire days", "heat wave days", etc...

Now that hurricanes are beginning to reach all the way inland to states like ours (For several hours during Laura the view outside our windows looked just like standard hurricane footage, minus the waves and palm trees), we may end up seeing "hurricane days" instead of snow days too.

[spork]

Inspired by:

I will respectfully disagree about statisticians. What many folks think are esoteric details are in fact needed discussions related to crucial assumptions. I know we don't live in anywhere close to an ideal world, but if we did there would be more people with deep field knowledge who also have a critical understanding of statistics as a statistician knows the field. There are very few of them. Where the statisticians are most needed is when the data collection and decisions of how to analyze the data are in the design process. Once that is done, of course rely on a nuts and bolts person.

This is an area where the misuses of statistics (which are rampant) can far too often be traced back to people who know the mechanics of a test without needed background as to why NOT to use it.

That, and journalists and administrators of course.

and

The point I was trying to make, clearly badly, was not that statisticians' expertise was unnecessary to folks in other fields, but that what folks in other fields probably need is something like "the tools you need to make the most of your data are X, Y and Z and this is how you use them" or stuff like how to address objections that your data isn't sufficiently abundant or too noisy or whatever, or how to spot bad analyses by others. Not the gory details of the nuts and bolts behind tests and models - not that they're not important, but they're not immediately important to most people who aren't statisticians.

I'm reminded of illusory precision, what maps of Africa demonstrate about the evolution of ignorance, heuristics, and the innovator's dilemma. A simple heuristic would seem to be "if the absolute number of potential customers in your market is decreasing over time, find another market that has different customers." Yet my university stuck with a business model dependent on undergraduate dorm and meal plan revenue, even though the number of area high school graduates has been declining for two decades and will continue to decline for at least another two decades.   

[Caracal]

I will say the pandemic has forced me to do what I've long wanted, which is to flip my classes and use our gathering times for case studies and more active learning. Now to just get the students used to that idea.

I think this illustrates something that gets missed in all these discussions of how the pandemic will fundamentally change everything forever. The things that might change are ones in which people disliked the previous way, but had trouble moving past it for various reasons. But, the tendency in the moment is to overestimate the extent of the changes.

To take an example, I have learned that individual meetings with students on Zoom work pretty well. However, unlike Spork, in person office hours and meetings with students have never been a big inconvenience for me. I only meet with students at times when I'm going to be in my office anyway. I can't see why I would want to only meet with students on Zoom in the future. However, I require students to meet with me about paper drafts and proposals and that often results in a week or two where on my teaching days I have wall to wall meetings and classes without a break. Pushing some of those meetings to my non teaching days on Zoom would make sense.

However, most of the things I'm doing don't make my life easier, they make it more complicated. There's this bizarre sort of pandemic/techno optimism  where everyone assumes that all of this is going so well that everyone is going to come out of it having found marvelous and exciting new ways to teach. In reality, most of us are just teaching crummier classes because of the circumstances.

[marshwiggle]

I will say the pandemic has forced me to do what I've long wanted, which is to flip my classes and use our gathering times for case studies and more active learning. Now to just get the students used to that idea.

I think this illustrates something that gets missed in all these discussions of how the pandemic will fundamentally change everything forever. The things that might change are ones in which people disliked the previous way, but had trouble moving past it for various reasons. But, the tendency in the moment is to overestimate the extent of the changes.

To take an example, I have learned that individual meetings with students on Zoom work pretty well. However, unlike Spork, in person office hours and meetings with students have never been a big inconvenience for me. I only meet with students at times when I'm going to be in my office anyway. I can't see why I would want to only meet with students on Zoom in the future.
However, I require students to meet with me about paper drafts and proposals and that often results in a week or two where on my teaching days I have wall to wall meetings and classes without a break. Pushing some of those meetings to my non teaching days on Zoom would make sense.

However, most of the things I'm doing don't make my life easier, they make it more complicated.

Fo me, with labs, it's some of both. Changing to remote is a lot of work, and impossible for some things, but there are some things that can be done virtually that couldn't or wouldn't be done in person. (For instance, simulations make it easy to change individual parameters and see results; that is often too time consuming in person. In simulation, they can try things which would be dangerous in person and see why they wouldn't do that in person. ) Also, asynchronous delivery gets rid of tight restrictions on the time to complete a lab.

So not universally "better" (or "worse", for that matter), but with different strengths and weaknesses. I'm trying to figure out whether/how I can incorporate some of those things when we return to normal.

There's this bizarre sort of pandemic/techno optimism  where everyone assumes that all of this is going so well that everyone is going to come out of it having found marvelous and exciting new ways to teach. In reality, most of us are just teaching crummier classes because of the circumstances.

[ciao_yall]

6 weeks in?

• Zoom classes don't work. They aren't terrible on an emergency basis. Still, too much is missing from the in-class experience.
• Discussion boards - students are writing much better and plagiarizing less than when I had them turn in their papers directly to me. Maybe because they know their peers are watching, they are more careful. And they are learning from one another.
• They don't like posting their 3 required responses, but they are starting to take on a life of their own and sparking some back-and-forth. We haven't achieved "lively discussion" yet. I may keep the discussion boards after all this is over, assuming I keep teaching and don't go back into administration.

[spork]

6 weeks in?

• Zoom classes don't work. They aren't terrible on an emergency basis. Still, too much is missing from the in-class experience.

[. . . ]

What percent of last year's students will be able and willing to pay for the "in-class experience" next year? What's the number of potential students who have never been able or willing to pay for the "in-class experience"?

[TreadingLife]

I will say the pandemic has forced me to do what I've long wanted, which is to flip my classes and use our gathering times for case studies and more active learning. Now to just get the students used to that idea.

Ditto.

[Caracal]

6 weeks in?

• Zoom classes don't work. They aren't terrible on an emergency basis. Still, too much is missing from the in-class experience.

[. . . ]

What percent of last year's students will be able and willing to pay for the "in-class experience" next year? What's the number of potential students who have never been able or willing to pay for the "in-class experience"?

I'm confused. It costs the same amount and will next semester as well. I don't even understand what sort of model you're proposing. If students receive the same credit for online courses, why exactly are they supposed to pay less? There are larger issues of college cost, but you're engaging in weird technocratic fantasies about the magical and transformative benefits of unbundling.

[spork]

6 weeks in?

• Zoom classes don't work. They aren't terrible on an emergency basis. Still, too much is missing from the in-class experience.

[. . . ]

What percent of last year's students will be able and willing to pay for the "in-class experience" next year? What's the number of potential students who have never been able or willing to pay for the "in-class experience"?

I'm confused. It costs the same amount and will next semester as well. I don't even understand what sort of model you're proposing. If students receive the same credit for online courses, why exactly are they supposed to pay less? There are larger issues of college cost, but you're engaging in weird technocratic fantasies about the magical and transformative benefits of unbundling.

The number of people under 18 who took AP exams or enrolled in college courses more than doubled between 1995 and 2005, and media reports suggest it has continued to increase since then. Generally it's far cheaper for students to earn college credit while in high school than at a four-year university. There's your unbundling, which makes college credit hours more affordable for the non-wealthy.

[ciao_yall]

6 weeks in?

• Zoom classes don't work. They aren't terrible on an emergency basis. Still, too much is missing from the in-class experience.

[. . . ]

What percent of last year's students will be able and willing to pay for the "in-class experience" next year? What's the number of potential students who have never been able or willing to pay for the "in-class experience"?

I'm confused. It costs the same amount and will next semester as well. I don't even understand what sort of model you're proposing. If students receive the same credit for online courses, why exactly are they supposed to pay less? There are larger issues of college cost, but you're engaging in weird technocratic fantasies about the magical and transformative benefits of unbundling.

The number of people under 18 who took AP exams or enrolled in college courses more than doubled between 1995 and 2005, and media reports suggest it has continued to increase since then. Generally it's far cheaper for students to earn college credit while in high school than at a four-year university. There's your unbundling, which makes college credit hours more affordable for the non-wealthy.

Because the value of the "in-class" experience has always been the "on-campus" experience, in which a student gets to leave their home environment, meet lots of new people, and come into adulthood with lots of other young adults.

We used to offer free college tuition for in-state universities, and generous financial aid to make sure everyone could afford to have this experience. You know, social mobility and all of that.