Poll on professor's productivity when forced to work from home

[Parasaurolophus]

No more of that "I went to every single class and he didn't teach anything" crap on end-of-semester evaluations.

I watched every single video/powerpoint lecture and he didn't teach anything. =/

[spork]

No more of that "I went to every single class and he didn't teach anything" crap on end-of-semester evaluations.

I watched every single video/powerpoint lecture and he didn't teach anything. =/

You got me there.

[mamselle]

Did someone post this already? (Did I?)

Anyway...if you missed it...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

Tl;dr : best line is at 4:37!

M.

[Vkw10]

I'm much more productive three days a week and completely unproductive the other two days. One of the unproductive days is devoted to the insane reporting currently being required for remote work. The other is due to dealing with the weekly freak outs of people who report to me. It probably balances out.

[richardhh]

For me doing research on my own has become much more productive. I do not have to be regularly harassed by undergrads showing up at my door without appointments, or spend a lot of time on commuting to work, having small talks or multiple-hour-long lunches with colleagues, or traveling to some boring conferences and adjusting to jetlags. There is also less committee work since a lot of regular activities may not resume any time soon.

However, research collaboration and student mentoring has now become more difficult. Chatting on Zoom is still very different from communicating face-to-face. And I also miss the pre-COVID-19 days when I was able to choose between working in my cozy office and WFH.

[the_geneticist]

I'm more productive, but I've had to put in more time on weekends than I'd want to again.  Now that I've been through the online version once, I can be much more proactive in Fall to avoid spending all day on Sunday uploading class materials.

I imagine that folks who suddenly have childcare and/or homeschooling responsibilities are feeling spread way too thin.  Working from home is one thing, trying to do your job and teach math to your bored, squirrelly kid is quite another.

[mamselle]

It may not be an option for everyone, but I was hired by the parent of one of my students to oversee her ADHD son's homework for that reason.

She's the online education coordinator at her (large R1) school....

She's also good at assessing her bandwidth in advance.

M.

[Hibush]

Service/committee meetings are more efficient because I don't have to get to and from them, and people are (so far) much less likely to take the floor in a virtual meeting to explain that they agree with personX for 9 reasons which they will now enumerate in full.

This is so great. I have been doing a couple a day, and the higher efficeincy is great. Having the chat box open is a useful side outlet as well. I'm sorely tempted to stop doing F2F committee meetings altogether, and just talk to those people 1 to1 outside the meeting.

[onthefringe]

Service/committee meetings are more efficient because I don't have to get to and from them, and people are (so far) much less likely to take the floor in a virtual meeting to explain that they agree with personX for 9 reasons which they will now enumerate in full.

This is so great. I have been doing a couple a day, and the higher efficeincy is great. Having the chat box open is a useful side outlet as well. I'm sorely tempted to stop doing F2F committee meetings altogether, and just talk to those people 1 to1 outside the meeting.

Yes, chat is a key outlet for a subset of people, especially if you promise to harvest the chat questions/comments and take them under consideration. Chat is also a great place to respond to 20 questions that all translate to "How does this affect ME in MY particular situation" and 30 versions of "I didn't read the pre-meeting materials, but want you to know that I hope X is covered in them".

[Aster]

Service/committee meetings are more efficient because I don't have to get to and from them, and people are (so far) much less likely to take the floor in a virtual meeting to explain that they agree with personX for 9 reasons which they will now enumerate in full.

This is so great. I have been doing a couple a day, and the higher efficeincy is great. Having the chat box open is a useful side outlet as well. I'm sorely tempted to stop doing F2F committee meetings altogether, and just talk to those people 1 to1 outside the meeting.

I am experiencing the complete opposite. Most of my colleagues have bailed on service and committee work either entirely or almost entirely.

Very little is going through. Almost everything is deferred. When someone tries to push some service work through, email invites go unanswered. Zoom requests are unanswered. People claim that "I'm too busy right now".

I've been waiting for two months for one committee to approve a course textbook that adjunct faculty are required to use. Only this committee has the authority to approve this book, and they know it. They were supposed to have approved one back in April. I've been badgering the person in charge every few weeks, and I keep getting stonewalled.

I had to cancel a couple of other committees back in March because I couldn't get sufficient participation.

It's almost as if professors are blaming the college for coronavirus and using that as justification for not performing critical work.

[rxprof]

I am getting work done, but it is painful. I have a young toddler and elementary school child. I struggle to quantify how much time I am actually working because my partner and I switch between parenting based on each of our commitments throughout the day. I do a lot in the evenings, including many student meetings.

We have been told that we will be working from home through 2020, unless there is a specific obligation for which you need to be on campus for a specific period of time (e.g., teaching for 2 hours on a specific day) and it is approved by administration. I anticipate this will extend into 2021. It's going to long year.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I think it has been about the same as usual for me this summer.  I don't have young kids or other major distractions, and although I do procrastinate a bit more it seems to even out since there is no commute or office chit-chat to distract me (my wife is around, but she's working from home too and on a fixed schedule, so not much interaction from ~8am-4pm). 

[Golazo]

I have two small humans in the house. One of them is sleeping, and the other is behaving, which means I got work done (yeah!) and now get to play. Until wakeup, or crisis in two minutes, or...

[mleok]

With two kids in elementary school now stuck at home, and two remote classes, my research productivity in the Spring quarter was virtually  nonexistent. We just finished the Spring quarter, so I'm hoping to ramp back up in terms of research during the summer.

[mamselle]

I don't think this has been posted yet:

   https://www.wired.com/story/screen-share-a-college-teachers-zoom-journal-anne-fadiman/


M.