Attendance in Fall F2F given COVID-19

[bopper]

(Warning; Satire)
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-message-from-your-universitys-vice-president-for-magical-thinking?

[Puget]

Apparently students are trying to get extensions for assignments based on "not feeling well", "anxiety that I may have been exposed", etc.

A strategy I learned from the "Jedi mind tricks" thread (or maybe the "humane policies that make life easier" thread) on the old fora was to simply drop the lowest 2-3 scores on frequent, low-stakes assignments, and have a hard no late submissions policy. That way, it doesn't matter-- not feeling well, anxious, busy with other classes, computer crashed, just forgot-- no problem, they can use one of their "freebies". You get to look like you're being generous and you don't have to adjudicate their excuses.

Of course, I sometimes do end up letting students make up additional assignments when there are documented extenuating circumstances-- generally only if I've heard from their advisor about an illness/family emergency etc., or if it is an excellent student I trust is not making excuses. But these are relatively rare, and the rest of the students tend to spend their freebies carefully and not complain.

[Caracal]

Apparently students are trying to get extensions for assignments based on "not feeling well", "anxiety that I may have been exposed", etc.

A strategy I learned from the "Jedi mind tricks" thread (or maybe the "humane policies that make life easier" thread) on the old fora was to simply drop the lowest 2-3 scores on frequent, low-stakes assignments, and have a hard no late submissions policy. That way, it doesn't matter-- not feeling well, anxious, busy with other classes, computer crashed, just forgot-- no problem, they can use one of their "freebies". You get to look like you're being generous and you don't have to adjudicate their excuses.

Of course, I sometimes do end up letting students make up additional assignments when there are documented extenuating circumstances-- generally only if I've heard from their advisor about an illness/family emergency etc., or if it is an excellent student I trust is not making excuses. But these are relatively rare, and the rest of the students tend to spend their freebies carefully and not complain.

Yeah, I do the same. Assuming we do have classes in the fall, which I'm increasingly doubtful about, the problem is that I wouldn't want to be doing anything to cause a student to come to class sick. I don't want the student who missed two classes early to then start worrying about their grade and come when they have a cough. But, it seems like a solvable problem as long as you can just accept it won't be ideal. Scheduled make ups of some sort, some kind of alternative assignment that is actually a little harder, etc etc.

[the_geneticist]

(Warning; Satire)
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-message-from-your-universitys-vice-president-for-magical-thinking?

WOW!  Funny and sad and entirely too real . . . .

[Cheerful]

(Warning; Satire)
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-message-from-your-universitys-vice-president-for-magical-thinking?

WOW!  Funny and sad and entirely too real . . . .

+1

[apl68]

(Warning; Satire)
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-message-from-your-universitys-vice-president-for-magical-thinking?

WOW!  Funny and sad and entirely too real . . . .

Hey, don't laugh at the part about the Dean of Libraries looking for wish-granting entities.  The R1 library I used to work for had some seventeenth-century grimoires in its collection.  A good research librarian can set you up with almost anything!

[Puget]

Apparently students are trying to get extensions for assignments based on "not feeling well", "anxiety that I may have been exposed", etc.

A strategy I learned from the "Jedi mind tricks" thread (or maybe the "humane policies that make life easier" thread) on the old fora was to simply drop the lowest 2-3 scores on frequent, low-stakes assignments, and have a hard no late submissions policy. That way, it doesn't matter-- not feeling well, anxious, busy with other classes, computer crashed, just forgot-- no problem, they can use one of their "freebies". You get to look like you're being generous and you don't have to adjudicate their excuses.

Of course, I sometimes do end up letting students make up additional assignments when there are documented extenuating circumstances-- generally only if I've heard from their advisor about an illness/family emergency etc., or if it is an excellent student I trust is not making excuses. But these are relatively rare, and the rest of the students tend to spend their freebies carefully and not complain.

Yeah, I do the same. Assuming we do have classes in the fall, which I'm increasingly doubtful about, the problem is that I wouldn't want to be doing anything to cause a student to come to class sick. I don't want the student who missed two classes early to then start worrying about their grade and come when they have a cough. But, it seems like a solvable problem as long as you can just accept it won't be ideal. Scheduled make ups of some sort, some kind of alternative assignment that is actually a little harder, etc etc.

Right, you certainly don't want to incentivize them going to class sick.  I was assuming there would be strict rules about not going to class sick (on our campus everyone is supposed to fill out a symptom checklist before leaving home/dorm every day), and at least an online option (even our classes that meet partly in person will have online options since not all students will be on campus), which students who are feeling sick can participate in. My plan for discussion sections is that even if they are on campus, if they are feeling at all sick they must participate in an online section that week instead. Obviously if they are seriously ill they would get a chance to make it up later, just as they would in any semester. The dropping a few strategy is more to deal with the  "I was feeling too anxious/stressed" students-- they can take a mental health break when they really need one, but need to think about if they want to spend a freebie on it or not.

[polly_mer]

The problem with the intersection of labs and covid is multiple students are unlikely to be missing just one or two labs during the term.  What happens when half the section ends up out for a month each at staggered times?

I have no answers, but I remember well my first term at Super Dinky when I discovered I was required to make up every lab for every student who had an athletic conflict.  That meant I was teaching one lab at the scheduled time, one lab for soccer, one lab for football, and one lab for volleyball.  I pointed out what a bad plan it was to teach the same lab four times in a week most weeks for a total of 16 students enrolled in the course.

We got lab time moved to the morning to fix the situation in future terms because making up one or two labs a term is reasonable.

[Caracal]

The problem with the intersection of labs and covid is multiple students are unlikely to be missing just one or two labs during the term.  What happens when half the section ends up out for a month each at staggered times?

I mean if half the class actually has Covid, I'm assuming there aren't going to be any labs. I'm certainly not going to be teaching my class in person if that's the case.

[polly_mer]

The problem with the intersection of labs and covid is multiple students are unlikely to be missing just one or two labs during the term.  What happens when half the section ends up out for a month each at staggered times?

I mean if half the class actually has Covid, I'm assuming there aren't going to be any labs. I'm certainly not going to be teaching my class in person if that's the case.

What's the plan as we get to that point?  At what point does the institution just close up shop because there aren't enough people to make it worthwhile for the rest of the term?  What happens to the healthy students in the section who paid good money in good faith?

I'm seriously asking because that will be the situation in the fall on many campuses that aren't acting like islands with no one in or out.

The wish for campuses to be open like normal with the idea of handling a handful of cases each as a one-off is much more wish than plan, especially if the idea is people are only sick for a calendar week.

You're an English professor who can teach online.  Converting labs to online in the middle of the term again in the fall on short notice is a bad idea, known to everyone except the people making large-scale decisions.

[mythbuster]

OP here. Polly has it right. Additionally, many of our labs have skills that build on previous skills. So if you miss week 3, you can't just skip to week 4. It doesn't work that way.
   So what do you do? I imagine in week 3 or 4 or whenever, you have 2 students out sick (may COVID, maybe not) 2 students in self-quarantine because people at their work tested positive, and 3 students so wigged out they refuse to come to lab. We are only having half the students come into lab at any one time, so out of the 12 in one half a section, I now have 7 who have missed the hands on experience. At what point do you just close up shop and all go online?
   I am one of those people who will die on the hill of preserving hands-on labs. But I'm voting for all online this Fall, labs included! Not out of fear, but out of seeing the high likelihood for utter chaos. No one learns well in chaos. I would rather students learn more from just OK online simulations than bounce back and forth and just be even more stressed out.

[Caracal]

The problem with the intersection of labs and covid is multiple students are unlikely to be missing just one or two labs during the term.  What happens when half the section ends up out for a month each at staggered times?

I mean if half the class actually has Covid, I'm assuming there aren't going to be any labs. I'm certainly not going to be teaching my class in person if that's the case.

What's the plan as we get to that point?  At what point does the institution just close up shop because there aren't enough people to make it worthwhile for the rest of the term?  What happens to the healthy students in the section who paid good money in good faith?

I'm seriously asking because that will be the situation in the fall on many campuses that aren't acting like islands with no one in or out.

The wish for campuses to be open like normal with the idea of handling a handful of cases each as a one-off is much more wish than plan, especially if the idea is people are only sick for a calendar week.

You're an English professor who can teach online.  Converting labs to online in the middle of the term again in the fall on short notice is a bad idea, known to everyone except the people making large-scale decisions.

I'm not advocating for it. I'm also not an English professor...

[OneMoreYear]

OP here. Polly has it right. Additionally, many of our labs have skills that build on previous skills. So if you miss week 3, you can't just skip to week 4. It doesn't work that way.
   So what do you do? I imagine in week 3 or 4 or whenever, you have 2 students out sick (may COVID, maybe not) 2 students in self-quarantine because people at their work tested positive, and 3 students so wigged out they refuse to come to lab. We are only having half the students come into lab at any one time, so out of the 12 in one half a section, I now have 7 who have missed the hands on experience. At what point do you just close up shop and all go online?
   I am one of those people who will die on the hill of preserving hands-on labs. But I'm voting for all online this Fall, labs included! Not out of fear, but out of seeing the high likelihood for utter chaos. No one learns well in chaos. I would rather students learn more from just OK online simulations than bounce back and forth and just be even more stressed out.

Yup. One of the lab classes I'm teaching this year has absolutely no business being taught online in a typical year.  Nobody would look at the course and say "Yes, it is totally reasonable to imagine this as an online course." Our accreditors would not allow it. But we are not in reasonable times; we are in a pandemic.  There is also no way to teach the class in-person and use appropriate social distancing, given the course activities (I realize this might not be true of all types of labs as this one is not representative, but it is true of this one). So we are going remote. It will not be awesome. It might approach acceptable. It is the only solution (for me). My entire department has made the call to go online without exception for academic coursework.  There are other types of experiences that we're still trying to work out.

[Ruralguy]

If we announce we're all online half of our students will withdraw. We'd probably go out of business fairly quickly.
We absolutely have to start in person.

[nonsensical]

A strategy I learned from the "Jedi mind tricks" thread (or maybe the "humane policies that make life easier" thread) on the old fora was to simply drop the lowest 2-3 scores on frequent, low-stakes assignments, and have a hard no late submissions policy. That way, it doesn't matter-- not feeling well, anxious, busy with other classes, computer crashed, just forgot-- no problem, they can use one of their "freebies". You get to look like you're being generous and you don't have to adjudicate their excuses.

Of course, I sometimes do end up letting students make up additional assignments when there are documented extenuating circumstances-- generally only if I've heard from their advisor about an illness/family emergency etc., or if it is an excellent student I trust is not making excuses. But these are relatively rare, and the rest of the students tend to spend their freebies carefully and not complain.

I also like dropping the lowest few scores, and I think this works well when students have minor things come up. I'm a little confused about the last part here, though. I might be misunderstanding about the excellent student bit, but I try not to have my subjective judgment influence how I enforce course policies. Student A might seem more trustworthy to me than Student B, and that could be based on actual trustworthiness, but it could also be based on my own biases or on the fact that I've developed less rapport with Student B for whatever reason and so don't have a good sense of how trustworthy they are or my own misinterpretation of the behavior of either student. For sure I work with students who have documented reasons to be accommodated, but I wouldn't base my decisions on that on my own sense of what kind of person the student is.