lowering standards for an online fall: IHE article

[polly_mer]

https://insidehighered.com/advice/2020/08/19/it%E2%80%99s-compassion-not-capitulation-ask-less-students-amid-disruption-opinion

Do you want nurses who got compassion instead of being required to master content?  Engineers?  Doctors?  Lawyers?

Apparently, education is just going through the motions of classes instead of learning something...at least to keep faculty jobs.

[Vkw10]

https://insidehighered.com/advice/2020/08/19/it%E2%80%99s-compassion-not-capitulation-ask-less-students-amid-disruption-opinion

Do you want nurses who got compassion instead of being required to master content?  Engineers?  Doctors?  Lawyers?

Apparently, education is just going through the motions of classes instead of learning something...at least to keep faculty jobs.

Near the end, Ellis makes some concrete suggestions, including consider being more lenient with deadlines, consider reducing quantity of material to ensure mastery of the essentials, communicate with students about challenges they face and be willing to adapt to help them. He's not suggesting that faculty ignore quality and rigor, but that we examine our practices and adapt as appropriate.

The first course in the calculus sequence has to be held to a certain level of mastery to ensure students are prepared for later work. Does it have to include synchronous f2f instruction, which is difficult for students with marginal Internet? Could due dates be changed from MWF at beginning of class to you only get access to week 2 module when you've completed week 1? 

Compassion means thinking about modifications to "I've always done it this way" instead of just copying over your f2f course without thought.

[polly_mer]

That would be a great message, Vkw10.  That's not this article, though.

[spork]

https://insidehighered.com/advice/2020/08/19/it%E2%80%99s-compassion-not-capitulation-ask-less-students-amid-disruption-opinion

Do you want nurses who got compassion instead of being required to master content?  Engineers?  Doctors?  Lawyers?

Apparently, education is just going through the motions of classes instead of learning something...at least to keep faculty jobs.

Near the end, Ellis makes some concrete suggestions, including consider being more lenient with deadlines, consider reducing quantity of material to ensure mastery of the essentials, communicate with students about challenges they face and be willing to adapt to help them. He's not suggesting that faculty ignore quality and rigor, but that we examine our practices and adapt as appropriate.

The first course in the calculus sequence has to be held to a certain level of mastery to ensure students are prepared for later work. Does it have to include synchronous f2f instruction, which is difficult for students with marginal Internet? Could due dates be changed from MWF at beginning of class to you only get access to week 2 module when you've completed week 1? 

Compassion means thinking about modifications to "I've always done it this way" instead of just copying over your f2f course without thought.

I have a bone to pick about this. Not with you, but with the colleges and universities that have adopted policies that in effect assume f2f courses can be copied over to an online format without thought. The pre-pandemic rules mandated two hours of academic work outside the classroom for every f2f hour in the classroom. But to what have institutional leaders devoted 90% of their effort and money over the last six months? Rube Goldberg systems of live streaming lectures over the internet because that 1/3 of a course is so much more important than the other 2/3.

[Parasaurolophus]

I mean, yeah, sure.

But it shouldn't be catching us by surprise this time around (despite the brave face administrators have tried to put on it), so the assessments and courses should have been designed with going online in mind.