Spring Semester Planning

[downer]

Normally at this time of year Spring scheduling is underway or even sorted out.

What's happening this year? A repeat of fall plans? A return to campus? Everything back to normal? Or is planning being delayed?

Here on the east coast, my impression is that while there's a real desire to return more students to classrooms, and there's some move in that direction, chairs are also preparing for the likely eventuality that everything remains online.

[mythbuster]

We are planning as if the status quo holds, but hoping for better. So all my courses are currently planning for remote instruction. If things improve, we might try to shift some larger portion of the labs back to in person. But that is up to each instructor, so I think it's unlikely to happen.

[Caracal]

Normally at this time of year Spring scheduling is underway or even sorted out.

What's happening this year? A repeat of fall plans? A return to campus? Everything back to normal? Or is planning being delayed?

Here on the east coast, my impression is that while there's a real desire to return more students to classrooms, and there's some move in that direction, chairs are also preparing for the likely eventuality that everything remains online.

My chair sent around a document asking everyone to mark their preference for teaching mode with online, in person and hybrid options. On the google doc most people chose online synchronous options, which is what I did too. Most of us picked hybrid when we did it back in the early summer for this Fall semester.

Personally, my decision isn't driven my increased fear of catching COVID. I'm sick of the uncertainty and I've lost confidence that our administration can really be trusted. To be fair to them, some places have done much worse, but I don't want to be sitting around in January waiting for someone to tell me what the new, improved plan is.

Of course, the question is whether the school is ok with most classes being taught online. I suspect they might be, and the actual plan is to declare a resumption of in person classes, but actually have the large majority of classes be online.

[Parasaurolophus]

Everything in this city will still be online.

[EdnaMode]

At my institution in the northeast we were given the choice of how we wanted to teach in the spring. Many here are choosing online synchronous if they have lecture-based courses. I have labs to teach, along with lectures, so I and others in the same situation are going hybrid by doing synchronous online lectures with smaller lab sections in person to accommodate spacing. We will probably get away with the same number of lab sections we normally teach because enrollment is down. No official word on spring break yet, but many of the schools around us are cancelling it so I think chances are good we will follow.

[Ruralguy]

We're in the mid-Atlantic/southeast and  we opened this fall with a split plan for the semester (to allow students to take approx half load a time so that if we went online, they'd only have to deal with half of their courses at once). Its probably most similar to a block plan. In any case, we're trying for that again in spring . About 2-3% of students/faculty/staff  have had COVID, though that's mostly students. We aren't all continuously tested, so out best estimate is that about half of that are actively infected at a given moment. If those numbers double, we'll likely close, or at least more severely restrict what we're doing, but for financial reasons, we more or less need to tough it out as long as we can manage it.

[lilyb]

We are in-person and planning a late start for Spring semester--I've heard late January and early February. We'll need to have a decision soon.

[OneMoreYear]

My university is still "dynamic, flexible" or something like that, with about 30% of courses having some in person component (though most of that is hybrid for labs/studio, with only a few in-person lecture-based); theoretically, faculty can choose, with chairs making the final approval on delivery method. I have not heard anyone being forced to teach in a method they did not request, and I think the union would be up in arms (not trying to start a union discussion on this thread; I'm not eligible for membership). We have very few self-reported cases (we have no official testing plan to date).  My department will continue fully remote instruction (online synchronous) for Spring by faculty consensus.   This will likely make some students happy and some upset; so it goes.

[AmLitHist]

We usually roll the schedule spring-to-spring and fall-to-fall, but this year we're rolling fall-to-spring.  So, almost exclusively online again.

Our Division has also been asked to keep all class assignments the same (i.e., I'll be teaching the same things at the same time).  I wish we'd always do this.

[arcturus]

Our spring break is cancelled. All of our large classes are to be offered online-only. All face-to-face and hybrid classes are to be offered online-only during the first few weeks of the semester. What is not clear is whether students will be returning to the dorms before the start of classes, so that this online-only period acts as a quarantine period, or whether students will be returning to the dorms mid-semester, during the coldest and most icky-weather time of the year. I do hope that the spring roll-out will be less traumatic than the fall roll-out, which included numerous technology fails during the first week of school. It has to get better, right?

[Bonnie]

Normally at this time of year Spring scheduling is underway or even sorted out.

What's happening this year? A repeat of fall plans? A return to campus? Everything back to normal? Or is planning being delayed?

Here on the east coast, my impression is that while there's a real desire to return more students to classrooms, and there's some move in that direction, chairs are also preparing for the likely eventuality that everything remains online.

My chair sent around a document asking everyone to mark their preference for teaching mode with online, in person and hybrid options. On the google doc most people chose online synchronous options, which is what I did too. Most of us picked hybrid when we did it back in the early summer for this Fall semester.

Personally, my decision isn't driven my increased fear of catching COVID. I'm sick of the uncertainty and I've lost confidence that our administration can really be trusted. To be fair to them, some places have done much worse, but I don't want to be sitting around in January waiting for someone to tell me what the new, improved plan is.

Of course, the question is whether the school is ok with most classes being taught online. I suspect they might be, and the actual plan is to declare a resumption of in person classes, but actually have the large majority of classes be online.

This. Absolutely this. Had me thinking for a moment we were at the same institution.

[Sun_Worshiper]

We're doing a hybrid model, with some faculty at home and others in the classroom (ditto for students).  I think it will be the same in Spring, although the situation is "dynamic," as the Admins keep saying.  I also think that Spring Break will be cancelled, although I haven't heard anything about it yet.

[spork]

Spring schedule will be finalized this week, as usual. No changes to the academic calendar, no contingency plan if the campus closes part of the way into the semester, nothing. I am hoping that I'm allowed to continue teaching totally online. But there's been no announcement about that yet.

[Vkw10]

Spring schedule is being finalized this week. We didn't alter calendar for fall and I've heard no discussion of altering it for spring. We're currently about 40% online, about 40% hybrid, and about 20% face-to-face. It's likely spring will be similar. Our enrollment dropped less than 2%, so upper administration feels that offering students many options was successful.

We're testing on voluntary basis, primarily when people have symptoms or are contacts of person with positive test.

[clean]

As far as I know the schedule is well under way.

Im on the Calendar Committee and we meet tomorrow.  The registrar noted that some schools are cancelling spring break, so it may come up, but we are a compass point school, and will do what the Big School does. 

for those cancelling Spring Break, what is the result?
(starting later?  Finishing earlier?  or mini breaks spaced apart?)