How is classroom teaching different from before the pandemic?

[apl68]

[To further hijack the thread, I am curious if other schools offer late registration/late start courses, and if they go any better than my experience.]

There are some groups of students who do very well in them. We are running a corequisite intermediate/college algebra and we have a late-start intermediate algebra course in the same time slot so that students can withdraw and join the slower class. We also tend to have solid results from classes that enroll high school dual enrollment students -- the late start begins after labor day and fits their schedule better.

That's good to hear.  Jerseyjay's experience had me concerned that colleges were using these late registration classes as a scam to trick unprepared and unwary students.  But it sounds like they can have a legitimate place for some students.

[mythbuster]

We also have mid-semester "parachute" classes. If you are failing Gen Chem 1, a student can drop and register for mid-semester start Introductory Chemistry, which hopefully will get the student up to speed for a successful second attempt at Gen Chem 1.

[mamselle]

Sounds like a good way to catch them while they're falling rather than after they've crashed to the ground.

M.

[jerseyjay]

I think that late registration courses can work well. The justification that the president gave for the course however, was rather cynical.

Evidently this is somewhat controversial at the college, because in going through my email, I saw a report from some committee about this. Based on the one semester they surveyed, such classes actually have a slightly lower withdrawal/failure rate than normal classes, but a slight but significantly lower average grade. [This is not my main school, and I tend not to follow controversies or read committee reports, since I get enough of that at my full-time employer.]

[no1capybara]

We also have mid-semester "parachute" classes. If you are failing Gen Chem 1, a student can drop and register for mid-semester start Introductory Chemistry, which hopefully will get the student up to speed for a successful second attempt at Gen Chem 1.

Wow, I have never heard of this idea. It would've been of great benefit at two of my previous employers.  How large is your university? 

[mahagonny]

Our students are strangely depressed, disengaged, and lethargic.  The ethos is bad.  I am just not sure what changed...

We also are worried about FTW, but in our case the administration is just lopping off body parts.

Same here. They seem lazier than ever. That mood, 'what is the least I can do to get through this course and get the credit' is in the air.

[Aster]

We also have mid-semester "parachute" classes. If you are failing Gen Chem 1, a student can drop and register for mid-semester start Introductory Chemistry, which hopefully will get the student up to speed for a successful second attempt at Gen Chem 1.

Wow, I have never heard of this idea. It would've been of great benefit at two of my previous employers.  How large is your university?

Oh good grief. This would be a nightmare for the chemistry laboratory operations. You'd have to create special laboratory courses and laboratory schedules to synchronize up with the mid-semester lecture courses. And those laboratory courses would be essentially running on accelerated summer schedules, which are a PITA.

If you've maybe got a spare unused chemistry laboratory lying around to shoehorn the abbreviated chemistry laboratory into, you could do this. It would suck for the department head and laboratory staff to operate this while simultaneously running the regular chemistry classes in the regular term schedule, but it's possible. But I don't know of any universities that have spare unused chemistry laboratories.

This is exactly why Big Urban College *doesn't* usually offer "parachute" classes in anything where there is a matching co-requisite laboratory course. Our (non science, no -faculty) admin-critters cooked up the idea of mid-semester repeat classes after reading some newspaper articles about them. Against the loud and majority faculty statements decrying the idea as highly disruptive to academic scheduling, the admin-critters did it anyway. But almost no faculty volunteer to teach these classes.

[marshwiggle]

We also have mid-semester "parachute" classes. If you are failing Gen Chem 1, a student can drop and register for mid-semester start Introductory Chemistry, which hopefully will get the student up to speed for a successful second attempt at Gen Chem 1.

Wow, I have never heard of this idea. It would've been of great benefit at two of my previous employers.  How large is your university?

Oh good grief. This would be a nightmare for the chemistry laboratory operations. You'd have to create special laboratory courses and laboratory schedules to synchronize up with the mid-semester lecture courses. And those laboratory courses would be essentially running on accelerated summer schedules, which are a PITA.

If you've maybe got a spare unused chemistry laboratory lying around to shoehorn the abbreviated chemistry laboratory into, you could do this. It would suck for the department head and laboratory staff to operate this while simultaneously running the regular chemistry classes in the regular term schedule, but it's possible. But I don't know of any universities that have spare unused chemistry laboratories.

This applies to any program with labs. Furthermore, unless these students are required to drop additional courses, it's unclear to me how adding an accelerated class to their schedule is going to improve their situation.

[Biologist_]

We also have mid-semester "parachute" classes. If you are failing Gen Chem 1, a student can drop and register for mid-semester start Introductory Chemistry, which hopefully will get the student up to speed for a successful second attempt at Gen Chem 1.

...Furthermore, unless these students are required to drop additional courses, it's unclear to me how adding an accelerated class to their schedule is going to improve their situation.

I'm not familiar with these parachute classes, but my guess is that the parachute class is not accelerated. Instead, the student bails on the original class in favor of the parachute class, which trains the student in basic skills that will allow the student to retake the original class a term later with a greater likelihood of success.

Mythbuster, how is this recorded on the student's transcript at your institution? I could imagine a "W" in the original class and a "CR" in the (lower-unit?) parachute class, but I could imagine lots of other ways of handling it too.

As other posters have said, the Chem department on my campus wouldn't have the lab space available to make this work. All of the Gen Chem labs are booked morning to night all week long except for an hour a day for the technical staff to go in and restock.

[mahagonny]

I know, it's an incredibly broad question, but consider it also a chance to vent.

I've been teaching online since the pandemic started, having taken a fully-online job.  I'm interviewing for a new job that would require my teaching in the classroom, for a 50% pay bump and in a place I want to live and can't currently afford (see 50% pay bump). 

I just talked to a friend of mine who said it's horrible: students plagiarize (I've run into a lot of this myself this past school year) and claim they can't take tests on time because they have COVID (for the fifth time this semester) and generally don't do the work and administration is so worried about FTE that professors are told to essentially eliminate standards and deadlines (which I've also seen a bit of).  I don't know if this is true elsewhere or if my friend is just really unlucky or burnt out (or all of the above).

I'd like to get some opinions on how things are working now before I decide to take the jump.  Thanks!

It must be confusing for students to be told that so many ways of assessing progress, mastery are racist.

Speaking for myself; between one and two years ago I had to cease identifying with (or in many cases even listening to) democrats. Their messages about us, our future are overwhelmingly negative. A psychiatrist would be concerned about someone being calm and happy in this environment.

I suppose someone will comment that I hijacked the thread to talk about politics. I find society is all politics all the time now. Late night talk shows for instance.  Thirty years ago Johnny Carson would start out with light hearted, poking-fun-at-anyone (including, in trademark fashion, himself) topical humor. But it was a different variety from what you get from Jimmy Kimmel, Steven Colbert, et al. They don't poke fun at public figures. They promote the left view of the world relentlessly and when you're supposed to laugh at a public figure it's more often than not the premise is 'this joke is funny because we all hate this person.'
Divisive political commentary and taking sides are everywhere. It's entertainment now.

ETA -  Now for something that everyone might agree with: Spending more time than ever on social media is making young people sadder, more stressed out and feeling worse about themselves.

Encore: Study shows that as BIPOC students get higher grades, they have fewer friends. Studying a lot is 'acting too white.' I'm not sure this is new, but added to everything else going on...
Depending on which department I'm teaching in, my class can be as many as 1/3 or more BIPOC students. At least, that's how they appear to me.

[mythbuster]

About the parachute classes. First it is lecture only. Our chem labs are a separate stand alone credit. The students get to stay in the usual lab, unless they are really failing it as well. There is no parachute lab- that WOULD be a nightmare. My department (Bio) is pondering setting up something similar, but it would require us to de-couple the lab with the lecture. This is a contentious issue.

The way it works is that students who have a failing grade right before the late start registration get "invited" to switch classes. Yes they are moving DOWN to the course that is for people with no HS chem, rather than the standard intro course. So they will essentially be retaking the material they were failing to begin with, a bit slower and with more hand holding on the problem solving part. They also shoehorn in some extra basic math instruction.
   Yes students then have a W on their transcript, but also have the extra equivalent credits of Intro to Chem, which we hope they pass. This will keep them on track in terms of credits passed for various progress checks. It also helps all those financial aid setups with GPA cutoffs.
  No all who are invited take the offer. Those who need it the most are often the most resistant, or hard to even track down.

[marshwiggle]

About the parachute classes. First it is lecture only. Our chem labs are a separate stand alone credit. The students get to stay in the usual lab, unless they are really failing it as well. There is no parachute lab- that WOULD be a nightmare. My department (Bio) is pondering setting up something similar, but it would require us to de-couple the lab with the lecture. This is a contentious issue.

The way it works is that students who have a failing grade right before the late start registration get "invited" to switch classes. Yes they are moving DOWN to the course that is for people with no HS chem, rather than the standard intro course. So they will essentially be retaking the material they were failing to begin with, a bit slower and with more hand holding on the problem solving part.

This is the part I don't get. Is "Intro to Chem" only offered at this speed, or is there a version that starts at the beginning of term as well? If so, it seems to me this version has to be going faster than the "normal" version.

[mythbuster]

Yes there is a full semester Intro to Chem. Students with no HS Chemistry are directed to it. But this puts you "off track" for a STEM major so students resist starting there.
     Students who had HS Chem get directed to General Chem, which is the requirement for various STEM majors. If you had a bad HS course, don't remember enough Chem, or are otherwise unprepared for a college level Chem course and workload, you may need the Intro to Chem refresher.  I don't teach the course, so I cannot address your question of topic coverage. My guess is that for the parachute course, there are known topics that get more time (Stoichiometry), and other that get less (Parts of the atom etc) based on past student experiences. Some things may be online modules so in-class time can be dedicated to more challenging issues. I do know the parachute course is heavy on the "flipped" model.

[kiana]

The way it works is that students who have a failing grade right before the late start registration get "invited" to switch classes. Yes they are moving DOWN to the course that is for people with no HS chem, rather than the standard intro course. So they will essentially be retaking the material they were failing to begin with, a bit slower and with more hand holding on the problem solving part.

This is the part I don't get. Is "Intro to Chem" only offered at this speed, or is there a version that starts at the beginning of term as well? If so, it seems to me this version has to be going faster than the "normal" version.

It would be going faster than a full-semester course, yes. But it'd also be covering less new/more review material and at a more basic level. You can go a lot faster when it's true review.

Can't speak to mythbuster's college, but at ours it's also fewer credits than the full-semester chem (though not half).

[lightning]

We have been "back to normal" for a while now.

When I was no longer forced to offer multiple delivery formats, I lost a lot of students. Some of them were already doing poorly, so I was probably going to lose them under any circumstances.

I found out that one of the students was actually working at their job, while "attending" class remotely, and another was involved in a high-stakes video game tournament.

So my classes got a lot smaller, after the university switched to post-pandemic "back to normal." And, that's fine with me. The only students left are the ones that matter. The rest of them--the filler--they can all play their video games or work their jobs, or whatever they were doing when the pandemic provided cover for their parallel activities while "attending" class.