On online teaching

[sleigh]

 I'm finding that teaching online is significantly more work as an instructor -- because I have to do more preparation for each week since I've never taught online before, and because I'm receiving more questions/issues/problems from students that have to be individually addressed. 

It's only five more weeks, though, and then I won't have to worry about it since I won't be back teaching after the Spring semester... but my colleagues will be. Good luck to all of you in these crazy times.

Comments

[minnehaha]

I think after a few weeks everyone will be expert at this, don't you?

My grands have distant-learning for elementary and junior high starting tomorrow. That should be a laff riot of failures.

K.

[sleigh]

I'm just sad for the students, who are paying a fuck-ton of money in tuition and have had that education watered down, amateurized, and altered without having any say in the matter. None of it's their fault, none of it's the fault of their teachers, but I'm seeing institutions (including mine) responding by continuing to follow rules and regulations that make no sense in Pandemic World. For instance, we're now past the deadline when students can withdraw from a class and get a "W" on their transcript -- which means that an instructor HAS to give all remaining students a grade despite the fact they're coming back to a fundamentally altered class situation without having any voice or choice in the matter.

As I wrote on the NKU Faculty page on FB where people were arguing about some universities going to Pass/Fail grading or to continue to grade as usual: "The compassionate approach would be to allow students who find that this has seriously damaged their interest in this semester to withdraw and receive at least half of their tuition back. I have a couple students who would probably take a "W" if offered that way... and who might otherwise fail the course if I took a hardline approach (which I won't) because they're no longer engaged. This is an unprecedented situation, and a university should be flexible enough to forget the old rules for the nonce."

Trying to navigate a pandemic by blindly following rules developed to work under different circumstances is pure folly -- no matter what segment of society we're talking about.