When and how should we open schools?

[once_upon]

Dayton and Fairborn schools are also going all remote till after New Year's.

(Why do I keep thinking today is Monday?)

Because its the 248th Monday since March 16th?

 

[million$momma]

There was chatter that Ontario schools might close for an extended Winter Break over the Christmas holiday (from 2 weeks to 4) but the education minister debunked this today. Our school transmission is low even though cases are increasing. Our province is doing everything in its power to keep schools open.

 

[Dobre]

The New York Times editorial page on its 2nd tear about New York schools going virtual in the last two times I have looked at it. And the governor complaining before that. Well, all of them should have this conversation with the teachers union. This was the agreement made when teachers agreed to return to work. If these people want to overturn that agreement, then they had better discuss it with the people putting their lives on the line in classrooms.

As far as I can tell, the state owes a lot of lives to the fact that those same teachers said enough is enough last spring.

On top of that, the news broadcast I just saw was complaining that schools are closing before something else. (Restaurants, maybe?) Well, New York has known the positivity rate was climbing. They knew what the cut-off agreement was. They had the opportunity to close other venues before hitting 3%. If they chose not to do so, that is not the teachers' fault.

End rant.

 

[Louis]

When and how should we reopen schools? New report from Unicef says immediately. That is, if we want to follow science rather than political motivations.

https://www.unicef.org/media/86881/...hildrens-day-data-and-advocacy-brief-2020.pdf

As reported in the New York Times

UNICEF warns of a ‘lost generation’ and finds school closures are ineffective.

www.nytimes.com

The report, based on surveys from 140 countries, paints an alarming picture of a generation facing “a trifecta of threats: direct consequences of the disease itself, interruption in essential services and increasing poverty and inequality."
If the interruption to basic services including vaccinations and health care does not improve, Unicef said that as many as two million children could die in the next 12 months and there could be an additional 200,000 stillbirths.

The report also found that school closures did little to slow the spread of the ***** while causing long-term harm. While higher education institutions have played a role in community transmission, studies cited in the report showed “no consistent association between school reopening status and *********-19 infection rates.”
“Unless the global community urgently changes priorities, the potential of this generation of young people may well be lost,” Unicef warned.

“The longer schools are closed, the more children suffer from extensive learning losses with long term negative impacts, including future income and health,” the report found.
As of November, according to the study, nearly 600 million students are still affected by school closures, with more governments considering renewed closures as the ***** surges, the report found.
New York City is closing its entire public school system starting Thursday, and other cities are considering similar closures, but Unicef found that such measures have not proven effective in slowing the spread of the *****.
“Children and schools are not the main drivers of the epidemic across countries,” the report found. “Evidence shows that the net benefits of keeping schools open outweigh the costs of closing them. Data from 191 countries show no consistent association between school reopening status and *********-19 infection rates.”

 

[Prancer]

When and how should we reopen schools? New report from Unicef says immediately. That is, if we want to follow science rather than political motivations.

And what is the political motivation again?

 

[Susan1]

When and how should we reopen schools? New report from Unicef says immediately. That is, if we want to follow science rather than political motivations.

https://www.unicef.org/media/86881/...hildrens-day-data-and-advocacy-brief-2020.pdf

As reported in the New York Times

UNICEF warns of a ‘lost generation’ and finds school closures are ineffective.

www.nytimes.com

Here I go again - talking to a wall -

2,808 new COVID cases in Ohio schools this week bring total near 10,000

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – On another day the Ohio Department of Health reported a new record daily increase in *********-19 cases, the agency reported a new record weekly increase in cases at Ohio school…

tinyurl.com

There are too many posts to go through and find the ones where I mentioned that, twice now, they didn't have enough bus drivers in Fairborn. Miamisburg High School's cafeteria workers were all out on quarantine and volunteers made sack lunches for students.

Facing a shortage, Columbus City Schools raises substitute teacher pay

Like many school districts, Ohio's largest is experiencing a shortage of substitute teachers likely exacerbated by the *********-19 *********.

www.dispatch.com

I can't open the Cleveland one without a subscription (same problem).

Miamisburg quarantined as of 11/13. (They have a list by schools and not a total, so "quick" adding?) - 64 students, 25 staff. 3 preschool cases were caused by contact on the bus. And we're not the largest district, even in this area. Bigger school district next door that just went virtual till the end of the year - 172 - "Total number of NEW quarantines throughout the district this week because of exposure to positive case AT SCHOOL."

Cleveland -

Here are the schools in Northeast Ohio going remote due to COVID-19

Several schools in Northeast Ohio have made the decision to do all-remote learning as *********-19 cases rise across the state.

tinyurl.com

 

[once_upon]

If we want to have schools open, then we need to priotize that and do actions designed to keep them open.

No indoor dining, no bars, no sports (including k-12, college, select, intramural, etc), no large group activities. I suspect people aren't that willing to prioritize it if they have to give up their favorite activities.

 

[MsZem]

If we want to have schools open, then we need to priotize that and do actions designed to keep them open.

No indoor dining, no bars, no sports (including k-12, college, select, intramural, etc), no large group activities. I suspect people aren't that willing to prioritize it if they have to give up their favorite activities.

Which is why it is up to governments and other relevant decision-makers to do so. Education is vastly more important than indoor dining and bars. There are appropriate workarounds for sports (which are also important for people's health): encouraging individual sports, focusing on outdoor activities in which distancing is possible, allowing teams to continue if they operate as part of a bubble.

 

[missing]

Which is why it is up to governments and other relevant decision-makers to do so. Education is vastly more important than indoor dining and bars. There are appropriate workarounds for sports (which are also important for people's health): encouraging individual sports, focusing on outdoor activities in which distancing is possible, allowing teams to continue if they operate as part of a bubble.

It's not that I disagree with you but the problem is everything can have a workaround if you really want to work around it.

Close the bars by 10 PM. Keep restaurants open but a maximum of 4 people to a table. Have large group activities outdoors, or indoors with lots and lots of space between people. Everything will be fine just as long as nobody sneezes.

I don't know if we should be in an all or nothing situation but one person's workaround is another person's things are getting a little murky around here.

 

[MsZem]

It's not that I disagree with you but the problem is everything can have a workaround if you really want to work around it.

Close the bars by 10 PM. Keep restaurants open but a maximum of 4 people to a table. Have large group activities outdoors, or indoors with lots and lots of space between people. Everything will be fine just as long as nobody sneezes.

No, that's not the same. The viirus doesn't go off the clock at 10pm, and ventilation is an issue indoors even if there are only four people to a table. The rule of thumb (with modifications, obviously) is outdoors good, indoors not so much - and education is an indoor activity that needs to be prioritized over others.

From a public health perspective, you do want people to stay active, and to do so in relative safety. Thus a workaround for sports is a good idea, and one for indoor dining is not.

 

[clairecloutier]

Recently we finished the first quarter of school for my kids. They have been going to school in-person four mornings a week, from 8:30-12:30, and are remote the rest of the time. I know I’m just one person, but I have to say that their in-person experience at school has been so, so valuable. Their teachers seem great, and they definitely are able to engage with their teachers more in-person.

Some might recall that I was worried about them starting middle school, as they both have academic areas where they struggle a bit. To my surprise, they have gotten off to a great start! Their grades and first report cards were very good. I’m so relieved, and can only attribute it to the quality of their teachers and the fact that they’ve been able to go to school in-person. (And of course their own work—they seem much more interested/engaged than in elementary school.) I know I’m biased but I think everything should be done to keep schools open as much as possible. Schools > bars and restaurants, for sure.

 

[Dobre]

Individual sports are not where the pressure to allow sports is coming from. No one in my hometown gives a dang if kids will have permission to play tennis or track.

It's basketball or no basketball.

(It better be no basketball).

 

[once_upon]

Individual sports are not where the pressure to allow sports is coming from. No one in my hometown gives a dang if kids will have permission to play tennis or track.

It's basketball or no basketball.

(It better be no basketball).

Its football, volleyball, basketball and baseball here. And select sports.

Hell - sports.

 

[Susan1]

Individual sports are not where the pressure to allow sports is coming from. No one in my hometown gives a dang if kids will have permission to play tennis or track.

It's basketball or no basketball.

(It better be no basketball).

DeWine thinks high school basketball will be o.k. because there aren't as many players on each team. And they are still going with only masked parents in the stands (inside). Then someone said it's up to the individual school. Well, if a school decided not to play, or can't play because of quarantines or something, that affects the team they were going to play that week. And might affect whoever they played last week's game against this week. We saw it in football. If one team had a positive case, the team they had contact with last week had to not play. And this was with all the padding and helmets and stuff. Basketball players are more exposed and they all touch the same basketball. And then there are the parties after the game. But....sports (parents).

 

[PrincessLeppard]

Similar to @Prancer 's experience with "high-risk but social" student, several of my remote kids, who are allegedly high-risk or who have parents who are, are working at the grocery store in town. The town that went 80% for Trump and thinks mask-wearing is for weenies.

I will say that, so far, while I have lots of students in quarantine, there's only one case that seems to be a school transmission. So yes, kids are getting it, but not at school. So as long as there are enough teachers, I don't mind staying at school. But yesterday, we were missing 8 of 52

 

[million$momma]

I can't believe that school sports are still running in some countries...high contact, no distancing, no masks, mixing cohorts...yikes! My daughter is hugely involved in school sports (Grade 9 female athlete of the year) and is surviving just fine without them.
We have regular classes running at the elementary level (can choose distance if high risk but you then belong to a distance learning school, not your home school)) and hybrid learning at our secondary schools (again, you can opt out and do full distance). There are no school sports or clubs running at either level. There have been random cases of *** at a variety of school (1 case each at about 12 different schools) but so far no school transmission. So far our return to school has been a positive experience. (...and I am a teacher...).

 

[tony]

One thing I'm going to throw into this thread is how annoying it is to have virtual classes with a bunch of people who literally do not give a shit about anything this semester and try to pull the 'OMG my life is turned upside down' act every two minutes.

Florida tried to reopen as a whole, including schools. So my school tried to do this 9-12 students per class thing, rotating each time we had a session, while the teacher still taught in front of a computer for the remaining people at home. Many of my Professors gave up on it after a week and told us all just to stay home and log in virtually at the assigned times to be lectured.

Since I haven't been in school for a while, I've learned that WhatsApp groups are all the rage now between students, but maybe it's because I'm old and have been through this Uni rodeo before, they are irritating as hell: it's literally just people complaining non-stop about the work they have to do and/or the ways they have figured out how to cheat on proctored exams. Literally, students bragging to 30-45 other people they've never met how they can go around the system. In every single course I'm in. I've removed myself from most of them because it's crazy.

Then you have the students that were complaining about how they don't want to go back to a class full of 9 other students because the risk is just too much, yet in these same groups, they are also sharing how drunk they got on the weekend with their friends or out at some bar/club. Same as the people saying they can't work but their social media stories show them going above and beyond.

I also cannot stand the amount of people with literal zero common sense. I saw one student arguing with a teacher in the virtual room chat about how they couldn't take a proctored exam at the time it was administered because they 'had work' (this is after the exam took place), when the time was at the exact same time as the actual class itself. What does this mean? Since most Professors don't require much in the way of participation besides actually being in the room (camera/mic off), the person was probably just signing in and then putting their phone aside for the entirety of the class the entire semester. If you want an online-only course that truly is work at your own pace, then sign up for such.

Now, I typically wouldn't care about what everyone else is doing, but seeing how it's apparently 'so easy' to get around the proctoring and actually cheat on these tests, I really don't feel like competing with these same idiots for the highly-selective medical programs that I'm trying to get into (15-25 seats a year). And for some of them, the criteria is solely GPA-based.

The level of education for the next 2 or so years is completely screwed across the board.

 

[MacMadame]

Our school district has no students back in schools but sports are doing "conditioning" workouts.

 

[Lizziebeth]

Tony, that is awful, especially about the cheating.

But IF they get admitted to a nursing or allied health professional program with no academic background and willingness to cheat they will fail and get kicked out. I have seen it happen.

 

[tony]

Tony, that is awful, especially about the cheating.

But IF they get admitted to a nursing or allied health professional program with no academic background and willingness to cheat they will fail and get kicked out. I have seen it happen.

Oh, absolutely they will fail out. If they go the nursing route, they have to take an in-person exam comparable to the ACT but with an anatomy/chemistry-heavy science section. The score on this one exam is the same weight as the entire overall GPA and they will likely bomb it. But the rest of the programs are reliant on overall GPA and then science/math-specific GPA which is a bit under these circumstances. It's one thing to get kicked out eventually, but it's another to get in via a once-a-year ranking system and take up a spot.

I should be fine and my grades will be strong (I'm carrying over a B from 16 years ago that'll probably put me between a 3.85-3.9 overall), but people are really milking CV and their fake sob stories to the extreme. I'm sure some of the teachers here can share the level of ridiculousness they've heard in the last 8 months. I don't know how many times I've read 'you don't know what I'm going through' in group chats-- okay, we all have something going on. If you don't have time for college-level work, then focus on working and go to school at a different time, perhaps?

As my first journey through school started in 2004 (and Blackboard was just barely a thing) and my second experience was very computer science/programming-heavy where it's completely obvious if you've cheated/copied work, this is my first time using programs like Lockdown Browser/ProctorU. In theory, they should be great. But people still have it figured out how to get around it and put exactly zero effort into learning anything.

 

[million$momma]

Our school district has no students back in schools but sports are doing "conditioning" workouts.

Wow...

 

[once_upon]

Oh, absolutely they will fail out. If they go the nursing route, they have to take an in-person exam comparable to the ACT but with an anatomy/chemistry-heavy science section. The score on this one exam is the same weight as the entire overall GPA and they will likely bomb it. But the rest of the programs are reliant on overall GPA and then science/math-specific GPA which is a bit under these circumstances. It's one thing to get kicked out eventually, but it's another to get in via a once-a-year ranking system and take up a spot.

I should be fine and my grades will be strong (I'm carrying over a B from 16 years ago that'll probably put me between a 3.85-3.9 overall), but people are really milking CV and their fake sob stories to the extreme. I'm sure some of the teachers here can share the level of ridiculousness they've heard in the last 8 months. I don't know how many times I've read 'you don't know what I'm going through' in group chats-- okay, we all have something going on. If you don't have time for college-level work, then focus on working and go to school at a different time, perhaps?

As my first journey through school started in 2004 (and Blackboard was just barely a thing) and my second experience was very computer science/programming-heavy where it's completely obvious if you've cheated/copied work, this is my first time using programs like Lockdown Browser/ProctorU. In theory, they should be great. But people still have it figured out how to get around it and put exactly zero effort into learning anything.

My daughter in law (40's) is in the advanced track BSN program as she had taken many required courses prior to entering the program.

She said they are in pods of 8 (clinical rotations) hrr in her 40s most of the rest in their 20's. In August the whole pod was exposed to one of them who had C-19 and were quarantined for 2 weeks.

The 20 somethings are all talking about Thanksgiving break and their party plans. Which I assume will result in quarantine again. But the other thing that is making her frustrated is that some of them are saying "this isn't (nursing) for me" and not taking precautions seriously, and exposing everyone.

 

[Prancer]

One thing I'm going to throw into this thread is how annoying it is to have virtual classes with a bunch of people who literally do not give a shit about anything this semester and try to pull the 'OMG my life is turned upside down' act every two minutes.

I assume that, given that you seem to be taking pre-reqs, you are in freshman-sophomore level classes?

I hate to break it to you, but this isn't *********-related--that's just how it is, at least IME.

When the economy is bad, a lot of people who normally wouldn't go to college will (often impulsively) decide to go to college. It seems like a good idea at the time. But it turns out that college is hard. Even in good times when classes are going well, there are students in every entry-level class who have a million excuses for why they just can't. Some of them have actual reasons; they just aren't in a place where going to school is feasible, but there they are. When the economy is bad, though, we get a lot of people who don't want to be there but don't have a lot of other options.

I would say 2009-2012 were the worst years for this. I expect 2021-2022 to be bad. Right now, for me, at least, it's not too different from normal.

it's literally just people complaining non-stop about the work they have to do and/or the ways they have figured out how to cheat on proctored exams. Literally, students bragging to 30-45 other people they've never met how they can go around the system.

Yeah.

Then you have the students that were complaining about how they don't want to go back to a class full of 9 other students because the risk is just too much, yet in these same groups, they are also sharing how drunk they got on the weekend with their friends or out at some bar/club. Same as the people saying they can't work but their social media stories show them going above and beyond.

Yeah.

I also cannot stand the amount of people with literal zero common sense. I saw one student arguing with a teacher in the virtual room chat about how they couldn't take a proctored exam at the time it was administered because they 'had work' (this is after the exam took place), when the time was at the exact same time as the actual class itself. What does this mean?

That's a common excuse. It's also often true. My department did a study on why students drop out of freshman comp a few years ago and the most common reason was work conflicts. And I think it's especially true right now, as students get called into work all the time because other people are out sick or are in quarantine. Again, this happens a lot more when the economy is bad, as students, like everyone else, have to try to hang on to their jobs because they don't have a lot of options and employers know this.

Some of the students also lie.

There are three basic responses to this--you can assume that they all lie, you can assume that they all tell the truth or you can try to judge which ones are lying and which ones are being truthful. After a few years or trying the other two, I have gone with assuming they all tell the truth, even when I know that's not the case, because in the long run, the honest ones need a break and the liars will take themselves out.

Since most Professors don't require much in the way of participation besides actually being in the room (camera/mic off), the person was probably just signing in and then putting their phone aside for the entirety of the class the entire semester.

Yeah. This is my least favorite thing about teaching on Zoom. But this is also to be expected if you are teaching on Zoom and you lecture the whole time. It's early yet, but preliminary studies show that we have about 20 minutes and after that, students start checking out. We are told that we shouldn't lecture the entire class and should give them things to do in breakout rooms. That does tend to sort out who is present and engaged and who isn't.

But there are times when I need to lecture an entire class period. In F2F classes, I ask a lot of questions during lecture to keep them engaged, but that doesn't work on Zoom. I still haven't figured this out.

The level of education for the next 2 or so years is completely screwed across the board.

I don't give tests, so I can't speak to that, but so far, I am not seeing anything in the undergrad classes that looks all that different from what I normally see in undergrad classes early in economic downturns. When things are really bad, we get students who are there just for financial aid checks. That's a whole 'nother issue. I am pretty sure I have a couple of those right now, but I won't know for sure until the last week of classes.

Oh, absolutely they will fail out. If they go the nursing route, they have to take an in-person exam comparable to the ACT but with an anatomy/chemistry-heavy science section. The score on this one exam is the same weight as the entire overall GPA and they will likely bomb it. But the rest of the programs are reliant on overall GPA and then science/math-specific GPA which is a bit under these circumstances. It's one thing to get kicked out eventually, but it's another to get in via a once-a-year ranking system and take up a spot.

Cheaters usually don't get good grades. I am sure there are exceptions, but all of those people who cheat do so because they don't know the material and so even when they pool resources, the resources are so scant that this doesn't translate into good grades. They usually aren't trying to get As; they are trying to pass. It's all about getting by for one more day.

Most of them will drop out on their own because it's exhausting and humiliating to cheat all the time. Some of them will drag along until they can't any more.

As my first journey through school started in 2004 (and Blackboard was just barely a thing) and my second experience was very computer science/programming-heavy where it's completely obvious if you've cheated/copied work, this is my first time using programs like Lockdown Browser/ProctorU. In theory, they should be great. But people still have it figured out how to get around it and put exactly zero effort into learning anything.

Yeah, when my daughter was taking exams last spring, I observed her taking a couple of exams so I could see how it worked and I could see a lot of ways students could cheat. Again, I don't think we have figured out this out.

 

[tony]

I assume that, given that you seem to be taking pre-reqs, you are in freshman-sophomore level classes?

Yeah- never had to take anything other than astronomy (1 AND 2!) and a basic human nutrition for sciences in the B.A. before because I definitely wanted the easy experience but now I absolutely need an anatomy/physiology sequence, chemistry, microbiology, etc. I haven't taken these classes since high school, if at all, so it's quite the path for me. I believe I read that I would've had to take anatomy/physiology anyways, as those specific credits are only good for 10 years in Florida regardless of your past degrees.

I'm also getting this all done at a cheap public University, because I still pay a significant amount of loans and not looking to add any more to that, so the motivation of students (adding to CV concerns) is going to differ than what I was mostly used to at OSU. But it is where the majority of the Miami-area population completes their health science courses, and job placement rate is very high.

There are three basic responses to this--you can assume that they all lie, you can assume that they all tell the truth or you can try to judge which ones are lying and which ones are being truthful. After a few years or trying the other two, I have gone with assuming they all tell the truth, even when I know that's not the case, because in the long run, the honest ones need a break and the liars will take themselves out.

From my own experiences this last few months, it's basically always this: People figured that classes were going to most likely be online the entire semester, they signed up for classes regardless of session time and/or campus (AKA sought out the easier Professors, sometimes with 10 minutes in between classes on campuses an hour away from each other), and they figured it was going to be more like an online course rather than actually having to sit in on the class at the time it was offered. So I don't think it's a case of them having work suddenly coming up.. I think they were just looking for an easy way out from the start and then cannot understand the logic of sitting their asses in front of their computers during the time they were supposed to be in class.

I don't give tests, so I can't speak to that, but so far, I am not seeing anything in the undergrad classes that looks all that different from what I normally see in undergrad classes early in economic downturns. When things are really bad, we get students who are there just for financial aid checks. That's a whole 'nother issue. I am pretty sure I have a couple of those right now, but I won't know for sure until the last week of classes.

My brother did that a few times (and he would wait till the last day of full-refund), so that's nothing new

Yeah, when my daughter was taking exams last spring, I observed her taking a couple of exams so I could see how it worked and I could see a lot of ways students could cheat. Again, I don't think we have figured out this out.

I've read it all in terms of ways to cheat, and it's never going to be fool-proof. The ProctorU has someone actually watching in on you while you test-- they can see you and hear you. I was surprised at the thoroughness the other night when I took my first exam this way. They take control of your computer, they make sure there's no screen-sharing or any other programs enabled, they have you scan the room to make sure there's nothing on/under your desk or near you, they make you take a photo of your screen with your phone to show that you don't have any notes around the edges, etc, and then they make you put the phone out of reach while on the camera.

I'd rather just study than go through all the work of being marked suspicious. There is one program that tracks your eye movements and triggers a review if your eyes stay off the screen, even if slightly, for an extended time. I also learned that if you talk to yourself (read the questions out loud/use deduction out loud), it also triggers a review

 

[ballettmaus]

When and how should we reopen schools? New report from Unicef says immediately.

The report says so much more. The title alone says a lot about what else it says.

Averting a lost ********* generation
A six-point plan to respond, recover and reimagine a post-********* world for every child

 

[Prancer]

I believe I read that I would've had to take anatomy/physiology anyways, as those specific credits are only good for 10 years in Florida regardless of your past degrees.

Probably true, as A&P is always THE problem sequence for students who transfer. All state colleges in Ohio are in alignment--meaning that we have 100% transferability for core courses between all state schools--but it's always a problem for students coming from other states or from private colleges.

I'm also getting this all done at a cheap public University, because I still pay a significant amount of loans and not looking to add any more to that, so the motivation of students (adding to CV concerns) is going to differ than what I was mostly used to at OSU.

Oh, trust me--OSU has its share of students like this. It's not as apparent when you are in those huge, in-person freshman lecture classes. By the time everyone is winnowed out to upper-level classes where you know your fellow students, the people who don't want to be there are mostly gone.

When I was in grad school, my university decreed that all professors had to teach at least one freshman-level class every year (budget cuts) and I remember one professor bitching mightily and at length about how teaching freshman comp was the ninth circle of hell. I thought at the time that he had a really bad attitude about teaching.

Then I started teaching, and there were budget cuts and all faculty are now required to teach at least one freshman-level class every year. And yeah.

So I don't think it's a case of them having work suddenly coming up.. I think they were just looking for an easy way out from the start and then cannot understand the logic of sitting their asses in front of their computers during the time they were supposed to be in class.

Yeah, I have some of those. But I try to do a lot of in-class work; if they don't show up and do the assignments, they lose points. They might pass, but they won't get an A or B. And most freshman think a C is insulting.

My brother did that a few times (and he would wait till the last day of full-refund), so that's nothing new

Definitely not. But the experienced scam artists know that the key is to show up on the first and last days of class (or something close to that). I have one that I am just about positive I will see for the second time on the last day of class, but we shall see.

I've read it all in terms of ways to cheat, and it's never going to be fool-proof. The ProctorU has someone actually watching in on you while you test-- they can see you and hear you. I was surprised at the thoroughness the other night when I took my first exam this way. They take control of your computer, they make sure there's no screen-sharing or any other programs enabled, they have you scan the room to make sure there's nothing on/under your desk or near you, they make you take a photo of your screen with your phone to show that you don't have any notes around the edges, etc, and then they make you put the phone out of reach while on the camera.

Yeah. But.

I also learned that if you talk to yourself (read the questions out loud/use deduction out loud), it also triggers a review

I would be under review every time, as I talk to myself during tests when taking class F2F.

 

[Susan1]

Miamisburg schools just announced they will go fully remote (last ones in the area) the week after Thanksgiving, maybe longer. They've been hybrid. Of course people are whining about how they don't have the technology or the time, etc. And they apparently were not Girl Scouts because they didn't think they would have to "be prepared". Here's a response to them.

"The remote learning your student will be starting will not look like the remote learning they experienced in the March. Burg teachers have been preparing this to happen. Nutrition services is ready to feed our students. Technology department is prepared to provide tech support. Students have been preparing for this day to happen. Most know how to use their Google classroom. They will be checking in and having class with their teachers. Assignment will be graded. Those without internet will have learning opportunities. Did I mention that students will have work to do every day? Teachers will be in isolated in their classroom, ready to teach, just a email or phone call away?
Thank you to our community members for being so supportive. Burg teachers are sad tonight. Tomorrow, there will be tears as students relive the trauma of the unknown. We will be counting the days until our rooms are full of laughter, again. We

our students."

 

[Susan1]

Interesting re Miamisburg going virtual - (answers from a teacher on my city FB page to clueless parents)
- yes to live classes. Each teacher will be creating their specific schedule. I have created mine for my class of when the live teaching will happen and when they will be completing independent work at home. Everyone should be bringing all their workbooks and needed materials home today as well. We have been using google classroom daily in school and that is where the assignments will be posted. The teaching is expected to continue just as if we were in school.

- if you have any questions just reach out to your child’s teacher. Just be patient as we transition. We have been preparing for this all year and it should be pretty smooth once we get going.

- honestly we don’t know even as teachers. We were told the decision would be week by week.

(I have to wonder how many of the ones complaining about how stupid it is to have remote school are trumpers and anti-maskers and anti-Dewine and are still having a houseful of people for Thanksgiving.)

 

[GarrAargHrumph]

Yeah. This is my least favorite thing about teaching on Zoom. But this is also to be expected if you are teaching on Zoom and you lecture the whole time. It's early yet, but preliminary studies show that we have about 20 minutes and after that, students start checking out. We are told that we shouldn't lecture the entire class and should give them things to do in breakout rooms. That does tend to sort out who is present and engaged and who isn't.

But there are times when I need to lecture an entire class period. In F2F classes, I ask a lot of questions during lecture to keep them engaged, but that doesn't work on Zoom. I still haven't figured this out.

When you have to lecture all Zoom period, one thing people here have found really effective is to program in polls. The folks who do this really well program in a few per class period. You can do things like ask them a question about what you're about to talk about, see their responses, then talk about them/continue that section of the lecture, so it takes up very little lecture time (seconds per poll), but you're keeping them on their toes. Have you tried polls yet?

 

[Prancer]

Have you tried polls yet?

Yes.