Update regarding Higher Ed from the Massachusetts reopening plan - Big Reveal (today)
HIGHER EDUCATION:
Massachusetts’ diverse higher education institutions continue to foster teaching, learning, student support, and essential research remotely throughout this time. ** They are working together and in partnership with the state to ensure a safe and gradual return to campus life. In the upcoming weeks, institutions will develop customized reopening plans to ensure the safety of their communities. **
Institutions will craft their own campus reopening plans for each phase, to be implemented once common key enablers are met
In all phases: Safety guidelines and health monitoring protocols will be implemented throughout all elements of campus life – including classrooms, housing, dining, facilities and services.
In Phase 1: Higher education institutions can repopulate research laboratories and medical, dental, veterinary and allied health clinical education and services, and restart functions necessary to prepare campuses to reopen. All activities must observe applicable social distance guidance.
In Phases 2 and 3: Following public health guidance, each institution will develop its own plans for course delivery which will likely involve a combination of inperson and remote learning in order to allow for social distancing on campus.
Re Modena — this is good news, but don’t buy plane tickets yet. About 15% of drugs that make it through phase 1 get through to approval. Phase 1 just means the drug isn’t immediately dangerous, not that it works.
With 40 million unemployed (and likely closer to 50 million), there is not a lot of sympathy for how hard professors and teachers have it teaching online. Life is hard for many people right now, and everyone’s professional life has been disrupted. Education professionals are not unique in that regard.
@roycroftmom I believe most professors would rather go back to in-person teaching than online teaching, even with the risks; all the professors I am familiar with at Amherst absolutely LOATHE teaching remotely. Other students with different professors and classes have echoed similar sentiments from their professors. I will say that may not be the case at large schools where professors primarily focus on their research.
Update regarding Higher Ed from the Massachusetts reopening plan - Big Reveal (today)
** K-12: **
As previously announced, Massachusetts’ K-12 school buildings will remain closed through the end of the 2019-20 school year, with remote teaching and learning in place. Schools will continue offering essential non-educational services to their
communities. Plans are being made for the summer learning programs and 2020-21 school year and will be shared with the public in the weeks to come.
K-12 school buildings will remain closed through the end of the 2019-20 school year. Potential for limited exceptions to be announced at a later date.
Remote teaching and learning should continue through the end of the 2019-20 school year As previously announced.
Schools should continue offering essential non-educational services: Examples include take-out and food delivery to students and families.
** Plans for the summer and 2020-21 school year are being developed and will be announced soon We are developing plans for summer learning programs and the next school year and closely tracing the progression of the virus as part of the reopening process. **
I thought that the last part was interesting - they haven’t ruled out summer learning programs.
On the topic of mental health and “safer at home” college students -
It seems to me that you can have it one way or the other: Either someone has a serious condition and it won’t help to suggest calling a friend on FaceTime, or someone has a non-serious condition that will be helped merely by hanging out with friends in a dorm.
I call BS on the idea that someone could be so disabled by depression that s/he is not able to use the multitude of technology to stay in touch with friends, and at the same time be so mildly affected that the mere presence of dorm life would fix things.
What I’m sure is true, is that elite college students feel disappointed to lose their fun time living together and pretending to be grown-ups, while generally having their life needs met by blue-collar workers.
I loved the relative luxury and independence of living in a dorm and being in college, and I’m immensely grateful that my kids will be privileged to do that too, when it’s safe to go back for everyone involved.
Yes. Our lives have also been disrupted, like many others. We are trying to do our jobs and serve students under less than ideal conditions. The implication that college faculty have somehow uniquely benefited from the shutdown is absurd.
It might. However, the original question (for which the closest answer I could think of was the runner’s example) had to do with indoor interactions. There seems to be a lot of confusion about whether you need to social distance and wear a mask or whether one is a substitute for the other. Has the CDC posted anything about this?
@fretfulmother As someone who has had one of their best friends drop out of college (before this whole COVID-19 fiasco) because they came very close to attempting suicide, I take the issue of mental health in this country very seriously. It is psychologically proven that being with people and not being alone greatly improves mental health; online meet-ups don’t really cut it, because you aren’t really “with” other people.
True about the unemployment, though not true about people’s view of what teachers are doing to keep ed going. Regardless, that’s not what you said in #3817, and not what I’m waiting on the apology and retraction for.
This thread was previously a great place to get information about what Schools were doing in the fall and has now become a COVID debate society of people who believe everything should be perfectly safe before schools reopen and everyone else. Can we please keep this thread civil and on topic?
@katliamom Calling someone a “twit” for their opinion isn’t exactly respectful either; and many parents on this thread seem to disagree with you on my level of respectfulness in this thread. I’ve had multiple parents reach out to thank me for contributing, including one who has thanked me for being “exceedingly respectful.”
You claimed that there were a lot of your friends suffering from mental illness because they were required to go home from college 2 months early and that they really needed to get back to college to restore their mental health because being with their friends would cure them.
If students are mentally ill because they need to be with others then yes, they can get out and do something with other people. If what they need is other people, they can find those people at places other than college just like they would have had to do if school had ended in May rather than March. It was an unhappy and stressful situation that we all had to make adjustments for to save lives. It’s TWO MONTHS of their lives so far. We’d all like to go back to our pre-covid lives and summer plans and just plain fun times. If your friends are truly depressed or suffering PTSD, I don’t think returning to school is a magic pill.
If they need mental health care, they should seek that out and not think that returning to school will fix everything.
I would also much prefer to teach in person rather than online.
Online classes have been fine for the most part, and I am very lucky to have good internet and a quiet place where I can teach my classes, but as good as online classes are right now, I believe that I am much more effective in a F2F environment where I can gauge where my students by seeing their facial expressions and other nuances which are not available in an online class. Having said that, we were thrown into the online classes without a great deal of prep time, and I commend all of the professors, teachers AND students who have “Apollo 13’ed” it to make it work on the fly during the spring.
If we are online next fall, I guarantee that my classes will be much better with the time to plan, prepare and improve, but I would still prefer to be live in a classroom following whatever social distancing protocols are necessary, wearing a mask or a shield or whatever it will take to keep the students, and faculty safe.
ChemAM: At the risk of being patronizing or condescending, I’m increasingly concerned about the possibility some of your posts might negatively impact you if you haven’t been super careful not to leave clues to your real life identity. Please be cautious. Trying hard here not to give unsolicited advice.
