Colleges face rising revolt by professors — from nytimes.com by Anemona Hartocollis
Most universities plan to bring students back to campus. But many of their teachers are concerned about joining them.
Excerpt:
College students across the country have been warned that campus life will look drastically different in the fall, with temperature checks at academic buildings, masks in half-empty lecture halls and maybe no football games.
What they might not expect: a lack of professors in the classroom.
Thousands of instructors at American colleges and universities have told administrators in recent days that they are unwilling to resume in-person classes because of the pandemic.
More than three-quarters of colleges and universities have decided students can return to campus this fall. But they face a growing faculty revolt.
In an indication of how fluid the situation is, the University of Southern California said late Wednesday that “an alarming spike in coronavirus cases” had prompted it to reverse an earlier decision to encourage attending classes in person.
To provide the best learning environment while keeping everyone safe, WMU-Cooley Law School made the decision to continue teaching classes ONLINE for the Fall 2020 semester.
From DSC:
We at the WMU-Cooley Law School are working hard to enhance and expand our teaching toolboxes, so that we can pivot as necessary in the future.
Whether we need to deliver our cognitive-science based, modern legal education via 100% online-based means, or whether it’s a blended/hybrid approach, or whether it’s 100% face-to-face again at some point in the future, we need to be ready for multiple methods and modes of teaching and learning.
But I have to say, the work is hard. There are more and different kinds of people on the front lines of this Covid-19 situation than just the wonderful folks in healthcare. Many Instructional Designers (IDs), Information Technology (IT)-related staff, faculty members, and members of administration and are working overtime, all-the-time. It’s not easy. That said, I do believe that there will be some silver linings in this situation. Many faculty members are coming to appreciate the teaching and learning power of some of these tools — and will likely integrate several of these new tools/methods even if and when they return to our face-to-face-based classrooms.
Reopening schools: A Getting Smart webinar recap — from gettingsmart.com by Getting Smart Staff
“We must ensure that people who are furthest from educational justice have their learning needs met. You will then meet the needs of all learners.” – Kelly Niccolls
Handheld retinal camera as an eye for innovation – D-EYE review — from medicalfuturist.com
Excerpt:
Sure, if something’s portable, easy to use and helps patients and doctors alike, it definitely ticks all our boxes. Does that mean we are going to test it though? Who are we kidding, of course it does! Join us on our journey to learn about the present and future of ophthalmology – and to get to know D-EYE, a new handheld digital retinal camera.
Ophthalmology can really profit from telemedicine. Recognising its potential, tech companies started targeting this medical sector, producing more and more interesting apps and devices. So, naturally, we’ve kept our eyes on ophthalmology for the past couple of years.
Colleges cut academic programs in the face of budget shortfalls due to Covid-19 — from cnbc.com by Jessica Dickler
Key points:
Even before the global pandemic caused craters in the economy, some institutions were facing financial hardship after years of declines in state funding for higher education. A number of private schools had already made wrenching budget cuts, from curriculum changes to complete overhauls of their liberal arts programs.
From DSC:
A screenshot from the video (below) shows a new type of liberal arts program at Hiram College.
It could very well be that online-based learning turns out to save the liberal arts!!!!! How ironic is that!?!!
That is, many college presidents, provost, and faculty members — especially from smaller liberal arts types of schools — have disdained online-based learning for decades now. It was always viewed as “less than” in their minds…they didn’t want to go that route, as doing so would dilute their precious (and often overpriced) brands. (To be clear, this is not my view…but it was, and still is in many cases, their view.)
Anyway, it looks like more of these same folks will be losing their jobs in the next few years (if they haven’t already). At that point, we may see some of these same folks encounter a sudden paradigm shift. (A shift many of their colleagues have already gone through in prior years.) These same folks may come to appreciate that people will be willing to pay them for their knowledge — but only willing to do so at a much more affordable price…which will likely mean online.
Fewer people — especially when 47 million people in the U.S. alone have filed for unemployment over the last 14 weeks — can afford the cost of getting a degree. They are looking for inexpensive, convenient, efficient, effective means of reinventing themselves.
Huh…another potential irony here…it appears that colleges and universities are coming to know what many of us have known and experienced for years…and that is, the struggle to:
"Millions of people from all walks of life have quickly become familiar w/ interacting virtually from their homes. This has become a swift on-the-job-training for the patients of the future — a future that starts now."https://t.co/picYzFni5g
DC: #telelegal likely not far behind— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) June 8, 2020
Healthcare will never be the same: 8 experts on the future of medicine around the globe — from fastcompany.com by Ruth Reader and Ainsley Harris
The leaders of the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Doctors Without Borders, and more tell us how healthcare is being transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second thing is we’re seeing technology innovations, such as virtual rounding done on an iPad and virtual [visits]. Before COVID hit, we were doing 3,000 virtual visits a month. In March, we did 60,000.
…
As a nation, we have been promising and not delivering on telehealth now for several years, and that has had to do with licensure, regulation, billing, but also just healthcare’s reluctance to change. With those barriers removed, we’ve been able to move from maybe 400 to 35,000 virtual visits a week.
…
Mental health and well-being should be part of our education. One of the most important things is how to communicate with people, how to disagree with people, how to have productive relationships. And yet we don’t learn any of this.
#telehealth #telelegal #future #change #healthcare
Johns Hopkins trains 22,000 contact tracers on Coursera in the first week — from blog.coursera.org by Jeff Maggioncalda
Excerpt:
We are highly encouraged by the initial response — in just one week, more than 150,000 learners have enrolled in the course. More than 22,000 learners have already completed it, including over 2,500 prospective contact tracers who could be employed by the state of New York. Contact tracing will offer meaningful employment to those impacted by the economic downturn while fulfilling an urgent public health need.
It’s gone ‘shockingly well’: America’s hospitals have embraced remote technology amid COVID-19 — from finance.yahoo.com by Daniel Howley
Excerpt:
To address that, Kapsner said that nurses and primary doctors who need to physically be in a room with a patient will still do so, but specialists and consulting physicians will remain outside, communicating with the primary doctor or nurse via Teams.
From DSC:
Can #telelegal be too far behind…?
Fall Scenario #13: A HyFlex Model — from insidehighered.com by Edward Maloney and Joshua Kim
Excerpt:
In a HyFlex course, courses are delivered both in person and online at the same time by the same faculty member. Students can then choose for each and every class meeting whether to show up for class in person or to join it online. The underlying design ethos behind the HyFlex Model is flexibility and student choice.
…
To do it well, then, a lot of things need to line up, including the technology, the course design, the focus on pedagogy and the engagement of the students. Many schools that wish to scale the HyFlex Model across the curriculum for the fall semester will likely need to make a significant investment in classroom technology.
Also see the other scenarios from Kim and Maloney at:
Problems planning for a Post-Pandemic Campus this fall — from bryanalexander.org by How will campuses try to return to face-to-face education? What does it mean now to plan for a Post-Pandemic Campus this fall?
Excerpt:
In April I published three scenarios for colleges and universities may approach the fall 2020 semester in the wake of COVID-19, based on different ways the pandemic might play out. I followed that up with real world examples of each scenario, as different institutions subsequently issued announcements about their plans. To recap, they are:
6 ways college might look different in the fall — from npr.com by Elissa Nadworny
Excerpt:
What will happen on college campuses in the fall? It’s a big question for families, students and the schools themselves.
A lot of what happens depends on factors outside the control of individual schools: Will there be more testing? Contact tracing? Enough physical space for distancing? Will the coronavirus have a second wave? Will any given state allow campuses to reopen?
For all of these questions, it’s really too early to know the answers. But one thing is clear: Life, and learning for the nation’s 20 million students in higher education, will be different.
“I don’t think there’s any scenario under which it’s business as usual on American college campuses in the fall,” says Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University.
If law schools can’t offer in-person classes this fall, what will they do instead? — from abajournal.com by Stephanie Francis Ward
The April issue of FLR looks at how we’re all managing the social-emotional cost of making a rapid transition to online learning.
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