1-Every prof and teacher I know is having a really hard time at end of term. Everyone is overwhelmed. So are our students. So are university staff and administrators (hard to believe, right?) Everyone is working night and day, feeling inefficient, overwhelmed...

2-One way to address this, for those still having classes post-Thanksgiving, is like a friend (everyone's anonymous in this thread: they can out themselves!) who told students, if they wished, they could end their term w all the work they'd done pre-Thanskgiving and be done.
3-Another friend announced post Thanksgiving that the final exam would be "open everything" and they could work together if they wishes as long as they also submitted a signed "study/crib sheet" along w the final. They warned working together might hurt them because it slows.
4-Another friend--genius scholar and prof at an Ivy--had a "PJ day" where they came to class in flannel pjs and students did to and they played them a thank you song for their resilience and care on the guitar (their Covid hobby is learning to play guitar).
5-Another friend called off a week of class and held "open collective off hours" in those slots where anyone could ask and talk about anything--the most responsive week they've had all term and everyone learned far more than usual and it nourished them all.
6-Another friend told students in advance that they could take the regular final or write questions out and answer them. They recommended students answer during the prescribed exam time so this stayed manageable.
7-Anyone who thinks these make classes "too easy" is thinking in the "sequestered problem solving" mode which makes higher ed ludicrous, a pretense that in everyday life and work we don't search for just about everything and make judgments based on that knowledge.
8-Once you realize this is a ludicrous assumption, and we should be teaching how to learn, how to judge good info from bad, how to take what's out there and turn it into something that addresses the question at hand, college becomes more relevant, meaningful, and less stressful
9-"Sequestered problem solving" is high stakes in that it minimizes the goal of "learning" and maximizes sequestering--what did you learn in 'this' class, how did you learn to answer 'me,' with 'my' (the prof's) assumptions and knowledge in tact.
10-One-way learning in a closed system (trad higher ed), in pandemic world, where everything is closed off, adds trauma of an archaic high stakes system of judgment and credentialing to what should be the joy, agency, and empowerment of learning. @AnyClassroom @nemersonian
11-Final bonus: if you as prof value learning (not grading, testing, one-way data transmission etc), it's not being "soft" (students learn more!) but is far easier emotionally on students and you too. @AnyClassroom
12-Meta-study of 225+ studies of active learning benefit: Freeman, et al, “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 111, no. 23, 2014, pp. 8410-8415, https://t.co/1Up4GXE2C8.
13- And Theobald, E. J., et al., “Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117, no. 12, 2014, pp. 6476-6483, https://t.co/UMekvVnxrk
14"I canceled final project. Class won’t meet last week; instead students can complete any missing work from semester revise any assignment for a higher grade. 'Cuz no zoom meetings, I’ll have time to give feedback etc It’s least stressed my students & I have felt all semester!

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Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.

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