The Academy in the Pandemic

We've moved as a university to pass/fail for student classes.

Sort of, anyway -- we give the students grades and then the students get to decide whether to keep these grades, changed them to P/F, or withdraw from the class entirely.

I kind of like this, and think maybe we should do it always, not just during the pandemic.

What do y'all think?

Teaching in the Pandemic

This is my second day of trying to teach my classes remotely.

I am not liking it, if anyone is curious.

So far I am using Slack and Google Classroom. I'm running the discussion boards asynchronously, and I'm giving students lots of room -- letting them turn work in late, and cutting some assignments.

For me, though, education is something that happens in person, face to face. I imagine we can have discussions via chat threads. It's not going to be what happens when we hold discussions in a classroom. I suppose I just have to get over wishing for that.

Also, some of my students are having problems with technology. We're a working class university, for the most part, so some of them don't have their own computers -- they use a parent's computer, or try to work on a phone, and were relying to some extent on the university's computer labs.

Now the labs are locked and the parents need their own computers because they're working remotely.

It's making me feel grumpy, I guess is the tl;dr.

On the other hand, no one at my house is sick yet, and so far as I know none of my students are either. Knock wood.