BC EDUCATION
Saved by @Alex1Powell

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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Andrew Lee
Andrew Lee
@andrewleedr
Normally I enjoy the high standards of journalism in @guardian . Not today as disappointed with misleading headline that suggest infections are spreading fastest in children. It'll worry parents/teachers & I doubt most readers will unpick the

The latest REACT1 report shows prevalence of infection in ALL age groups has fallen, including children aged 5-12 from 1.59% in Round 8 to 0.86% in Round 9a. The authors of REACT1 report also (wisely) didn't try to interpret the prevalence figures.

If this were a research trial you wouldn't place much weight on the age differences in % prevalence because of the wide confidence intervals, i.e. differences weren't statistically significant.
3/

I've previously tweeted on the challenges (& dangers) of interpreting surveillance data. One would need lots more contextual info to make sense of it & arrive at sound


Undoubtedly some will extrapolate from the prevalence of infection figures in children to other settings i.e. schools based on the headline. I'd advise caution as there is a real risk of over-interpretation through extrapolation of limited data. Association is not causation.
5/
EDUCATION
Dr Ali G #NHSBlueHeart\U0001f499- Please #WearAMask \U0001f637\U0001f1ea\U0001f1fa
Dr Ali G #NHSBlueHeart...
@AlisonGeorge10
@MattHancock says yet again that “Schools are safe”, because children are at low risk of serious disease.
With current v high disease prevalence (maybe 1 in 20 or 30 in #London ,#1in50 elsewhere) MORE children will catch #coronavirus & MORE children will become very ill. 1/8🧵

In itself that’s not good. There are some v sick kids around the country right now & because they often present differently they may not be diagnosed so quickly. Often with gastrointestinal & joint symptoms & odd rashes. Parents & educators may not be aware of this. 2/8

Families, especially those in large multigenerational or BAME households are already at increased risk of severe #COVID19.
#Teachers & #earlyyears staff in JAN 21 STILL have virtually no #PPE. There will be many over 50s & others who are CV/CEV. This is not good. 3/8

The families of <18s are at increased risk. We know that.
I’ll keep showing this 👇because Gvmt keep ignoring it.
And the lack of adequate & appropriate #PPE puts all staff in these settings AND their families at increased risk.
This is not good. 4/8


So the “Schools are safe” mantra which is repeated over & over again can ONLY be based on the risk to children of severe disease VS the risk of them missing school.
NOTHING OR NO ONE ELSE.
In the midst of a deadly pandemic this is as bizarre as it is callous & ignorant. 5/8
EDUCATION
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Alistair Hamill \U0001f637
Alistair Hamill 😷...
@lcgeography
** Schools have been getting ready for this: a thread **

In many ways, I don't blame folks who tweet things like this. The media coverage of the schools situation in Covid-19 rarely talks about the quiet, day-in-day-out work that schools have been doing these past 9 months. 1/


Instead, the coverage focused on the dramatic, last minute policy announcements by the government, or of dramatic stories of school closures, often accompanied by photos of socially distanced classrooms that those of us in schools this past term know are from a fantasy land. 2/


If that's all you see & hear, it's no wonder that you may not know what has actually been happening in schools to meet the challenges. So, if you'd like a glimpse behind the curtain, then read on. For this is something of what teachers & schools leaders have been up to. 3/

It started last March with trying to meet the challenges of lockdown, being thrown into the deep end, with only a few days' notice, to try to learn to teach remotely during the first lockdown. 4/

https://t.co/S39EWuap3b


I wrote a policy document for our staff the weekend before our training as we anticipated what was to come, a document I shared freely & widely as the education community across the land started to reach out to one another for ideas and support. 5/
https://t.co/m1QsxlPaV4
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Deepti Gurdasani
Deepti Gurdasani
@dgurdasani1
We've been falsely told 'schools are safe', 'don't drive community transmission', & teachers don't have a higher risk of infection repeatedly by govt & their advisors- to justify some of the most negligent policies in history. 🧵


data shows *both* primary & secondary school teachers are at double the risk of confirmed infection relative to comparable positivity in the general population. ONS household infection data also clearly show that children are important sources of transmission.

Yet, in the parliamentary select meeting today, witnesses like Jenny Harries repeated the same claims- that have been debunked by the ONS data, and the data released by the @educationgovuk today. How many lives have been lost to these lies? How many more people have long COVID?

has repeatedly pointed out errors & gaps in the ONS reporting of evidence around risk of infection among teachers- and it's taken *months* to get clarity on this. The released data are a result of months of campaigning by her, the @NEU and others.

Rather than being transparent about the risk of transmission in school settings & mitigating this, the govt (& many of its advisors) has engaged in dismissing & denying evidence that's been clear for a while. Evidence from the govt's own surveys. And global evidence.

Why?
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@societyforepi
Now, what exactly is an applied epidemiologist, and why are they needed? In the late 90s- early 2000's there were a series of articles in AJPH, AJE, JECH, and IJE dedicated to answering these questions. I'll focus on Stephen Thacker's review.

He states, “The applied epidemiologist is by definition an activist, moving rapidly from findings to policy, putting epi knowledge to good use. The 21st century epi must do all these things while maintaining a foundation of high-quality epi research and practice.”

Susser warns the field of what he considers “the black box paradigm… the current international focus on risk factor epidemiology.” He advocates for expanding our academic training to include socializing epis to “keep the improvement of the public’s health as a primary value”

Morabia argued that epidemiology has historically found its balance in the tension between the search for causal relations and the improvement of public health; overemphasis on either perspective puts epidemiology at risk of losing its value.

How does this play out in real life? I’ve been an applied epi for 13 years, working mainly in local, state, and federal health agencies. My work has focused on conducting cool analysis that lead to policy or systemic change.
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Trump still gets control of judicial appointments so we can expect another 100 judges over the next two years. This time there’ll be no McCain or Flake playing the Maverick role with their swing vote.

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Timur Lang, was the founder of Timurid Empire. He was born in April 1336 CE, somewhere in central asia.


During his reign, he conquered Persia, Egypt, Central Asia and emerged as the most powerful and heinous ruler. He was a religious fanatic like the rest of the Islamic invaders who tried to invade India.

Timur Lang decided to invade India in 1398 as he heard about India's splendid wealth and had a desire to conquer India which his ancestor Genghis Khan couldn't do.


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2/ This phenomenon—I’m calling it a Sex Recession—really surprised me. It seemed improbable in the age of Tinder, digital porn, and attitudes that are generally permissive and sex-positive.

3/ What’s happening isn’t exclusively American: Similar trends are being observed in other countries, including Japan, Australia, the U.K., Finland, and the Netherlands.


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