This open letter created a false dichotomy in the schools debate, pitting MH against safety. Thread..

https://t.co/iKGVXcI76Y

@theAliceRoberts @MaryBoustedNEU @ReicherStephen @SusanMichie @alansteinoxford

LIST OF QUESTIONS FOR MPS
From @ClareCraigPath and Dr Jonathan Engler:
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1.Why are SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels flat or dropping across all age groups since May if the pandemic is still going?

2.What percentage of the population is assumed to have had prior immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in the SAGE forecasting models?

3.Why do 50% of household members not catch SARS-CoV-2 from infected persons with whom they live?

4.Why have Japan and South Korea not had any serious outbreak if the human species has no prior immunity to SARS-CoV-2?

5.What percentage of the population of the UK is assumed to be immune to COVID-19 (including prior immunity) as of this date?

1/9 - “In the second wave we acquired much more evidence that schoolchildren are almost equally, if not more infected by SARS-CoV-2 than others.”

2/9 - “The problem is not that schools are unsafe for children,” Mr. Boris Johnson said last week. “The problem is schools may nonetheless act as vectors for transmission, causing the virus to spread between households.”

3/9 - “An antibody survey conducted by researchers in Geneva in May and December, using thousands of random samples, found that children of age 6 to 18 were getting infected as often as young adults. The study has yet to be peer reviewed.”

4/9 - “One reason for this: The Swiss city’s schools have been open since the summer, while restrictions have been placed on adults, meaning schoolchildren played a bigger role in transmitting the virus during the autumn surge.”

5/9 - “In Austria, a nationwide survey by universities and medical institutes found that children under 10 showed a similar rate of infection to those between 11 and 14, and that the children in general were getting infected as often as teachers.”

Many of us are about to begin a new semester of online teaching. The learning curve for moving my lecture units last semester was STEEP, so I compiled some sort of hand over notes to people approaching this for the first time. I hope it's useful for someone somewhere.

Reduction in the amount of content was important. What used to be 2 x 1 hr in-person lectures/week had to be condensed down into 6 x 10 minute prerecorded videos (aka aynchronounous content) with 1 x hr live zoom session (synchronous). Even that was too much.

For the sake of yourself and your students, SLASH. Slash your content down. This doesn't mean having to lose important stuff, but keeping it short and sweet.

10 minute video chunks was just about short enough to hold attention. Have you tried watching an online lecture? It is HARD to maintain focus. The shorter the better.

Importantly, each 10 minute video had an explicit Intended Learning Objective given at the end and in the associated text, so that everyone knew what the point was (and how this might relate to assessment later).

1/ THREAD. MFA in Creative Writing at Chapman University. Application deadline: February 1. That's MONDAY! Let me say a few things about our program first, and then I'll provide a CODE for an application FEE WAIVER at the end of this thread. #MFA #gradschool #creativewriting

2/ While some of our MFA students focus on one genre, many write across genres. @tryphena_yeboah published her first poetry chapbook last year with @AkashicBooks, has published stories @NarrativeMag, and is writing a thesis in fiction with thesis director Richard Bausch.

3/ Likewise, @lizharmer published her first novel with @penguinrandom while she was an MFA student here, her second novel is forthcoming in 2022, and she drafted a memoir as her thesis, with me as the thesis director. Lots of our students take a workshop in a second genre.

4/ MFA faculty work across genres too. Jim Blaylock is a steampunk fiction writers (see Homunculus), and now he writes essays (see a couple in @poetswritersinc). @TheMil10 writes plays & poems & I write poems & essays. Together, our expertise covers a broad range of aesthetics.

5/ All incoming MFA students begin with Aspects of a Writer in their first fall semester. This course focuses on sustaining a writing life, publishing, and fostering literary culture. When I teach the course, each student forms a Writing Life Plan based on their own goals.