Given @GavinWilliamson failure to apologise this week for 'last-minute' decisions on schools policy during the pandemic, we thought it might be useful to put to together one handy thread of every U-turn from the @educationgovuk since April last

Free school meals will come up a lot in this thread, but here is the first governmental U-turn before the Easter Holidays. (2/43) #FSM

.@educationgovuk then decided not to fund #FSM in the following half-term break, they changed their minds after a public outcry.

Taking a break from #FSM, we head straight into the #Alevels2020 exams debacle, with Scotland’s grade U-turn putting pressure on the @educationgovuk (4/43)

Ministers in Westminster were determined not to U-turn

If I finish all of the physics a lesson or two before the end of term, I like to use those spare lessons to do something fun. For the last 12 years I have done a boys vs girls engineering challenge and the girls nearly always win. Here is why...

So, my experience of this is normally allowing 5 or so classes do this activity in any given year, always with the same set up and always with me observing just how it goes. In total I must now have observed the experiment about 60 times.

To be clear I am all for students choosing their own teams and such and I am aware of the false dichotomy of the situation. But generally due to sports, boarding houses etc my crew are quite used to boys as one gang and girls as another.

The activity is bridge building. Two tables are set apart and each team must bridge the gap using only paper, string and 4 clamp stands. The bridge must have a roadway and each will be tested to destruction at the end with weights.

So, I split the class - girls vs boys. The rules are clear. They can't interfere with each other's bridges and they can't test their own bridge. They have about 45 minutes to build something. Let me tell you what then normally happens...

So - what is the deal with the AntiBlack 'awarding gap' in UK higher education?
@Wonkhe @officestudents @nusuk @UWankings @BantshireUni
#BlackAwardingGap #highered

What do students think about their university experience?
#BlackAwardingGap #highered

A student-deficit approach is a fundamental reason why efforts to eradicate the gap have failed, such that despite ↗️ access to HE for Black students, their experiences, assessment and opportunities remain disproportionately affected (one of the ways in which whiteness works⬇️)

UK higher ed, far from being immune or removed from structural inequalities, often actually reproduces them. In this context, white supremacy is the social structure, and the University the institutional operation.
But what is whiteness? Here's some helpful terms ⬇️

Aside from dismantling the institution, and starting over in a different and reparative way, there are things we can do at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, and community level to address it. Such as, manifest an anti-racist pedagogy ⬇️

I have news about online teaching and reading workload, friends.

I have experimented with REDUCING the number of readings I assign for a class. This is hard in overview courses because you always feel like they should have "the lay of the land" and master all that there is.

HOWEVER...

My students have performed BETTER with reduced reading workloads.

Undergrads focus on ONE reading per week, while having 3 more available "if they so happen to have the time to read them" (they often do try to read these extra readings).

Masters' level students have appreciated taking a "let's just take things more slowly" approach.

Doctoral level students felt somewhat weirded out that I wasn't assigning three books a week. Though they appreciated it.

What I have drawn from my experiences:
- Workshops work.

Having a section of the class that is "hands-on, let's get writing/analyzing/thinking/reading" as a workshop fulfills two goals, for me:

1) Cements my students' understanding of the method.

2) Helps them have actual time to think and read and write rather than rush through.

Depth and breadth are issues we need to compromise on.

- Do I want them to read more broadly or more deeply?
- Do I want them to become more expert in a few things or become more generalist-type people?

These choices are malleable, as is our context.

What is NOT malleable:

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.”

Dear Colleagues,
With just one week remaining before the winter break, we are all looking forward more than ever to a couple of weeks of respite from the intense duties of teaching, which are even more overwhelming in pandemic times. 1/
#bced

Like teachers everywhere, we have had to face so many additional challenges this year. Constant handwashing &mask-wearing, pivoting to online learning, upholding health and safety protocols, struggling with tech issues, adapting to different school schedules &the list goes on. 2/

Underlying it all is the constant worry about our students, our children, our partners, our elders, and ourselves. Yet, despite all this, I constantly see #bced teachers’ energy and creativity shining through. 3/

I want to express deep gratitude for all you are doing every day. All of it is evidence of the consummate professionalism and deep commitment of #bced teachers. Thank you! 4/

Of course, we all welcomed Wednesday’s wonderful news about the approval of the Pfizer vaccine, which will begin rolling out to high risk populations in long-term care and health care next week. 5/
#bced

The problem that the ‘lets-shut-schools-for-a-couple-of-weeks-crowd’ ignore is that its much easier to shut schools than to open them. Therefore, the probability is that once schools are shut, they will be shut for months on end, just like last time.

In other words, they are engaging in wishful thinking. The probability is that schools will be shut for months on end whilst online teaching provision will likely be patchy/minimal/inadequate/non-existent like it was last time & educational inequalities will continue to widen.

We’ve learned nothing from the schools shutting for 6 months last yr. Once those schools are shut, they will be shut for months. Online learning will continue to be inadequate, meanwhile big-mouthed Twitter users with no skin in the game will continue to opine on the subject.

The average Twitter user is more likely to be parent to a cat than to a human child. No skin in the game & it shows, quite frankly. The online learning that is available for parents is inadequate & it will be left to parents to utilise their own resources, again.

Educational inequalities will widen into a chasm. It will be a disaster for children, especially primary school-aged children, & for what? Where is the evidence that school closures minimised the spread of C-19? But the average Twitter user need not worry, their cat will be fine

I posted earlier about Fake Ass getting bullied at school...
So let's take a look at some of his past tweets...the ones he forgot to delete before he became a US operative, US diplomat and clandestine....
These aren't photoshopped these are actual screenshots...

No wonder...

Here he says he was jumped...he has a way with the ladies....
He also says he never touches those girls...what did you really do Omastole, for them to jump you?
He also mentions his wrestling...

Maybe these tweets can give us a clue..
He also tells us his old school...
Linden High...New Jersey.

Linden high school...calas of 2010

My thoughts about Covid in schools-
Our studies are crap. We haven't put appropriate resources into studying this. Merging "in-person school" v "remote school" across the country makes little sense since there's so much heterogeneity in what "in-person school" looks like. 🧵

A teacher in Louisiana in an area with high rates of covid & in-person school, has a class with just 2 students in it. The entire school has 37 students and 12 staff, in a building that can hold hundreds.
Should this school's data be merged with a school that's fully open?

How would merging such disparate data, and everything in-between impact our understanding of Covid in schools? What about when we compare it to the rates in children who are in virtual school?

Things often not considered that should be... Are kids in pods? Are kids doing virtual school in community centers/ churches/ other group settings? Are youth sports or other extracurricular school activities (music, etc) happening in-person. Heterogeneity exist in this group too.

What's asymptomatic testing of children in the community like? We know that children are under-tested, how can we say something is safe if we are NOT TESTING children at the same rate as the rest of the population. We can't embrace the "don't ask (test) don't tell" apprach here.

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).

APPLYING TO GRAD SCHOOL, POST #18: INTERVIEWS (PART 4)

You've finished your interview(s) and you're tired, but it's not over quite yet! What should you do after interviews?

@OpenAcademics @PhDVoice #AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter #phdchat #gradschool #firstgen #nontraditional

Firstly, congratulate yourself for making it through the interview! Take some time to relax and reflect on your experience, especially if you have forthcoming interviews for other programs. Take note of questions and positive and negative moments that stuck out to you.

*Huge note: PLEASE try not to beat yourself up too much if you didn't know the answer to every question in the interview. Depending on the type of interview (and interviewer) you had, there might have been many difficult questions presented to you, specifically for the purpose...

of not only seeing how much you know, but also seeing how you think and process problems when you *don't* know the answers. If you can, reason your way through the question and explain yourself as well as you can, so that they can see your way of thinking, but if you truly...

have no idea, it's perfectly fine to just say that you don't know, as opposed to rambling nonsensically and hopelessly.

That was all to say, try to make notes of tough questions so that you can be prepared for similar questions in the future, but don't beat yourself up if you...

I’ve had a fantastic MSc experience (almost done!) and have been talking to a lot of incoming or current students. Some topics / questions come up a lot. Here’s what I know!

🧵 Tips for an awesome MSc experience.

#AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter @OpenAcademics @academeology

1/ Ok to start, some context: I started my MSc in September 2019 in Organizational Behaviour. I start my PhD this September.

A lot happened in my MSc: I won several scholarships, my Dad died, I submitted my thesis work to a major conference, annnd there was the pandemic.

2/ Let’s get into it!

Choosing a thesis topic: Read read read.

What are you interested? Pick an umbrella topic and start reading. Follow the rabbit holes. Write questions, answers, more questions. When you find questions you cannot answer, you might have a thesis topic.

3/ Don’t get stuck on the idea you came in with.

My first semester a professor said “if your research ideas don’t change, you haven’t learned anything.”

No one is going to pull up your SOP and hold you to whatever you said you were interested in upfront.

4/ Pin down a thesis format

What will you do, broadly? One study? Two? A review paper? Meta-analysis? As early as possible, find out what YOU actually need to do to complete your thesis. ESPECIALLY if you’re in a lab with lots going on. What is YOUR requirement?

I’ve compiled 6 tips for the move online based on @AccessTCD & @SchoolofEdTCD research. During #schoolclosures last year we surveyed 1000+ students and 700+ teachers about their experience of #onlinelearning. Although it's difficult to be back here, we have learned so much. (1/N)

1. Prioritise student & staff wellbeing. Connection before content. Everyone is dealing with different circumstances at home often unbeknownst to others. Check-in with students and colleagues. (2/N)

2. A whole-school approach is needed when moving teaching and learning online. Our research suggests that schools who used a whole school approach had higher engagement from students and higher collaboration among teachers. (3/N)

3. Research suggests providing live or recorded lessons for students is important for high student engagement. Connect with each other, students don’t want double the amount of homework, they want to learn from their enthusiastic teachers and see the face behind the screen. (4/N)

4. Teacher feedback means the world to students. It helps them to improve, motivates them to keep up engagement and strengthens student/ teacher relationships. Assign a meaningful amount of work to students that you have the time to respond to. (5/N)

This thread is for parents of teenagers. I have something for you: the first chapter of @ronlieber’s THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR COLLEGE. Because ye gods, here’s what we and our kids are facing.

Beyond obvious changes, like $$$ tuition prices, the system has changed from when we were in school. Nearly all colleges use so-called “merit-aid” to pay kids for good grades.

This is NOT need-based financial aid, and it’s not about expanding college access for the poor... it's an arms race by schools scrambling for US News rankings.

Tuition list prices are misleading at this point. College seats are more like airline seats, and your kid's actual price is calculated based on everything from his zip code... SAT scores... how much interest he and his cohort have shown in school X (yes they can figure that out.)

Ron has seen NYC high school classes in which three kids were offered admission to the same small school at three different prices-- and *none* of them had applied for need-based financial aid!