Here's a crazy idea - Don't open 2020/21 First year!
University campuses tend to be quiet places in summers - you see that wandering academic, possibly a short conference, the stressed out PhD student or maybe admin scurrying for admissions. After a semester of online teaching, some universities are ready to go fully online for next scholastic year, others are elusively hoping to open - possibly subject to distancing rules.
Online lecturing is not the same as physical lecturing - it requires a different set of planning and skills. In some cases (say where medical labs are involved) it is close to impossible and it has also led to an increase in potential copying. Moreover some students may not have the space at home to study.
In essence teaching online can be sub-optimal for many programs unless well planned.
In this article, I propose another solution - not to open the 2020/21 scholastic year for first years and then offer an accelerated entry in 2021/22 during which the summer semester may be used for teaching. A student starting in 2021/22 can opt for the faster route (over two years) or the traditional route (over three years).
The image below shows how the different cohorts would follow their program (Y2S2 means year 2 semester 2).
The three groups of interest would be:
- Current students: Under this plan, students who are already in their second or third year would continue normally. The current courses may be lectured online or ideally on campus. With no first years during the next scholastic year, the university may have more space to be able to apply social distancing regulations.
- First years: First years who were hoping to start in 2020 would have their hopes dashed. However they would not lose out on any time if they opt for a fast route as they would still finish in 2023. They can still opt to follow a traditional three year setting. Both tracks would follow a similar pattern (in green) where they follow all of year 1 and semester 1 of year 2 at the same times. However the students following the fast route would have year 2 semester 2 in the summer of 2022 and follow third year in 2023.*
- Lecturing Staff: Lecturing staff are also affected by this model but teaching loads would not change drastically. The 2020/21 scholastic year would not include first year teaching, the 2021/22 would not include Year 2 semester 2 teaching but that is about it.
Obviously this approach has many challenges -for example on how to deal with year long study-units, the fast route would be tough on students, what should first years do during 2020/21, dealing with resits requires more care and it is based on the prospect of a vaccine by 2021. However it minimizes the stresses of online teaching, is safer than many of the other alternatives and it is an easy solution.
Why hasn't it been considered yet?
This solution is far from perfect with many pros and cons. I list these with respect to The University of Malta by stakeholder in another article linked here. Feel free to chase me to populate this list.?