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Cambridge University fully committed to a full-remote year of teaching back in May. At the time this seemed slightly radical, but really they just gave everyone
by yomly 6y ago
Cambridge University fully committed to a full-remote year of teaching back in May. At the time this seemed slightly radical, but really they just gave everyone (students, teachers and administrators) a full 5 months to PLAN around a DECISION.
Meanwhile, other universities like KCL and LSE were still playing "wait and see" until even a few weeks ago.
Even if Cambridge were wrong, and everything is all well and good and we'll be home by Christmas it'll be easier and cheaper to revert back to normal than the clusterfuck that will be going on in places stuck in limbo/denial.
As anyone with some experience knows - trying to plan during instability or planning for two eventualities is basically impossible and a whole bunch of institutions AND countries have pissed away the past 6 months.
Kudos to Cambridge for showing some strong leadership.
- an_opabinia 6y agoStudent weren't going to leave Cambridge no matter what. They could offer a subpar year and everyone would still "show up." Same reason Harvard can charge $55k for watching its free videos this year. In April parents were already talking about "pods" as an alternative to remote learning in K-12 schools. If the average K-12 school wasn't promising what parents wanted - in person education - the parents would get it somewhere else, pulling their student and the ~10k funding that comes with the student right from the school. This was the ONLY factor at play and is highly predictive of the preparedness of remote learning at various institutions. The bigger takeaway is that parents, not students or teachers, are almost always the antagonists.