Thread by @paulgknox

@AlexUsherHESA Unis haven’t succeeded in imposing teaching quality standards on tenured profs to date. No reason that would be any easier now. Probationary, yes, via student & peer assessments and tenure committees. My guess would be that their hiring letters or tenure expectations ... 1/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... already contain something about new delivery modes & techniques. If not they can be modified in the early probationary years. As for contract, they may have a seniority claim over a course they’ve taught several times, but they’d probably have to demonstrate currency ... 2/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... in both subject matter and pedagogy, so that would give the department some leverage.

The snart provost will push this queation down to the deabs, and the smart dean to the department or program chair. As I said in a previous string, I’m not sure senates have enough ... 3/x

@AlexUsherHESA *deans
... meetings left before September to deal with this. Anyway, unless for some reason a prof is being asked to change a course’s intellectual/theoretical approach, text, reading list or other substantive attributes, I’m not sure there’s a good academic freedom case. 4/x

@AlexUsherHESA *question (#3)
In the real world, a lot will depend on the uni’s willingness to decide asap how many curriculum hours in each program can be delivered by distance, what adjustments must be made and how much support will be available. It may be that the adjustments are not ... 5/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... all that great for many courses. Many already exist on edu-platforms - Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle etc. Typically a minimum of a syllabus & reading list linked to library resources, maybe assignments, quizzes, tests & marks/grades, maybe lectures, notes & slides. 6/x

@AlexUsherHESA With support, the minimum in those courses can be moved to the maximum. The big question then is integrating with the conferencing software, & making choices - do you stick with the edu-platform for student chatrooms etc. or switch to something else. I’d bet that most ... 7/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... faculty & contract instructors would consent to or even welcome this as long as they didn’t have to figure out for themselves how to do it. This should work for no-frills one-section courses, mostly upper-year electives, with 20-50 participants. Lectures can be done ... 8/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... as notes, slides or actual lectures, and by the way no one lectures for three hours. Such a class would often be timetabled 2 hrs lecture + one hr tutorial, but with features such as videos, discussion, guests, demonstrations etc. Maybe hard at first for those who ... 9/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... talk rather than lecturing, but ways will be found. Especially important is support for live video production - subject & ambient lighting, backgound, positioning, audio (external mic recommended), settings for timeout, sleep, power management, network optimization. 10/x

@AlexUsherHESA The big introductory courses with 500-2000 students pose a bigger problem. The lecture portion is similar but there might be 20-30 tutorial sections under TAs. In principle also similar, but distance will exacerbate the perennial problem of keeping TAs on the same page. 11/x

@AlexUsherHESA Then there’s the part of curriculum that can’t easily be moved to distance. Not only science labs but those in creative schools, community services, health professions, etc. Anything requiring pro-level equipment, demonstration-repetition etc. There might be issues here ... 12/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... if profs, contract faculty or TAs are asked to do things that can’t be done. Or if the curric hrs are left in the labs & teachers don’t think they’re safe. With foresight this can be avoided. Finally there are the experiential components such as capstone projects, ... 13/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... placements, fieldwork. Heaven knows how they’ll be handled but they’re part of teaching loads & could conceivably be venues for friction. (They’re also good places to assign tenured faculty who would be poor candidates for distance teaching.) 14/x

@AlexUsherHESA In practice the main issues faced by dept & program chairs will be with older tenured faculty who are uncomfortable with distance courses. They might fall back on an academic freedom argument. But I’d expect most disputes to be resolved. As for collective agreements, ... 15/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... the one I know best (Ryerson) is most concerned with teaching load (hours, number of students and TAs, etc.). If enough support is offered I’d expect all but the toughest disputes to be resolved without reaching the grievance stage. Again, the amount of support is key. 16/x

@AlexUsherHESA To sum up I think the balance of issues and interests in employee relations favours the university, at least as far as the tenure stream is concerned. That’s not to say there won’t be problems, perhaps serious ones. A cavalier attitude toward the size of the ask will ... 17/x

@AlexUsherHESA ... serve no one. A lot will depend on how much $$$ is available for teaching support. Also an early sense from registrars about demand for admission and deferments. Preliminary estimates should be available soon. If demand drops teaching strength will have to be adjusted. 18/x

@AlexUsherHESA Personally, although I no longer have skin in the game, I’d push back against any sense that the new normal in PSE is distance delivery. I don’t have to enumerate all the reasons why the physical campus holds tremendous value for both students and faculty. 19/x

@AlexUsherHESA If there’s any threat to stability from teachers I’d expect it to be about the value of experiential & collaborative components in PSE. Policy wonks & policy-setters have spent years pushing programs to include more of these in curricula. Students are used to it & want more. 20/x

@AlexUsherHESA Planners ought to expect lots of resistance, and for good reason, if they envision significant distance components without articulating sound evidence-based reasons.

Thanks Alex & all for attention & patience. 21/21

@AlexUsherHESA @threadreaderapp pls unroll