One big takeaway from this: we need to not just plan for Fall 2020 online, we need to plan to SELL a Fall 2020 online for students who, after this semester, might consider taking a gap year... or plan for the unprecedented loss of tuition that will result. 1/16 https://twitter.com/chronicle/status/1248807992847241217

How to sell it? Rather than trying to take a traditional semester and deliver it online, we need to envision alterations not just to classes but to degree programs that accommodate the circumstances. Like Semester Abroad programs... "Semester At Home." 2/16

What would "Semester At Home" look like? I don't know for sure. But students do: right now they are experiencing a variety of approaches and know which ones are working for them environment and which ones aren't. We need to ask them about it! 3/16

Student evaluations this semester — using traditional mechanisms but also deeper conversations — will be important indicators for how we can balance course alterations and academic rigor, and we can use that data to inform larger, degree program alterations. 4/16

(One place to NOT use student evaluations this semester: tenure binders. Or merit pay, but that likely isn't happening this year anyway.) 5/16

My guess is that evaluations will show that the most significant handicap students have right now is that they are no longer immersed in an academic community. The importance of living and learning with peers, in a place designed to support just that, cannot be understated. 6/16

Most students now are interacting with school the way they interact with a favorite talk show or YouTube channel: there's a yearning to more fully participate, but they're too far away. Others are in circumstances that prevent even that level of buy-in. 7/16

When we were all thrown into online teaching last month, the prevailing wisdom was that asynchronous teaching is the least stressful arrangement for student and teacher, and I still think that was the best decision under the circumstances. 8/16

But asynchronous education places the onus of learning almost completely on the stressed-out, cooped-up, sick-of-these-four-walls student, and if that's what we're trying to sell, especially after having a taste of it, I don't think students will be buying. 9/16

If we are online in the fall, I think synchronous experiences might be better after all. But here's the catch: expectations of student involvement outside of class time should be reduced or even eliminated. No, it's not ideal, but these are extraordinary circumstances. 10/16

This means reducing homework and testing, which also has the side benefit of reducing grading for similarly-stressed teachers (many of whom, like myself, are parents who are also running their own home schools). 11/16

We will doubtlessly have to sacrifice some academic rigor. But as we face a lower demand, we need to cut costs, and tuition is not the only cost involved in higher education. 12/16

It also means making those 2-3 hours of synchronous learning more valuable. How to do that? Villasenor hits on this: collaboration with other schools. Have you ever been to a conference and thought, "I wish my students could hear this paper"? 13/16

Team-teaching with colleagues from other schools not only exposes students to varied experience and expertise, but provides opportunities for networking previously only experienced at academic conferences. 14/16

If we were to sell Fall 2020 as a semester-long opportunity for conference-level education and networking, while cutting the "cost" of homework and testing, that might be something our students will find worthwhile. 15/16

And if we do it right, who knows? Maybe it will be worth doing again sometime. 16/16