Well, I had already made plans to take two week-long breaks in this class, and I'm sticking to that plan. Two days is NOT good enough! It's not even close to a replacement for spring break... and in a pandemic, we need MORE than just the usual break, not less.
Sigh.
But then it's like OU refusing to offer P/NP grading in the fall. They are thinking about what their administrative convenience, not about what students really need.
Sure, some students are just going to cruise on through this semester, and I am so happy for them. That's great! And for students who want to do all 15 weeks of the class, I am here and ready to provide feedback on your writing every single week.
But I hope most people really will take the weeks off! Some people are going to be struggling, just as people were struggling in the fall and also last spring, maybe even more so given the terrible COVID numbers right now (I'm writing this post on January 13). I lost someone very important to me just a few weeks ago who died of the COVID, and my husband lost a close colleague just last week. Needless deaths that did not need to happen if our government had had a coherent response to the pandemic.
So, I'm always glad that an asynchronous online class can give people the flexibility they need... and especially now in the pandemic. It took me a while to come up with this plan for the two breaks, but I'm very happy with it, and I hope it will make the semester more manageable.
Because really...... this is feeling like an even more impossible semester than last fall.
Maybe things will be better after the inauguration: just one week away.
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