COVID-19 aftermath: What things will change forever?

[DuWayne Steurer]

To go along with that hopefully people will stay home from work when they're sick more often. Hopefully more employers will be encouraged to provide sick time for their employees. Something I doubt it will happen but it's nice to think about

[owbc]

4. Small businesses are going to be a much smaller chunk of the economy.

 

 

I don't know about that. They make up 70% of all businesses. What is "much smaller," 65%?

 

That's the million dollar question. One would hope that the permanent loss is not a double-digit percent loss.

[homer]

In dense areas, I hope bicycle infrastructure is improved.

[TURBO]

Hopefully places get rid of hand dryers, those ones you stick your hands in particular.

Those are touchless - how are they an issue?

 

With paper towel rolls, they always get jammed up or the sensors don't work and you have to manually turn the knob to get them to dispense the next towel.

 

They blow an immense amount of germs from the floor, into the air. Fecal matter being the one that is most concerning.

[FVBrewerFan]

Forever is a long time. I think all of these things being brought up will be short term changes, a couple a little longer term. But I don't see anything fundamentally changing forever because most people had to sort of stay home for a couple months.

[logan82]

I would rather my youngest son continue online education or be given more time in school to do school work. He is working 4 hours at most now on schoolwork instead of 8 hours of school with at least 2 hours of schoolwork on top of that. Maybe that is just the teachers being lax. Seems to point to me to the classroom teaching to the lowest common denominator.

[TURBO]

I would rather my youngest son continue online education or be given more time in school to do school work. He is working 4 hours at most now on schoolwork instead of 8 hours of school with at least 2 hours of schoolwork on top of that. Maybe that is just the teachers being lax. Seems to point to me to the classroom teaching to the lowest common denominator.

 

Teachers being lax?

 

Oh man, if you only knew the amount of new stress on the teaching profession that this is causing.

 

I'll leave it at that, and end with this. If you aren't involved in education currently, you have no idea, no clue whatsoever about whatis going on with teachers...

 

[homer]

Online education has been shown to be just as effective as in-person education when done right. There are a lot of factors that need to be accounted for - you can't just lecture. It's a huge mindset shift and can't be done on a whim. I think if teachers had time to prepare they'd adjust just fine.

[jerichoholicninja]

I had a Facebook teacher friend recently post that she hopes that some sort of online teaching continues after schools are opened. I'm not sure what grade she teaches but it's like upper grade school. She records her teaching the lessons and the students watch it at home. Students that need more time to understand can rewatch the parts they need to do and the students that get it can skip the parts they don't need. Basically, everyone is able to learn at their own pace and the fast learners don't have to spend time doing nothing waiting for the slower learners to catch up. Makes sense to me. I remember being in school and there being that one kid asking 100 questions because they don't understand while everyone just sat around twiddling their thumbs.

[MrTPlush]

They need to modernize in person teaching...not do online schooling.

[Samurai Bucky]

If the goal is to simply instruct, then online learning works well. My son yearns to go back to school, however. Not for instruction, but for the social interaction. Can't get too much of that with Zoom. Teachers are also more effective when they can see a student's body language. They miss the interaction as much as the students do.

[homer]

I don't mean to imply that online should totally replace in person (although at higher levels where learning social skills isn't part of it I think it could) I do think it should supplement it at all levels.

[Thurston Fluff]

I had a Facebook teacher friend recently post that she hopes that some sort of online teaching continues after schools are opened. I'm not sure what grade she teaches but it's like upper grade school. She records her teaching the lessons and the students watch it at home. Students that need more time to understand can rewatch the parts they need to do and the students that get it can skip the parts they don't need. Basically, everyone is able to learn at their own pace and the fast learners don't have to spend time doing nothing waiting for the slower learners to catch up. Makes sense to me. I remember being in school and there being that one kid asking 100 questions because they don't understand while everyone just sat around twiddling their thumbs.

 

I'd add that kids who don't get it as fast as others might be more inclined to ask for help without feeling stupid.

[DHonks]

My district has offered online learning for almost twenty years. Most use it to take a class here or there. Some take it so that they can spend time working on the sport they'll play collegiately (so they'll take 2 classes in person, the rest online, and be getting individual golf, tennis, baseball, etc instruction during normal school hours). There are a lot of safeguards put in so that students can't work through things too fast and actually have to spend required state hours on learning. But just as the 8-hour work day has evolved with many employers focusing on productivity more than watching clocks, that probably should happen with education as well. Is it better that a kid learns 10 objectives, or spends 6 hours in class each day?

 

I'm finding this MUCH easier and less stressful than my normal job. Granted, I haven't started recording any lectures. It's helpful that I'm in Social Studies, and we have really good online books for them to use. It also helps that regular education students can't receive a lower semester grade than their 3Q grade, so most students with A's, along with others are choosing to not submit any work for grading. But I'm posting my weekly chapter with ~10 questions for them to respond to (based on the text, but also sometimes applying it to present times or requiring them to find some data online). I've had them do DBQ's as well. Why is it less stressful for me? Because instead of leading class 5 hours a day and not getting to plan/grade until the evening, I'm currently spending Sundays planning the weekly work and assignments, Mondays and Tuesdays grading, and a couple hours grading and emailing the rest of the week. Normally we really don't have time to plan and grade during school hours (a 50 min prep is nothing), so it all happens on weekends and evenings. In fact I'm almost fully planned out for the last 2-3 weeks of school, whereas I normally would only have a rough schedule on a calendar.

 

I've wondered if a hybrid model could be used. I'm seeing stories of states considering restructuring the day to limit students on campus. I could see us with A and B days that alternate. Basically take our current classes of up to 40 students, and cut them in half. 1100 students on campus each day instead of 2200. Instead of having 5 big classes, I would effectively teach 10 smaller classes. Classtime would be spent with some lecture, discussion, review, and testing. Students would be required to read, complete questions, and work on projects on their days at home. I don't know how this could work for ES or MS, but for HS it could definitely work with students at home 1/2 time.

 

Another way this works is if teachers utilize a flipped model. I've thought about it, but I think it works best in Math and Science. For those that don't know, students watch video lectures at home, then use in-class time to complete labs and work on problems. Especially since so few students do math homework these days, doing it in-class with the teacher present can overcome the group chats students use to copy (if you don't know about them sharing math answers, just honestly ask your kids. one kid does homework, 40+ just copy the screen shot from the group chat)

[jerichoholicninja]

I had a Facebook teacher friend recently post that she hopes that some sort of online teaching continues after schools are opened. I'm not sure what grade she teaches but it's like upper grade school. She records her teaching the lessons and the students watch it at home. Students that need more time to understand can rewatch the parts they need to do and the students that get it can skip the parts they don't need. Basically, everyone is able to learn at their own pace and the fast learners don't have to spend time doing nothing waiting for the slower learners to catch up. Makes sense to me. I remember being in school and there being that one kid asking 100 questions because they don't understand while everyone just sat around twiddling their thumbs.

 

I'd add that kids who don't get it as fast as others might be more inclined to ask for help without feeling stupid.

 

That's right. She did mention that too.

[wallus]

I teach online for a large nationwide company currently. I also taught in a brick and mortar for 6 years. Brick and mortar is definitely the route I would send my kids if I ever had them.

[greeg35]

I've wondered if a hybrid model could be used.

 

I teach HS social studies as well and I've had the same thought, especially for my upper level juniors and seniors. Like 2/3 days in person, 2/3 days distance learning. I think it would be perfect.

[NeedMoreFans]

There is no way online learning can replace in-person education for most grades. Elementary students need direct instruction from their teachers and need social interactions with their peers. It's incredibly difficult to teach my kids when I have my own responsibilities.

 

I'm also a HS social studies teacher. Right now, I'm focused on creating assignments that will help boost grades for students that are not passing because their 3rd quarter grade is their floor and they can only improve, not go down. But thinking ahead to the fall if needed, I'm already looking at guiding students to the treasure trove of resources out there and they get to control how they present what they learned. It won't be worksheet based. I'm also thinking I could start to integrate those things into my classroom when we get back.

 

However, as was mentioned earlier, this has exposed the huge digital divide we have. Many of my kids don't have internet at home. Instead, they rely on their phones with data. Every student has a Chromebook but not all have the wifi to hook up to. Any transition to even partial digital learning cannot happen unless that can be addressed.

[igor67]

My students are reasonably well engaged, and we are going to plausibly covered most of the material I would have done anyway, but a lot of what I'm seeing is propped up by everything being open book so outside of my strongest students I have relatively little confidence that the retention will be anywhere close to what I would normally have. It's worse because if I could still do my normal pedagogy this would have been a fantastic time to really get them to see why they have to work so hard to become science literate.

[nodakfan17]

My department is onboarding a soon-to-be college grad at a salary that’s roughly 18% less than what was offered to new hires last year. The job market just gave up a decade’s worth of gains in 2 months. The power balance has shifted back from employees to employers.

[Fear The Chorizo]

My department is onboarding a soon-to-be college grad at a salary that’s roughly 18% less than what was offered to new hires last year. The job market just gave up a decade’s worth of gains in 2 months. The power balance has shifted back from employees to employers.

 

Considering the fact there aren't even starbucks barista jobs available to college MBA degree holders anymore, that's going to be obvious for any companies that are actually hiring people right now. There are many more companies permanently closing their doors each day compared to posting job openings, unfortunately. That new hire is likely thrilled to have any job prospects that include benefits at this point.

 

Touching on the elearning posts, I can see college courses moving that way heavily after this - but elementary/middle school education needs to happen in the classroom. Perhaps some high school courses can be done via elearning to get kids used to that technology and help develop self-discipline/work ethic traits. Colleges are going to have to restructure their system or die, because their surging costs to obtain increasingly diminished value degrees aren't going to hold up in the face of plummeting enrollments and cratered state budgets that are going to hit them - particularly public university systems.

 

I also think we will see many more households with two parents and young children operate using 1 income and stay at home parent who might add gig work on the side to save on daycare/before after school care for the next few years. There just won't be an immediate surge in job reopenings as we crawl out of this hole, and people are going to be hesitant to start paying through the teeth to have someone else watch their children when they can manage to do so. Daycares will still be around as there are many family situations that require them - however there won't be a new one opening up on every other street corner because demand will be diminished.

 

There is also going to be a bigger surge in urban flight by people with means to do so than was already occurring before Covid - particularly after the coming food supply issues present themselves a month or so down the road. A hobby farm with 10 acres that can readily be converted into a self-sustaining food plot that has a good internet connection to help a remote worker pay the bills makes alot more sense than a 1,000 square foot studio in a high rise that is 1 closed processing plant away from becoming a food desert during a pandemic, IMO.

[nodakfan17]

I believe hard work can overcome most obstacles in the long run, but absent an immediate turnaround, the Class of 2020’s career earnings will be lower than recent graduating classes.

[wallus]

What will change forever? People will finally start taking advice learned in their personal finance classes and have 3-6 months of living expenses on hand.

 

 

Just kidding, no way that happens.

[brewerfan82]

I think the long lasting changes will be the technological advances that the epidemic has and will push. Smaller shops being forced to set themselves up to sell online, grocery delivery, possibly online elections, certain businesses realizing they can forgo the expensive office space and work from home effectively, virtual social gatherings, touchless entryways, and probably many more things that really creative people are going to come up with in the upcoming months.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

What will change forever? People will finally start taking advice learned in their personal finance classes and have 3-6 months of living expenses on hand.

 

 

Just kidding, no way that happens.

 

Perhaps a few will think twice before rushing out to stand in line in front of the Apple Store to fork over $2,000 for the newest iPhone that will be obsolete in 6 months when they release the next one.