- So I'm going to share a little bit on some of the grading
flexibility that the Chancellor's Office is
telling us and then also what we don't have guidance on yet.
But hopefully we will soon.
So you'll notice that with the grading flexibility,
there's been a lot of questions around what we can and can't
do with grades.
So we've had a lot of faculty who are concerned.
Can I give students an incomplete?
Should I be giving students an incomplete?
How are students supposed to pass courses?
How are students supposed to finish courses that maybe we
don't have the lab space for?
And so there's been a little bit of guidance
from the Chancellor's Office.
And this is all current as of March 23rd.
There has not been any updates today March 24th.
But I assume that there will continue
to be updates for the rest of this week
and in the foreseeable future.
But as of March 23rd, this information is current.
So the Chancellor's Office has given us
some guidelines regarding what they are calling the Emergency
W. They've actually given Chancellor Eloy
Oakley emergency powers so he can change Title V temporarily
during this time to meet the needs of the students.
And so the big change that he made
is we are engaging in what's called the Emergency W.
So colleges no longer have to explain why they're
giving out Emergency Ws.
We are just in a time of emergency
so we're going to do that.
All that means is that when students withdraw,
they are going to get an EW instead
of a traditional W. The EW does not
count against their attempts to take classes.
It does not affect their GPA.
And it does not affect their academic progress.
So if a student is taking the course for a second time,
if they get an EW they'll still be
able to take the course again.
It will not hurt their academic progress.
So it won't eventually push them into a probationary situation.
Additionally, the Chancellor's Office
has allowed for colleges to give full refunds to students,
based on the EW.
So if the student withdraws and receives an EW,
they can get a full refund for this semester.
The campus is doing this two ways.
The first is that students can opt to have
a check mailed to their home.
Or they can keep the credit on their account
and apply it for the next semester
they attend at Cerritos.
There will be a form up on the admissions and records website,
as well as the COVID-19 student facing web page.
And then we'll eventually put all this information
up on the our remote teaching resources Canvas shell as well.
But there's just a form that asks students
to put their full name, their student number,
and verify their address, and then
tell us if they would prefer the check mailed
or the credit on account.
So this is a student initiated option.
This is not something that--
obviously if students don't come into class
and stop participating, please give them
the W. You giving them a traditional W--
the college will still go in and change it to an EW
so the student will still receive the refund.
And it will just get mailed to their house.
They won't have that option.
But this is really a student initiated move.
We should not be giving entire classes EWs.
But instead you should--
if students are withdrawing individually or students
stop attending class or stop turning things in, make sure
you reach out to them.
But if there's no response by the end of the semester,
please make sure to give them a W.
And this is good from--
essentially backdating-- so students
who have dropped between March 10th and the end
of the semester May 22nd will receive
the EW instead of the W. Is there
questions on the Emergency W?
- Yes.
Sorry.
- No.
For sure.
- So I'm hearing, from what you're
saying, that it's best for us to wait
to reach out to our students.
Any of our students-- even those who are not really--
or who had maybe stopped participating
a little bit before this began.
For us to reach out to all of them,
see if they are still interested in participating,
and if we don't hear from them, give them the W at the end.
Not now-- don't clear our rosters now.
Wait until the end?
- Correct.
I wouldn't clear your roster at this moment
just because it's been a stressful time for all of us.
Students are having to move online.
Students are worrying about their jobs.
Students are worried about all sorts of things.
So I'd really recommend not clearing
the roster right now, but at least
waiting I would say until April, when we start registration
for the summer term.
I think that it's important not to clear your rosters now
even if they maybe weren't participating at the full level
right before all this happened because things change--
things shift.
And it may be that the student who
wasn't able to come to class is now
able to participate online or vice versa.
But this communication will go out to students
so that they will see that if they would like to withdraw,
they could get a refund.
So you may see some kind of mass drops
from students in the next few weeks
as they get this information, and they and they kind
of sort through it and decide what they're going to do.
But I wouldn't clearing your roster just quite yet.
- And likewise we shouldn't necessarily
tell students this is an option.
We should wait until they get this guidance from the college?
- Yes, and this should actually come out
at the faculty senate meeting.
So this forum was finished as of today,
and I believe they're uploading it onto the web page.
And it should be live as of the morning of March 25, 2020.
So I know that there have been faculty
who have been requesting this information because students
are asking.
So I think that it's OK to tell your students that this will
be an option, and to guide them to the COVID-19 web
page for students.
But let them know that it probably
won't be until tomorrow.
So the other option that we've heard a lot about from faculty
are Incompletes.
We would actually say to minimize
the number of Incompletes you are giving out.
Faculty who give out Incompletes--
you'll have to allow the students back into your course
or another course or into some else's course to complete--
Well, no I'm sorry.
The Incomplete-- they'd have to come back into your course.
And they'd have to complete the class.
So really it would mean that you'd have additional students.
It's kind of pushed in to your different courses, which
can be an undue burden on you.
But also we may not, depending on seating or lab space,
have the room for those students.
So at this time, we're encouraging faculty to not
give a lot of Incompletes.
The cases that it is appropriate for
are the courses that are undergoing
a suspension of learning.
These are courses that have been identified
as difficult to move online or impossible to move online.
At this point we have not officially, as the district,
identified those.
But we will toward the end of the week.
And those courses will have the option
to give the entire class the Incomplete
if the student choose to continue,
or they can take the EW.
But for your traditional lecture type courses
that were able to go online, we'd
really encourage not giving and Incompletes unless it really
is an extenuating circumstance where
the student has begged you to please allow them to continue.
They only have one more paper or something to turn in.
But for the most part, the student having the ability
to withdraw, earn a refund, and not
have it count against their progress
is the better option at this point.
Question on the Incompletes?
So the other thing we've also heard from faculty
is that there are several universities
across the United across the nation that are
moving to a pass/fail model.
And I've been asked, can we move to a pass fail model?
At this time we are not going to move to the pass/fail model
mostly because the Chancellor's Office has kind of mentioned
it.
But for the most part, they're saying that the pass/fail model
is probably not a great idea for the community college campuses
because we have not heard from our University system partners,
whether it be CSU, UCs, or private universities,
if they will accept pass/fail as credit.
So an example of this is at our college, we will accept--
essentially you can earn the credit
like you've completed the GE, but you won't
earn the number of credits.
So it won't apply.
And students will have to actually end up
taking additional coursework at the University.
Additionally, there are some campuses--
there are some colleges or universities
that are highly competitive or have
highly competitive programs that won't allow for the pass/fail
because they are looking at the GPA.
And they don't want to have that pass/fail on there.
Students do have the option when they enroll in your courses.
If your course, based on the curriculum,
allows for pass/fail as a grading option,
they have the choice to enroll in pass/fail.
But that's a student's personal choice
and not mandated by the district.
So, at this time, there's not really
been any discussion as a system to move
to a pass/fail for this time.
That could change.
We're still pretty early on.
There has been some discussion amongst senate presidents
about putting a note on transcripts
to indicate that this semester was the COVID-19 emergency
semester or something else to indicate why more students may
have been pass/fail or an EW.
But at this time, a system wide movement to pass/fail
has not been initiated.
Questions on that?
No?
- So there won't be an option for students
to switch to that now, even if it's a student option.
- At this time, no--
the only exception might be because we are
right before that nine week--
the second nine week's session, those courses--
because they haven't started yet.
The students may be able to, but at this point
I don't believe they can.
So the other question has been, what can I do--
as an instructor, what can I do to make sure
that students' grades are appropriate.
And there has been no guidance from the Chancellor's Office
on that.
But some of the practices we're seeing
from other colleges across the state
are that faculty are simply just minimizing
the number of points that their assignments are worth.
They're making them very low stakes.
They're adjusting the grading scale
and saying, if you complete up to this many points,
it's worth an A. If you complete up to this many points,
it's a B as opposed to saying a 90% and 80%, et cetera.
The real key takeaway is that the grading system is
your domain as an instructor.
You choose your grading system and within reason.
But you choose the grading system.
And you kind of get to choose how to be flexible with that.
But we are definitely encouraging as much flexibility
as you believe is doable within your course
because we have students who may not have technology
or may not have ever been an online student
or maybe dealing with other things.
And so we'd really encourage you to look at where the points can
be adjusted, where we might be able to take away
assignments, or add you know little assignments for people
to build up points.
But really just thinking about what
can be done to maximize student learning
in a remote environment.
But at this time, unfortunately, there
has not been best practice guidelines on that.
Are there any questions?
I was hoping to have more for you.
But unfortunately in the Chancellor's Office--
is slowly rolling things out.
- I actually think this is a lot though.
This is the kinds of things that we
need to know as we are building out our new syllabi right now.
I mean I changed my entire syllabus.
I changed the point system in my class.
And everything that you're saying
is in line with the changes that I've made.
So I think this is important information for faculty
to know while they're deciding how this is going to look.
We tried to make it clear this morning
that moving into the next nine weeks of our term
is not just taking the course you already had
and making it an online course.
It's more thinking about the situation--
thinking about what hardships and challenges our students
may have and trying to develop the best way for them
to meet your course objectives in the most
flexible and simplest way.
So I think what the info you're giving from the Chancellor's
Office is in line with that, I think.
Good.
- And I think the Chancellor's Office understands
at this point that there's not--
we're in the middle of it.
Right?
And so there's not a lot we can do retroactively
to adjust for student grading or ensuring
that students are able to complete or succeed
with what they have.
And so it really is almost like we
have to completely redo our syllabi
and attempt to remotely teach what we would like
to teach or think that it's necessary to teach
in the courses--
that we may be losing a lot of our original content
because we don't know what hardships our students
are facing.
And so the EW was initiated just this week.
And the Chancellor's Office is actually
allowing backdating to the governor's announcement
of an emergency, which was March 4th.
We said March 10th because that's
when my first communication was sent.
It was the first communication that
was sent to a large constituency group.
So there may be precedent for the students
if they withdrew prior to March 10th but after March 4th.
They may also be eligible for the EW.
But that would have to be taken on a case by case basis.
But I think recognizing that this is such an emergency
and being able to backdate it several weeks has been huge
because so much information has come out in the last seven days
that students' lives have completely
been flipped upside down.
And so I think it's important to allow them--
if they felt anxious or overwhelmed 10 days ago
and they dropped their courses, they can still receive the EW.
- Thank you.
I wanted to verify something that
might be useful to be on this particular video.
Linda and I were talking this morning.
A lot of teachers are concerned about accessibility.
This is my understanding-- that unless it's a brand new class,
we already have our students identified.
So for example, I have one student who's
deaf in one of my classes.
So it's my responsibility to make sure that my content is
accessible for him.
But in some of my other classes, I don't have deaf students.
So I'm still going to try to make everything as accessible
as I can as a best practice.
But I don't need to worry quite as much because this
is an emergency.
This is for right now.
And that's not my responsibility.
Is that is that correct?
- So, yes.
The I think the chancellor and the community college
system in our district and everyone
would love everything to be universally accessible.
But I don't know--
and the message is from both the Chancellor's Office, the CBC,
OEI, our district, and our neighboring districts
is-- try your best.
And so you're correct.
If you know who your students are,
you know where you may need to make additional accommodations
immediately.
And then make sure those are made
as holistically as possible.
But at the same time, if you can't get--
I know that the Chancellor's Office, as well as
our own media services, are overwhelmed
right now because everyone is moving
in to remote instruction.
And so there is the lag time in a lot of services
for either captioning or as a new remote instructor
faculty may be struggling making everything 100% accessible.
And so the goal is do your best.
But the assumption is that there will be things that
are not universally accessible.
- Thank you so much.
- You're welcome.
Any other questions about some of the grading stuff?
- I think you're going to make your meeting.
- All right.
I wish we had more information, but this
is the stuff that's been--
or is the most recent, most current, and as things change,
we will update you.
So right now the big thing that we finally got
is EWs so our students should have access to that tomorrow.
So thank you.
- Thank you.
- All right.
Thank you all very much.
- Take care.
- Thanks, April.
- Bye.
- Have a good one.
Bye.