Hello Meteorology Majors,
I really hope that you are doing well, staying well, and that your classes are going well. As unbelievable as it may sound, we only have four full weeks of classes left of the Fall 2020 semester's regular session. I know that this semester has been long for you without holiday breaks, but please keep working hard to the end of the semester.
The University is also working to give you more clarity about how your courses for the Spring 2021 semester will be taught. For the spring, you will see three designations of courses:
In-Person
In-Person courses will take place in a physical classroom or location where the instructor and students interact with each other on scheduled days and times.
For Spring 2021, if a course does not meet in person for every class, it will be flagged as In-Person (Split). This means courses will allow for every student to be in-person for at least one class per week.* On days when students do not attend in person, they will engage with the course remotely or independently with materials provided by the instructor.
Students will be expected to attend all of their in-person classes unless they have an approved accommodation, are in quarantine or isolation, or have an instructor-approved absence. Field courses are considered In-Person courses with instruction taking place at another physical location such as an internship setting, student teaching location, or outdoor laboratory.
Web Conferencing
Web Conferencing courses will use a web-based video conferencing platform like Zoom where the instructor and students can interact with each other on scheduled days and times with a real-time, remote classroom experience.
These courses may be supplemented with other components, including independent learning modules or optional in-person opportunities, and provide flexibility for students who prefer to engage with real-time course content without being physically present in the classroom. Students will be expected to attend all of their web conferencing classes unless they are ill and in isolation or have an instructor-approved absence.
Online
Online courses are designed to allow students to move forward independently through learning modules without a traditional classroom experience and provide maximum flexibility for a student’s schedule. Course content is usually fully developed and available before the semester starts, and students follow specific deadlines for engagement and completion of assignments, exams, and projects.
There may be some courses with a combination of in-person and online, in-person and web-conferencing, or web-conferencing and online, but this will be depend on the particular course. The biggest change from the fall semester is that a course that appears to be traditional and in-person will very likely REQUIRE in-person attendance. In addition, web-conferencing courses will REQUIRE attendance in the online meeting format.
For those of you in your first semester (and for students wanting a refresher), I know that you haven't been required to enroll in courses on your own before using MyRed and the Enrollment Scheduler, so I expect that you are a little nervous about how this is all going to work. The Office of the University Registrar has developed an excellent tutorial about how to access and use the Enrollment Scheduler available here: https://registrar.unl.edu/student/registration/tutorials/ (Newly updated with videos explaining some of the features of the Enrollment Scheduler!). The Enrollment Scheduler allows you to input your courses for the Spring 2021 semester along with wanted break times or outside of class commitments. Then, the Enrollment Scheduler will build you a schedule that will include all of your courses and breaks without any course conflicts. You would then be able to chose your favorite course schedule, and then add those courses on that schedule to your shopping cart. Normally, the system is very easy to use. If you are looking for more advanced options with enrollment, please visit https://registrar.unl.edu/student/registration/tips/.
Drop Deadline is Wednesday, October 28th
As we approach the end of the month, please remember that Wednesday, October 28th is the last day to withdraw from one or more full-length regular academic session courses for the fall term. Dropping courses can have implications for future course planning as well as scholarships and financial aid. If you have questions about ramifications for dropping a course, please visit with your advisor as well as Husker Hub to ensure you are aware of how dropping a course could impact you.
Thanks, Doug
* There may be some instances when classes originally scheduled to meet only once a week may be in-person every other week to comply with classroom capacity requirements.
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