M.Sc.A. Year 1 Class: Frequently Asked Questions

At the beginning of each class the instructor will survey the students to obtain information about your constraints including time-zone, internet access, space constraints, job commitments and other issues that may impact your learning. They will attempt to support your individual needs. If you do not have access to the necessary equipment the university may be able to support you as indicated at this link: https://www.mcgill.ca/studentaid/ If you believe that you are completely unable to take these courses during the summer, it is possible that you could take these two courses during the fall term of 2021. The contingency plan that led to the scheduling of these two courses in the summer was an exceptional measure put in place to ensure on-time graduation. In other words, these courses are an unavoidable consequence of the COVID19 crisis. If you are unable to participate in these exceptional measures you will not be able to graduate on time.

The expected time requirement for each summer course is equivalent to a 2 credit course, that is 26 hours of "in-class" time and 52 hours of "study" time. However, due to the remote learning format there is no formal distinction between class and study hours. The instructor will not attempt to provide 26 hours of contact with the instructor in the form of lectures, discussions, on-line office hours and so on. Rather each instructor will determine the best way to ensure that you learn the content that is necessary to meet accreditation standards. Nonetheless, the course should be designed to require 78 hours of total time over a 4 week period (that is, not quite 20 hours per week and approximately 3 to 4 hours per day depending on how many days per week you work on class activities).

Regular in-class summer courses are taught according to a wide-variety of schedules depending upon the faculty, the course and the instructor. During this period of remote teaching and in our school especially, the teaching schedule will vary even more widely as instructors and students adapt to individual constraints and preferences. Dr. Steinhauer and Dr. Polka have different plans suited to the different content of their two courses and both instructors have committed to negotiating the scheduling of their course elements with the class.

Both instructors believe that this will be possible especially since both instructors will permit flexible turn-in dates for certain assignments and exams, even as late as the end of the regular examination period in December 2020. However, keep in mind that the instructors may not be available to help you after the 4-week period of the class, especially during the month of August. Furthermore, you should not start the class later than the official end date of the course. You want to avoid overlapping with the fall term because the fall term is very heavy since it includes six classes, three labs, and a practicum component.

The course schedule will remain as originally announced, that is, Audiology will be taught in June and Research Methods will be taught in July. The instructors will begin to post course materials two weeks early for those students who wish to get most of the studying completed at an earlier time or stretch the course requirements over a longer period. However the official start dates will not be altered. The course instructors will contact students to transmit the syllabus and the exact dates for posting of course material.

We have not yet received any formal directives from the University administration or the government of Quebec regarding the mode of teaching during the fall term. Although Premier Legault announced that the universities will not re-open until September we are not sure of the conditions for re-opening. The university administration has indicated that it will not be "business as usual". We are currently planning for a "mixed model" in which all courses that can be taught remotely will be taught on-line; clinical teaching may be taught in person but under strict guidelines to protect the health and safety of students, instructors, patients/clients. We will provide regular updates as we receive more clear guidelines over time.

You can request a leave of absence by following the procedures described here: https://www.mcgill.ca/gps/students/registration/progress/leave-vacation. Note that you must complete the required forms, provide one of the approved justifications and supply supporting documentation. Your application will be reviewed by SCSD faculty and by GPS with final approval decided by GPS. You would be required to return for the year 2021 if the leave was granted. We would be cautious about approving too many leaves because we cannot expand the size of our Year 2 2021 class by more than 2 or 3 students because of the limits on the size of classrooms and the availability of clinical practicum sites. You should be aware that it is possible that we might continue to offer some on-line courses in the future even after the resumption of "normal" operations.

Yes there will be a fall practicum for all students in the second year class. The form of this practicum has not yet been determined (e.g., it might involve telepractice or be constrained by specific rules to ensure social distancing). If there are telepractice practicums we will have equipment installed on campus so that all students can participate regardless of your own equipment or space constraints.

First, all the actions taken by the university so far and by our school are based on the fundamental principle of protecting the health and safety of the McGill community. We will continue to follow procedures designed to limit the possibility of our students, faculty or staff becoming ill. There are several working groups in the university and the Faculty of Medicine that are developing guidelines for the resumption of clinical teaching and classroom teaching in a safe manner and our faculty are participating in those planning groups. One reason that we will teach remotely to the extent possible is to protect against transmission of COVID19 among school members. Furthermore, if a student must self-isolate for any reason, that student will be able to continue their classes. For those learning activities that require participation on campus or at a clinical site we will put in place procedures to limit the risk to health. When the guidelines and procedures are finalized we will publish these openly for access by the entire school community.

We understand that it is easier to focus on just two courses at a time when engaged with the remote learning format. Re-arranging the normal schedule to a block format is difficult because there are several elements of the curriculum that cannot be "blocked": the audiology labs, the fall practicum, and courses that are taught by part-time lecturers from the clinical community. However, the argument in favour of this idea is compelling and the faculty will consider it seriously as a temporary measure for the second year 2020 fall term only. An update will be provided here soon.

The arguments that students are making in favour of reduced tuition are perceived lower quality of remote teaching and reduced services. The Provost's consistent reply to the question of reduced tuition has been answered previously. The provost’s consistent reply to this question indicates that there will be no adjustment to tuition fees. If there is an argument to be made about services, this pertains to the other fees that students pay, not tuition itself. Students should work together with the Post-Graduate Student's Society to determine if there are services that you are paying for that you are not receiving and whether it is possible to obtain any relief with respect to those fees. Currently the university administration is considering the fairness of the athletics and recreation fees during the fall term for example.

The total tuition costs for your program will be exactly the same or slightly less than they would have been if we had not experienced the COVID19 crisis. This is because your tuition is charged per credit. The charge per credit for the summer courses will be slight less than expected because there will be a tuition fee increase for the 2020/2021 academic year (that was planned in advance of the COVID19 event).

The days of practicum that were missed by canceling the May Spring Practicum will be recovered by providing a second 12 day practicum during the winter 2021 term and 5 additional days of practicum during the spring of 2021.

The credit value of the spring practicum will remain the same at 4 credits. We have not yet met to determine exactly when the 4 credits will be graded but the number of credits for this practicum will stay the same. The 3 days that will be missed will not impact the credits because practicum requirements are determined by competencies acquired more than hour of practicum accumulated. The Clinical Education Team will monitor each student's competencies carefully and arrange additional experiences if necessary in exceptional cases (as when the requirement are needed for registration in particular provinces or desired specialty areas).

The organization of the on-line classes in the fall will be determined by each individual instructor. Our instructors are taking web-courses and attending support groups to learn how best to teach their own content. There will be variation in the way that courses are managed. Some instructors will teach regular lectures, others will present content for self-study and others will have a mix of formats. We know that there is broad variation in student preferences and instructor practice. We also know from published research that there is a gap between student preferences and effective practice. In other words, the research suggests that a self-study format with frequent quizzes can be very effective. For example, randomized controlled trials have shown that a practice of promoting deliberate practice with support is more effective than demonstrations of problem solving even though students often prefer the latter teaching method. Other research shows that viewing video recorded lectures results in impoverished learning even though some of our students prefer zoom lectures to the approach of providing self-study materials. Other research demonstrates a significant positive effect frequent quizzes interspersed with short video lectures; that is, anxiety and mind-wandering was lower during lectures and learning was higher on the final test. Overall we will ask instructors to use their best judgment in relation to their own material while encouraging a mix of methods across all the courses that are taught in order to ensure that students are not forced to watch zoom lectures for too many hours per day. Fortunately, the remote teaching components will be supplemented with labs and clinical teaching during the fall term. We are not sure of the format for these clinical elements but they should be a welcome change from the academic material.