Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yes, Angie – those tools that help us gather candid comments from students can be very useful. And even as a beginning HyFlex instructor they are all pretty simple to use for both us and students. My recommendation is to pick one of these tools and learn to use it well 🙂
Amanda, to your comment about the grace we need to receive as we create effective learning opportunities for students without striving for perfection (when it’s not really practical in the situation) – that’s important for all of us. There is a saying that “perfection is the enemy of progress” and in education that may be true when we consider progress as teaching effectively using something new to us.
It’s true that the challenges of online assessment are all part of the HyFlex experience too. So whatever measures you use to reduce cheating in online assessments for fully online courses would likely be useful for HyFlex courses too. If you can’t have reliable and effective proctoring to reduce cheating on exams, then changing the design of the online quizzes and exams may be your best approach. (May be a good approach in any case.) There is a lot of guidance on redesigning assessments for reducing the likelihood of cheating. Some good basic guidance can be found here: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/educational-assessment/fourteen-simple-strategies-to-reduce-cheating-on-online-examinations/ And if traditional exams/quizzes are not required, you might consider other forms of assessment maybe more “authentic” to the discipline. See this resource for more on that: https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/assessing-student-learning/authentic-assessment/index.html
Hi Denise, I don’t know if there are any PoliSci professors in the community (I expect there are) or if they are reading this forum, but it is possible. I’m happy to talk with you about your ideas and questions from my own more general perspective (my world is education and training). Let me know if you think that would be helpful – bjbeatty@sfsu.edu
Kim, your comment about how we define “in-person attendance” is right on. I know many faculty who do not track attendance at all. And many students decide not to attend in person, but just do the assignments and take the tests to try to pass the class. (Most do pass, it seems.)
As we encounter more administrative challenges to HyFlex due to reporting requirements, I think it’s useful to ask what we are ALSO doing about those requirements for in-person and various forms of online participation. (quality concerns also apply here – how many of us have a rigorous quality review and control system for in-person learning? (none I know of)
Patrick, your approach seems to be a good way to constrain students so your reporting can be accurate. A bit like the tail wagging the dog, if you ask me, but I understand this systemic influence.
We treat any class with the possibility of 50% or more online participation as “distance courses” – new this year. I’m not sure how my university will report this data, but I expect they’ll count all students as distance students for reporting purposes. So we’ll likely be overcounting a bit.
Until our reporting requirements change to adapt to HyFlex, I think there will always be something compromised, either student flexibility (your approach it seems) or reporting accuracy (likely our approach). Which is worse? 🙂
Samantha, when I talk about designing for HyFlex, this is the approach I recommend and you’ll probably read that in the Hybrid Flexible Course Design book and other things I’ve written (or in podcasts I’ve done). Other authors also often talk about designing in this direction when the asynchronous path is one of the HyFlex options.
David Rhoads’ chapter in the HyFlex book explains the approach his institution is taking with a design path like you describe (online asynch design as a resource for all modes). That might be useful to review. https://edtechbooks.org/hyflex/increasing_flexibility
Brian
Kim, thanks for sharing your plans. What a nice comment to hear, “Oh, this is much easier than I thought it was going to be.” I occasionally hear that from faculty planning their first HyFlex course and after a few days of planning acknowledge that just maybe it isn’t going to take them as much extra work as they feared. Ok, so maybe they don’t say “much easier”, but they do leave believing they can do this without an extra six hours in their workweek.
Kim, could you share some pictures of the setup you use in the HyFlex rooms and the cart used for other rooms? that would be helpful!
Brian
Kim, this is a good suggestion – defining the term for your audience without assuming they know what HyFlex is, beyond the popular press and its common assumption of simply streaming/recording the live classroom and allowing students to stay home and connect online to the synchronous mode.
I think HyFlex can be done that way but it’s not the way I do it because there is always a need for asynchronous mode with my students. I do have colleagues who emphasize the synchronous options and allow the asynchronous option only for a limited number of “excused” absences from the synchronous experience. On my campus, that’s allowable.
This flexibility in the formal definition I’ve used is problematic in this way, but it also allows for a synchronous-focused start when the time to build the asynchronous path isn’t realistically available. I consider it a compromise, and I hope that as the need for asynchronous becomes more apparent over time, faculty and institutions will follow the need and provide that path also.
Brian
Dianna, has your Associate Dean read anything other than the recent news articles about HyFlex? Like anything from the Hybrid-Flexible Course design book, this website, and most of the research from the past 15 years? (Likely no) Sorry to ask, since you focused your questions elsewhere.
I don’t know of support from outside institutions for developing any kind of course – online or HyFlex. Grants that include HyFlex implementation as part of a larger project would have funds, but not for individual course development.
Is your school part of a larger system of schools? Sometimes systems have funds if there is an aspect of innovation involved.
Sorry I can’t offer more suggestions.
Brian
Kim, it sounds like you have an effective process for your classes. It is relatively simple, which is good! I use similar approaches in my courses 🙂
Brian
I discovered this resource when watching this Zoom webinar recording from the Ed Tech Center at WorldEd (edtech.worlded.org). (Sorry for the long URL)
This 60-minute webinar summarizes the HyFlex approach quite well (and succinctly – thanks Jen Vanek) and then asks two practitioners from AZ to discuss 1) technology used in their HyFlex, and 2) the pedagogical approach their faculty use in HyFlex instruction. Both areas are covered well with real-life stories of implementation challenges and successes.
Robin, thank you for posting this resource for us. I think it is a very helpful explanation of HyFlex and how a faculty can start designing for their own HyFlex delivery. I also appreciate the resources included at the end of the page; I’ve already looked at several that are new to me and I think they’re also wonderful resources for our community.
Brian
Hi Catherine, I appreciate reading your perspective on this issue. I think you’ve explained a few very important differences in the experiences of teachers and students comparing public schools to private schools. I’ve taught in both as well, but never during a global pandemic – thank God!
I’m sure there are good examples of both types of schools that experience this differently (access to resources used effectively to support learning online and f2f at the same time) so the generalization of public vs. private is not globally accurate, but I get your point.
The private schools I taught at often had access to a more responsive resources network compared to the public sector. This makes that environment better equipped for quick change, perhaps. That might also be a factor in their comparative successes this past year or two.
I think there has likely been a more consistent desire to return to the classroom in many private schools compared to large public school districts. That was what I was hearing even in Summer 2020, and I think that led to more investment in HyFlex-supporting resources and faculty preparation in the private school sector. It seems that some of the larger public systems are beginning to invest more in supporting flexible learning opportunities since the need for this continues in many areas of the country and in many homes.
Thanks again for bringing this up!
Brian
Cora, have you seen this recent post from within your system? https://www.asccc.org/content/what-hyflex-and-why-do-i-keep-hearing-about-it Reedley College may not be urban, and it’s diversity may be different than your school’s diversity, but there may be other similarities you can learn from.
Jeanne Samuel and colleagues wrote one of the first Hybrid-Flexible Course design case study chapters – One Size Fits None (https://edtechbooks.org/hyflex/one-size_fits_none) Their context of a New Orleans community college might be more similar to yours.
