Guidance for course modality change requests

Now that almost everyone has or can offer online and hybrid courses, institutions have been challenged to develop decision-making processes for when courses should be offered in modalities other than face-to-face.

At Drexel, we were making these decisions in a centralized way for the past two years, but having the process emanate from the office of the provost wasn't sustainable. Starting this winter (in our quarter-system school), decisions for modality change requests will happen at department and program levels, with some college-level oversight. The university will only get involved in a big-picture way, making sure, for instance, that departments/units aren't tilting beyond a certain percentage (which happens to be 5%) of online and hybrid course offerings.

Our process manifests itself in our scheduling system, in that schedulers will be able to add an annotation in the system when choosing one of three "instructional methods" in addition to face-to-face:

• Remote synchronous
• Remote asynchronous
• Hybrid

A document guides everyone through the process, and key in that document is what we are calling "Justification Guidance"; the prime directive, if you will, is this: "Modality changes must be driven by the opportunity to improve the student experience." It's all overtly about the students; as the document says, "Faculty convenience is not a compelling rationale to request a modality change."

Justifications for change must address three primary questions:

• Why is this delivery mode better for students?
• What data has been collected or will be collected to support claims that the new modality is superior?
• When offering remote and hybrid courses, are scheduling units ensuring that students have face-to-face choices?

Data, data, data--assembling data about student experience and success is emphasized throughout.

There is flexibility, though. Courses with a long history of running in certain modalities--for example, our first-year writing courses have long been hybrids--can continue to do so. "Prestigious" non-local faculty can teach classes remotely if such opportunities present themselves. And none of this involves human resources; faculty with disability and accessibility issues will bypass this guidance and work with human resources about accommodations.

Again, our scheduling system includes a field in which schedulers will add detailed notations describing the modality change, so the history behind decision-making will be codified.

Nothing's perfect, but this system provides a transparent, equitable, and more locally-grounded way for our programs to make decisions about modality change requests.

Modality as strategy

While of course online schools have long used distance learning to reach large and perhaps otherwise untapped student populations, we might consider how modality could help strategically build academic programs on a more granular level in traditional institutions.

The almost complete pandemic-induced shift to online and hybrid classes has meant that programs have a broader modality range when offering courses, and modality can certainly be a more prominent factor in strategic approaches to program development.

All venues that cover higher ed are discussing the impending enrollment "cliff," a significant drop in traditionally aged students that is projected to start in about 2025 (1). But I think many have submitted to a hyper-focused hand-wringing about these students while forgetting about the vast populations of other people who would be extremely well served by a college education. 

In developing courses of study, we consider what kinds of courses we offer, when we offer them, and who teaches them. Considering modality can be part of fine-tuning ways we grow and develop our programs. Of course, we also do consider where students are and many places offer distance courses for this reason, but online includes not just meeting needs of the distance learner who cannot come to campus.

Remember, while not all faculty may be in a hurry to return to online teaching, almost all faculty indeed are trained veterans in online and hybrid teaching, and we can adjust our scheduling to account for their talents as well as our students' needs. In conjunction with this, students are now experienced at studenting in different modalities. I know, some of it has been a real struggle, but students have online and hybrid experience we can build from--and non-traditional students have developed similar skills and experiences in their increasingly virtual work lives.

This kind of thinking has obvious implications when, for instance, trying to meet large populations like adult learners who may have full-time commitments but want to further their education.

But modality can shape more nuanced enrollment strategies. If you are growing a new program and hoping it can serve as a double or dual major, time flexibility may open that door for many students. The same goes for minors. In either case, scheduling issues can be an obstacle, especially on small campuses where course offering cycles can be tight and inflexible.

The flexibility of synchronous remote learning is one component. Course availability really opens up when we have asynchronous courses that remove time constraints.

Conversations about flexible scheduling often centers on students, but faculty can get the same benefits. Pushing classes into evening hours, at least on the campuses I have worked, is usually not popular. But offering courses that require no evening travel because they are remote synchronous or don't have evening hours at all because they're asynchronous can accommodate faculty.

We account for numerous factors when designing courses of study, but modality may not be prominent enough. We can use modality as part of strategic approaches to building curricula--and broaden our vision of the audiences we wish to serve.

Note:

1) For example, see the CHE's "Will Your College Survive the Demographic Cliff?" or Capture Higher Ed's "How to Climb Higher Ed's Impending Demographic Cliff."

More on modality

A few months ago, I posted thoughts about new ways to envision and describe our teaching modalities. Mainly, I introduced the term chrono-hybrid as a way to describe a fully online course that meshed regular synchronous meetings with significant, weekly asynchronous components.

I've been, I hope, refining those ideas since then; in fact, I'm polishing off my thoughts for a plenary talk this Friday at the upcoming fourth annual GSOLE annual conference, Visions and Sites. 

As I've researched that talk, I have found that others have been working on similar problems of describing course modalities. In particular, I was psyched to find this article: An EduCause piece from last September, "Bichronous Online Learning: Blending Asynchronous and Synchronous Online Learning" by Florence Martin, Drew Polly and Albert Ritzhaupt. (1)

We're discussing similar issues, but for them, the term is "Bichronous Online Learning," and they write, "Although the blending of face-to-face and online learning has been researched in many studies, the blending of synchronous and asynchronous online has not been researched to the same extent."

Citing others, they point out that online courses are being classified in an increasing variety of ways, ranging from asynchronous to synchronous to MOOC to blended/hybrid to blended synchronous. Now, HyFlex has also emerged.

Ultimately, they define bichronous online learning "as the blending of both asynchronous and synchronous online learning, where students can participate in anytime, anywhere learning during the asynchronous parts of the course but then participate in real-time activities for the synchronous sessions. The amount of the online learning blend varies by the course and the activities included in the course.” 

Interestingly, they are coming at this from the vantage of how synchronous elements can help an asynchronous online course be "more engaging" while "increasing learning outcomes, positive attitudes, and retention.” OLI and OWI doesn't start with a deficit of asynchronous experience, as our writing- and literacy-focused asynchronous courses are often rigorous and engaging and rigorous. However, introducing a terminology, whether bichronous or chrono-hybrid, that captures our balance of synchronous and asynchronous can certainly help us, and, of course, our students, understand these courses better.

In addition to Martin, Polly, and Ritzhaupt, as august a body as the Department of Education (DoE) (now freed of its hideous ex-administrators) has also re-thought modality, offering a Distance Education and Innovation Final Rule (2) that “simplifies clock-to-credit hour conversions and clarifies that homework time included in the credit hour definition do not translate to clock hours, including for the purpose of determining whether a program meets the Department’s requirements regarding maximum program length.”

Based on public comments, this language was introduced in the Final Rule:

Allowing asynchronous delivery of come courses or portions of courses delivered as part of clock hour programs. The COVID-19 pandemic coupled with new technologies have encouraged States, accrediting agencies, and licensing boards to reconsider earlier restrictions on the use of asynchronous distance learning technologies to deliver portions of programs that are typically considered to be hands-on programs. Commenters suggested that the Department permit the use of asynchronous learning in clock-hour programs, and the Department agreed , as long as licensing bodies permit the use of asynchronous learning and will include clock hours earned through asynchronous learning toward the clock hour instruction requirements.

Similar to Martin, Polly, and Ritzhaupt's article, the DoE statement works in the context of asynchronous learning being lesser or inadequate vis a vis synchronous educator. Still, it too provides guidance and a framework for understanding what students and teachers are doing in asynchronous environments.

Classwork. Homework. Time-in-seat. These one-time simple concepts continue to emerge as terms we must re-think in efforts to describe in what ways we're teaching--and in what ways our students are learning.

Notes

1) Florence Martin, Drew Polly and Albert Ritzhaupt. "Bichronous Online Learning: Blending Asynchronous and Synchronous Online Learning." EduCause, Tuesday, September 8, 2020.

2) U.S. Department of Education. “Distance Education and Innovation.” Federal Register. Vol. 85, No. 171. Wednesday, September 2, 2020 / Rules and Regulations. 34 CFR Parts 600, 602 and 668 [Docket ID ED–2018–OPE–0076] RIN 1840–AD38. 54742-54818.