The great reopening has overnight become a political issue. It is sad in general, but for higher ed also adds more uncertainty. Like agriculture, our business is seasonal and needs advanced planning. If Fall goes online, it will not only present a huge logistical problem, but also may deal a serious blow to enrollments. Who wants to start one’s college career completely online? Why not take a year off, and then go to college like normal freshmen? The traditional young undergrads come to campus for experience as much as for a degree.
It looks like I am the only one who worries about the possibility of partial reopening. It would make me happy to be wrong on this. However, I believe a partial reopening would be much better than staying online for another semester. I wrote about the split classroom model last week. Here is another option; let’s call it the double hybrid model.
Let’s assume you teach a class of 30 students, in a room that has a capacity of 30 or so. To provide social distance, you cannot have more than 15 in your room. The simplest way to do it is to have them take turns. One half comes in on Tuesdays, and the other half on Thursdays. You teach the f2f portion of the hybrid class twice. However, they stay on the same schedule in the online portion of the class. The option does not need any fancy technology; just your regular good old Canvas shell.
The double hybrid is much simpler than the split classroom with respect to technology. However, it may be a little more labor-intensive. You would have to keep track of double the number of f2f sections. Those of us who taught multiple sections of the same course know that they never come out exactly the same. Groups have different tempo, different character. As an instructor, you forget where you already explained something, and where you ran out of time. You forget where you told a particular story or a joke, and where you have not. It is just not easy to teach the same thing two or more times.
On the plus side, converting a regular class into a hybrid is a much simpler task than going all the way online. This is why we normally advise instructors to try a hybrid first, to get the feel for online tools, and then eventually take the second step of a fully online course, if needed. Hybrid courses gain more popularity, because they offer a compromise between convenience and flexibility of online instruction on one side, and the ease of human connection on the other. For campuses with space shortage problems, hybrids offer a unique opportunity to increase classroom availability at little or no cost. Hybrid programs can extend the geographic range of evening programs for working populations. Students who are unwilling to drive to campus twice a week, may be OK to drive once a week.
In other words, experimenting with hybrids is useful regardless of the quarantine. It builds new competencies, and expands the range of options for any campus. When an institution confronts new challenges, the broader range of skills and options is a definite asset.
It looks like I am the only one who worries about the possibility of partial reopening. It would make me happy to be wrong on this. However, I believe a partial reopening would be much better than staying online for another semester. I wrote about the split classroom model last week. Here is another option; let’s call it the double hybrid model.
Let’s assume you teach a class of 30 students, in a room that has a capacity of 30 or so. To provide social distance, you cannot have more than 15 in your room. The simplest way to do it is to have them take turns. One half comes in on Tuesdays, and the other half on Thursdays. You teach the f2f portion of the hybrid class twice. However, they stay on the same schedule in the online portion of the class. The option does not need any fancy technology; just your regular good old Canvas shell.
The double hybrid is much simpler than the split classroom with respect to technology. However, it may be a little more labor-intensive. You would have to keep track of double the number of f2f sections. Those of us who taught multiple sections of the same course know that they never come out exactly the same. Groups have different tempo, different character. As an instructor, you forget where you already explained something, and where you ran out of time. You forget where you told a particular story or a joke, and where you have not. It is just not easy to teach the same thing two or more times.
On the plus side, converting a regular class into a hybrid is a much simpler task than going all the way online. This is why we normally advise instructors to try a hybrid first, to get the feel for online tools, and then eventually take the second step of a fully online course, if needed. Hybrid courses gain more popularity, because they offer a compromise between convenience and flexibility of online instruction on one side, and the ease of human connection on the other. For campuses with space shortage problems, hybrids offer a unique opportunity to increase classroom availability at little or no cost. Hybrid programs can extend the geographic range of evening programs for working populations. Students who are unwilling to drive to campus twice a week, may be OK to drive once a week.
In other words, experimenting with hybrids is useful regardless of the quarantine. It builds new competencies, and expands the range of options for any campus. When an institution confronts new challenges, the broader range of skills and options is a definite asset.
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