In this episode, Phil Hill, Jeanette Wiseman, and Kevin Kelly discuss the latest CHLOE (Changing Landscape of Online Education) survey report put out by Quality Matters and Eduventures Research, based on responses from more than 300 online leaders at US colleges and universities.

• CHLOE 5 Survey Report: The Pivot to Remote Teaching in Spring 2020 and Its Impact
• Tyton Partners / Every Learner Everywhere Survey Report: Time For Class

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Hosts:

• Phil Hill
• Jeanette Wiseman
• Kevin Kelly

Transcription:

Phil: Hello, welcome to COVID Transitions. I’m Phil Hill, and I’m here with Kevin Kelly and Jeanette Wiseman. We’re talking about the CHLOE report, the fifth one that’s coming out on Monday when will publish publishes podcast.That’s the Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) that is put out by Eduventures and Quality Matters. There’s a lot of interesting insight in this survey that I thought it was worth us discussing.

In particular, to me, this survey provides the most usable context of any, except for maybe the Tyton Partners – Every Learner Everywhere is the other one I would put in this category where there’s useful context behind the survey that could be actionable by schools. What I mean by that is they don’t just go with the simple narrative of everybody’s going to Zoom. Students don’t like online this. They actually [00:01:00] provide a lot of context about what percentage of faculty and students have never had an online course in the past? And how does that affect this?

What are the multiple tools that are being used? Almost all the data is broken out by two year public community colleges versus four year in private. To me, it just has some of the most useful context of any of the surveys out there, say, the Tyton Partners. I would put that in the same category. I think it’d be useful for us to discuss this. I guess I’ve already shared my lead. This has context and this is a very usable survey and we’ve got a ton out there. So we’re starting to get into the point of, well, what can you do with these? Let me get your initial reactions. How how usable and what was your impression of the overall survey report, Jeanette?

Jeanette: Well, first, I think we need to point out who was [00:02:00] surveyed, because I think that makes an important distinction for this one, because it’s a little bit different than we’re getting students or faculty survey, For this report, which is a little bit further. Not as many as they usually do. What I’m reading is they mostly survey chief online officers for this report, for the survey. This time they only did three hundred and eight, although they did break it down across the different types of institutions that you listed.I will admit I’m getting a little bit of survey fatigue, and I shouldn’t be, since you guys are really doing more of the reporting on that, especially you, Kevin. I thought it was really interesting. I also think important to read the report because I think there’s some insight there that’s not just part of the numbers, but they call out some really important distinctions, which I think some people aren’t doing. I agree with you that it’s an important one. I think there is a lot of insight. I think between the lines sometimes [00:03:00] in this report is even more important than the actual numbers.

Phil: So basically, I failed to provide the context of who was even surveyed in this. But thank you, Kevin. What was your impression?

Kevin: Well, if Jeanette hadn’t brought it up, I would have, because I thought that was a key factor, especially when you’re looking at charts about faculty and students feelings about online teaching and learning. It’s the chief online officers feelings of how faculty and students are feeling. Let’s just call this second hand information for some of these responses. With that in mind, I still think you have a good point, Phil, that it’s got some good background information. These officers probably do have access to the statistics in the student information system and elsewhere of who hadn’t taken courses online before and who had taught online courses before covered hit. There are some interesting data and I’m really happy that they paid attention to the plight of adjuncts [00:04:00] and other groups that typically don’t have this much attention.

Phil: So one way to look at this then, is that we need to have a little bit of caution reading this report where it gets into purely impressions, particularly second hand. If there’s implications of what students or faculty thought, we need to be aware that this is certainly second hand and not as quantifiable, whereas other things such as which tools are you using and how many courses did you convert? Those should have a much higher reliability.

Jeanette: Right. That’s why I mentioned I think reading the report, not just looking at the data was important, because I think that when I read, how successful was your transition to online for your students? I’m like, well, why are we asking these people? I think that’s my first impression. When you read the actual report, they recognize that that’s a bias that they’re having. They also say, this is [00:05:00] the subjective question of the nature of this question, what we’re saying is these students we did put these courses online, we did get through the spring on them and they were able to complete their classes. That was the level of success for them. It wasn’t how much do they enjoy being online? It wasn’t how much did they learn online? It was that they completed their course online.

Kevin: Was it possible for them to complete their course? They didn’t actually talk about how many students actually completed the courses. I think they made a reference to what they called DFW Iron, dropped, fail, withdrawal, incomplete rates. I know for a fact, as an online teacher myself, that even as hard as I tried in a class started the semester online, I still had around 15 to 20 percent of my students not finish. ‘m guessing that the measure of success for chief online officers was did they provide [00:06:00] the opportunity for students to complete their courses?

Phil: I hope that when the media coverage comes out of around this report and we need to look to ourselves and what we write on the blog, but I’m a little bit worried that there might be a lead of online officers. Oh, they think everything was peachy keen. Then you compare it to an online survey of students and they’re saying we weren’t happy. In the report, they’re very explicit. Our goal of a successful transition, as you’ve mentioned, Janette, was quote, did they have the opportunity? So I hope that doesn’t get buried in the reporting as well.

Kevin: Well, I think there was one through line. If you look at student surveys, the other faculty surveys, like Every Learner Everywhere and even some of the institution specific surveys like University of Pittsburgh or George Washington University or even Penn State, but they all came away with the feeling that we need to improve student [00:07:00] engagement in these online courses that chief online officers felt that way. The 4000 faculty from 15 hundred institutions for Every Learner Everywhere felt that way. It just goes down the road. Everybody agrees on that.

Phil: This report, what it provides is — and I thought that the wording was a little bit confusing, but I hope that people get it — it compared online versus remote, which we’ve talked about quite a bit. The point being remote is what happened this spring where half of the teachers were moving face to face and they’d never even taught online before. They’re calling that remote. Then they compare that to online courses that have already been designed and released as online courses at their institution. I think that was a very useful way to break down the data as long as people understand what they’re saying. Then that captures your point right there [00:08:00] about the engagement. This report really shows the difference in engagement.

The figure eight student engagement online study, which means the stuff that was happening before the pandemic versus remote study in the spring 2020. In this case, across the board, across all institutions types, these are online officers say it was far superior and online courses that had been supposedly thoughtfully designed ahead of time. It’s not just that engagement is a common thread, but in this report, it even says, let’s compare these two different situations and see what the difference is. Now, there is an impression here. It’s judge mental, if you will, not hard data. It is interesting to see that from the perspective of this audience.

Kevin: Well, the writers themselves, my favorite line in the whole report is so it should be no surprise that little attention [00:09:00] to faculty, student and student to student interaction characterized many remote courses. We had this statistic in previous CHLOE reports. Basically they’re acknowledging that faculty members in classroom situations often haven’t been trained how to teach. They’re not going to pay attention to the thing that people who are trained to teach online at least are made aware of the importance of student engagement. I think that’s going to be the takeaway. That is going to be the strongest. This is happy, optimistic, Kevin talking here. The number of instructors that have been exposed to pedagogical training as a result of COVID-19 is possibly going to change higher ed teaching and learning forever.

Phil: Yes, it’s a good point. Jeannette, are you positive or optimistic or pessimistic, Jeanette about this topic? About how [00:10:00] usable this is and how it points to the future,

Jeanette: How usable the survey is? I’m not sure. I think that there was components to it that I felt like need to be pulled out specifically around things like you said. There were more quantifiable, like the use of video conferencing. Seeing that, I mean, Zoom is  like the most used video conferencing tool. Which I think is somewhat fascinating, given that there are tools out there that have been created for education but are not being used. I thought that was interesting. I think they use of textbook or online courses and or the lack of use of those, especially in the case where here’s some instructional design. In most cases, instructional designed courses with content. Universities weren’t necessarily looking at them to use them online. I thought those things were really interesting to me. I do hope that there is now some more teacher training [00:11:00] and professor training in terms of how to conduct classes, both in-person and online that haven’t happened for a lot of disciplines. We don’t do that in higher education. I think it’s something that’s been needed for a long time. I think this hopefully will push a lot of instructors to look for that. I do want to make a point that I don’t think instructors in almost any case, there’s going to be these outliers. I think everyone wants to teach as well as they can. I think that push to online create a lot of self reflection, which is also a tenant of educational planning, is that you reflect on your teaching. I think that’s maybe the best thing that’s happened out of this, is that there’s been some self reflection on instruction and pedagogy that maybe wasn’t happening.

Phil: How do you guys take if you’re sort of getting into self reflection and moving forward? If you start looking at figure 10 and beyond, campus [00:12:00] faculty attitudes towards online learning after the pivot to remote teaching. This goes against a lot of the narrative that you see in coverage, which is the popular narrative is now that so many teachers have seen remote teaching, they’re even more against online in general. In figure 10, this shows at least the interpretation second hand is that faculty are very positive or somewhat positive in improving their attitude towards online learning after this. They have a better understanding of what’s involved and what’s possible. This gets back to the point of how much weight do we put to this type of finding? What it’s saying is it implies that this will improve online learning moving forward and more faculty are aware and have a more positive attitude about what can happen. How much weight do you put on this [00:13:00] type of finding particularly and figure 10 and then figure 11 gets into the student attitude.

Jeanette: These are CIOs and a lot of cases, these are executive level people at your university. These aren’t the faculty.

Phil: Well, I’d say they’re  executive level. I don’t think see, unless I miss that. I don’t think they’re primarily CEOs. It’s more online officers. Quite often that will be more on the academic technology side or an executive dean of online.

Kevin: For a community college, they may not have an academic technology unit. Especially if you look at the statistics, they said for the average number of FTE, for instructional designers was three. IF you looked at the community college, it the average was one, which we know from California Community College system. 60 percent of them don’t [00:14:00] have any Full-Time staff for instructional design. With your question about figures 10 and 11, we can take it as somebody on a campus in a leadership role has probably a decent understanding of how people feel. I don’t think it’s as representative as the faculty and students surveys themselves.

Jeanette: I agree. That’s that’s a question being answered by someone that wasn’t doing the teaching or not doing the learning. I think they maybe have a more positive spin. It’s a very subjective question and we don’t know that the feelings behind it necessarily, nor were the people experiencing it. I think it’s nice that they think that, but I don’t know if that’s really reflective.

Phil: Yeah, I’m more Goldilocks. I’m not all the way saying we should play the full opinion here. From what I’ve seen at a lot of schools, you give them more impression. The online officers being on campus [00:15:00] hearing what people are saying. I think there’s some weight that we give to this. I wouldn’t reject it, but I guess I would read it with a grain of salt. Be careful about not over-interpreting this. This might be a little bit boring, but it is quantifiable. I think we should go back to a point that you were making, Jeanette. We actually have some better data now on what tools were used and consistent with the Every Learner Everywhere / Tyton Partners report and some others. While video conferencing, such as Zoom, such as Blackboard Collaborate increased the most during the spring of 2020, the LMS, as they described in this report is the workhorse. It’s essentially ubiquitous that it is more used than any other system for even remote teaching. That doesn’t [00:16:00] mean it’s in-depth usage or valuable usage, but we need to keep in mind this sort of counteracts a narrative that faculty just threw things on Zoom and there was no organization or structure to the course. That does imply that there was heavier usage of LMS. How meaningful is that data?

Kevin: If you look at the Every Learner Everywhere information about that same question, where they put existing users and new users and their table on page 19, the learning management system. 78 percent of the population were existing users, whereas only 21 percent were using video conferencing before the transition to remote learning. Then if you look at that graph, 49 percent of the users that were added to that, 21 percent for video conferencing bring it up to 70 total were new users. That was a huge spike. Almost 50 percent of the teaching faculty began [00:17:00] using video conferencing as a result of COVID. Only 9 percent began using it as a result using the learning management system, as a result of COVID. The totals reach almost 90 percent for learning management system. It’s that new user total that really leapt out at me from that Every Learner Everywhere, certainly.

Phil: Now, one thing I would also look at in this data helps confirm it. When you get to the fourth most used system, remote proctoring is another product category that’s become more and more important, and it has a big increase. You’re reading a lot about schools trying to say, if we’re doing things remote, we have to have some way of knowing who the students are. Some sort of academic integrity and remote proctoring truly is increasing in importance across higher education. Then that comes with a cost that comes with real questions about student [00:18:00] privacy and even pedagogical usage. Should you be doing tests that require proctoring? It’s certainly the data certainly confirms how important it is in the usage of systems.

Kevin: I’m not quite sure with 308 chief online officers predominantly overrepresented in private non-profits, if that’s representative of the whole country, because you just don’t know that every campus has the funding to support something like ProctorU or Proctorio or some of their proctoring.

Phil: I’ve seen other studies saying there definitely is a increase, but yes, it has to vary between the different sectors and the size of institutions. It certainly is becoming an increasingly common or important factor within higher education. It’s got a lot of questions behind it.

Let’s jump ahead. There’s an interesting section looking [00:19:00] at online program managers and what their roles are. For example, Figure 16 is talking about how did you manage the transition? 90 percent of school or chief online officer said we managed the transition entirely in-house. 8 percent said they did, mostly in-house with some OPM and 0.3p ercent were saying mostly OPM, but some in-house. It certainly doesn’t appear that OPM are massive factor in the transition that we did in the spring. In fact, as schools look at what’s important, it’s really the number one factor schools are saying is they’ve got to build up their internal capacity. That’s more important than expanding their agreement with OPM providers. I have to be careful about drawing too [00:20:00] much. It’s interesting to see data about how schools perceive OPM players and their role in this type of transition that we’re going through. Jeanette, did any of these findings on the OPM surprise you?

Jeanette: I don’t know if it surprised me. I think that what I see is a real need from institutions and maybe some of a role that OPM can step in to or new vendors of assisting. There’s some out there, assisting the creation of courses, not necessarily programs at the undergraduate level that include content creation and instructional design and working alongside faculty. That’s typically a role that OPM do. There’s right now more of a need to try to build that out internally within these institutions. To do that, OPM can step in or other like vendors can.

One of the sponsors of the report is I-design. Something that you might see I-design do. [00:21:00]

Phil: You have to actually mention, like in figure 17, if you already have an OPM contract, what it is almost one in four said, we do plan on expanding our agreement with our OPM partner moving forward. It’s not that they’re a nonfactor, but it’s definitely a clear message that internal capacity is an even bigger factor, much bigger factor in these schools, even if they already have an OPM partner.

Jeanette: The other thing to add to that is I think what we’ve discussed in other podcasts and things that we’re really seeing is the financial impact that the pandemic is having on everybody. It’s certainly these institutions higher out in K-12 and those revenues are really needed right now by these institutions. OPMs take a lot of it. I think that there’s likely some hesitation from institutions to go forward with an OPM that’s going to be taking a majority of your profits.

Phil: Sure. The one thing I would caution [00:22:00] there. Where the OPM have been taking a majority has been typically master’s programs with full revenue writers. I think a lot of the expansion we’re talking about is across undergraduate programs. I don’t believe those they’re looking at revenue share and 50 plus percent. I think there’s more of a fee for service where you’re getting your OPM partner to help with students that they hadn’t been helping before. I agree, I think there’s a headwind, however, that budgetary constraints have to be a part of saying we’ve got to be able to figure out how to do this ourselves.

Jeanette: Exactly.

Kevin: Well, also to consider that figure 17 is the percentage of the 10 percent or fewer of that figure. 16 schools that had an OPM contract before the pandemic began. 25 percent of 10 percent is 2 and a hald percent.

Phil: There’s certainly not an overwhelming story of OPMs that this [00:23:00] is the time that they’re now into undergraduate education and they’re fully established as a key part of broad based undergraduate. My interpretation of what we’re talking about right now, that’s not happening. There are isolated cases where they’re getting involved and helping schools out. Statistically, it’s still a very small number of cases.

This is this been a good discussion of what we’ll likely have a blog post out as well looking at some of these findings. Jeanette, you mentioned the fact that you’re getting fatigued, and I guess I’m sort of in the same place. Maybe not fatigue, but I feel like I’m getting bombarded every day. I’m seeing a new survey and it’s getting pretty hard to keep track of it. That’s part of my impression, is it’s you have to spend effort to get value out of the surveys personally because so many of them are coming out right now.  [00:24:00]Any final thoughts that you two have on this or the general state of surveys?

Jeanette: My final thought, I guess, is that it’s going to be interesting. I think the things that are most valuable right now on these surveys, are the quantifiable pieces of data. I think that we are seeing these surveys over and over again and they pretty much say the same thing. Spring was heroic and how everybody transition to online so quickly, but not ideal and both for learning and teaching was not ideal. I think that because there is so much more of a variety of how schools are going to be either going online or in person or hybrid or Hyflex, I think the fall surveys or the fall data coming out, this is going to be more interesting because it’s not going to be so homogeneous of how people went online. That is where we probably will find real variations in how education is being taught, [00:25:00] how education is being delivered and how we are going to move forward. I think that’s where we’ll start seeing trends.

Phil: Kevin, any final thoughts you had on this or surveys in general at this stage?

Kevin: Yeah, I would say we still are not paying as much attention to students. I know these were faculty surveys, but if you look at the CHLOE, over 50 percent of those institutions are going to require faculty development and only 35 percent are going to require student orientation. If everybody is acknowledging that student engagement needs to increase, we need to help students figure out how to do it. Also just one small thing from Penn State’s thing that made me think of the NFL Buccaneers head coach who said, I think every player on the team is going to get COVID at some point during the season. Two thirds of the employees self-assessed that they’re COVID risk was moderate to high, but only 14 percent were reported being unwilling to return to face to face teaching under any circumstances. It’s almost like they’re acknowledging that we’re at high risk. We need the workspaces [00:26:00] too. 74 percent believe the work spaces need some changes before to support social distancing. They’re all basically accepting that they’re going to go back to some face to face interactions. I know that’s part of the challenge that these faculty surveys bring is what we’re hearing in the news. I thought it was interesting that Every Learner Everywhere brought up how some of the faculty findings in their survey were very different than what’s being reported in the news. I think as we move closer to the fall, as Jeanette said, we’ll be getting some data where people a little bit further away from the urgency and emergency of the situation. We’ll have more about what campuses are actually doing. I’m surprised that we’re halfway through July and we still have campuses that haven’t figured that out yet. I’m an armchair quarterback position. I have the luxury of not having to make that decision myself.

Phil: If I combine those two [00:27:00] a references to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and you’re an armchair quarterback, you are the Tom Brady of EdTech, so I’ll buy that. As long as we’re going dark, I do want to add one more point. This, as far as a depressing statement, but it confirms what we’re saying. Little attention was paid to accessibility. That’s another area, particularly for students that I think is sort of a ticking time bomb. Is that in the spring that heroic efforts? It was remarkable, the transition, how smooth it went. I don’t think schools have come around to understanding how important accessibility is and the risk they face as an institution by not paying attention to this. The Department of Education, Department of Justice, they’re going to start cracking down on the accessibility front again. Students deserve more attention to be paid. As long as we’re going dark, that’s the I’d like to throw that one in there as well. Moving forward.

It’s [00:28:00] been a great conversation. Expect this to come out on the same day the CHLOE 5 survey is released in public. It’s great talking to you, Kevin and Jeanette.

In this episode, Phil Hill, Jeanette Wiseman, and Kevin Kelly discuss the emerging debate about opening plans. Are schools that plan to “reopen” really trying to go fully (or even mostly) in-person, or are they going hybrid? Should they?

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Hosts:

• Phil Hill
• Jeanette Wiseman
• Kevin Kelly

Transcription:

Phil: Welcome to COVID Transitions. I’m Phil Hill, and again, I’m here with Jeanette Wiseman and Kevin Kelly discussing higher education’s challenges, dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been two weeks since we were last here. I had a failed attempt to do a compilation podcast that just didn’t work out. But it’s great to talk to you guys again and be back online with the same subject. So how have you guys been doing the past two weeks?

Jeanette: I’ve been doing pretty well. I mean, keep an eye on, but keep checking on what side you don’t even know. Keep track not I don’t know. I do it. OK, maybe I get a little crazy. And Kevin.

Kevin: Same. Hanging in there. It’s been a busy week. Online event with Inscribe and plenty of work to go around, but excited to be here.

Phil: And it’s interesting also just the context is change around us. In the past week in particular, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in [00:01:00] cases in the U.S. of COVID-19 positive cases. And that I think it’s quite relevant to what we’re talking about because it gets to the point of view. We’re not quite sure of all of the patterns and we can’t take anything for granted with this pandemic.

But specifically, what we wanted to talk about today is that it’s becoming apparent as colleges and universities come out with their plans that the majority are planning on some form of in-person experience for fall 2020 in the US. And that as we look at the data – the Chronicle of Higher Education has a page out with a lot of data – and we’ve taken that, coded it and provided some visuals.

And it’s useful information, but it’s also a little bit misleading, partially because there are very few schools who are truly going back to in-person. [00:02:00] What’s really happening is if somebody is open reopening their campus and going in person, what they really mean is hybrid, that there is a proliferation of hybrid modalities where there’s a mixture of online coursework, face to face student, why things are changing up. But there are some level of in-person, but it’s not back to what things used to be.

So in one of the visualization blog posts, I provided hopefully a correction that Chronicle data and I grouped in person and hybrid together and saying this is really hybrid by with some form of in-person experience in the fall. But as you look at it, that is the majority case in the US, it’s not schools planning to be remote or fully online in the fall. And you’ve got pockets. California is the state [00:03:00] that’s got the greatest percentage of schools or going fully online, and there’s some in the Northeast. But by and large, it’s hybrid at the same time. We’re starting to see more articles where people are pushing back on the idea of reopening.

And it’s almost taking on a moral tone that’s not necessarily useful. So we’re even seeing articles where people are saying the only responsible choices to go fully online, you can only do this fully online.

I think it would be more productive to have a conversation about the various levels of hybrid and what’s likely to work and what’s likely to not work. What are the common themes worsening of these schools moving forward?

And so I guess part of what I’m pointing out is just from the beginning, we’re not seeing fully in-person delivery. What we’re really seeing, it’s hybrid.

But from an [00:04:00] observational status, what are you guys seeing in terms of what? What are the common trends in terms of the schools that plan on some level of in-person experience in the fall? Kevin, what have you seen?

Kevin: I’ve seen a mix. So talking to schools across the system and a big southern state, some campuses don’t want to get a reputation of being an online school.

So they’re pushing back hard against the concept of going online in the fall. And even for things like hybrid flexible, they’re worried that the aspect of having an alternative pathway that is online will give them that reputation. So they have to fight really hard to figure out how to do that in person. Well. And keep their students safe.

We saw the Protect Purdue plan, which has all these different factors, including 10 feet of breathing space within between the beds and six feet of moving space.

And it strikes [00:05:00] me as a question, how many students are going to be allowed back on campus and which students will be allowed back on campus?

Phil: Jeanette, What did you see?

Jeanette: Ok. So, you know, what I’ve seen is families, parents and students deciding, OK, we might try this school out.

That’s closer to home. Or maybe we will try this school out. That’s not going to charge as much tuition. And those are some of the trends. I see that sort of coming up against these plans of who’s going to be allowed to go back on campus. And if that’s the school I had attended in last year and it doesn’t seem like they’re making the plan that seems the safest for my child or that I feel comfortable as a student going to that I’m going to look for alternatives. And so it’s interesting to see the increase in enrollments and excuse an increase of enrollments for other schools that we’re maybe worried, you know, when this all started.

Kevin: What’s interesting is that maps to the Wiley Aslanian [00:06:00] survey about students who are in fully online programs. And if students perceive that they may end up having to be online, they want to be closer to home, just like the students in those fully online programs at Wiley found out the that educational services. So I’m wondering if it’s something you remarked on several podcasts ago, Jeanette about UNM, University of New Mexico having a higher enrollment for the fall, partly because students may be coming home from other campuses. And it would be interesting to see that visualization that Phil put together and see if we can show almost like you see on an airline magazine in the back where they show the that the travel paths of the planes and the show to and from like, where are our students leaving and where are they going back home and and see if there’s an equitable distribution of people across the country.

Jeanette: Well, I do have some inside information from UNM specifically, and what was interesting is the increase in enrollment is not necessarily [00:07:00] from in-state students. So what I think that UNM is, I think, a very high value school, in my opinion, in terms of the value of education, you know, the return on investment and the cost of tuition. And so I’m wondering if it’s one of those things where students are like, OK, it’s still a big state school. It’s an hour one. You know, maybe you’re not going to go to somewhere else that’s nearby. You’ll go to you and it’s ten thousand dollars less.

That’s what I’m wondering. That’s all I can point to is just the cost of tuition is so much lower than a lot of what I would say, peer schools.

Phil: I’m not sure that I’m seeing I’m seeing changes in enrollment patterns. But what I haven’t seen a lot are students. Actually, we’re we’re hearing from students saying we don’t think this campus opening plan is safe. I mean, I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but most [00:08:00] of these campuses, I guess I give them the benefit of the doubt that even Purdue people love to push on Purdue all. They’re just trying to reopen. And it’s a political issue. But Kevin, reference there, Protect Purdue plan.

And there is a lot of activity they’re doing to try to minimize the number of students. They’re changing their schedule. And one of the most common things I’m saying is schools trying to say we want to be done by Thanksgiving so that anything after Thanksgiving will be done online. Because that’s a lot of models are predicting it might be a second or third peak at that point. But my point is, it seems to me like even Purdue, they’re making a lot of precautions.

And I haven’t seen a lot of activity where students are saying, ‘I deem your opening plans to be unsafe. And so I want to look at another school.’ I see them doing that for value. But it’s not like a lot of schools are just saying we’re opening and not thinking [00:09:00] about them. I’m seeing a lot of thoughtful plans, but in an area of uncertainty, you know, we’re not quite sure what’s going to work out.

Kevin: But are students, the right group to answer that question, when you know that 80 plus percent of the students and all of those surveys we reviewed said the thing they miss most is connections to their classmates. Here in California, one of the biggest super spreader activities right now, are graduation parties for high school seniors. Where 13 to 30 people are walking away, catching Coronavirus from those events.

So they may be young enough and not ready enough worldwide to to not care about the coronavirus as much as that connection with their peers.

Phil: But I’m not trying to capture what should happen. I think it’s most important to at least start with what is happening. And so what I’m really calling [00:10:00] out is I’m not hearing a significant . . .

Well, I guess two things. I’m not seeing the case that there are a lot of campuses who are just flat out opening and doing so, ignoring the risk. They’re making, for the most part, I’m seeing fairly thoughtful plans on how to mitigate risk. Some will work, some won’t work. But I’m seeing pretty thoughtful plans by and large.

I haven’t seen pushback at the student level saying we don’t feel safe. And, you know, to the point that we might change our decision based on what this campus is doing. I’m just not seeing that.

Jeanette: Have you guys seen any of these plans? I don’t think I have, but maybe I’ve missed it.

Have you seen any plans, where they’re saying, okay, if the case load or, you know, if we’re not if we’re seeing rates rise and it goes above fifteen percent, then we’re going to shut everything down and that’s going to go online. And this is what the cap is going [00:11:00] to be for our institution if and then we’re going to you know, that’s when we’re gonna go ahead and go on. And as soon as, you know, the rates go back down, we’ll open back up to hybrid. Have you seen any type of thing that’s gone out that way?

Phil: I definitely see contingency plans such as. Here’s what we’re going to put in place if we have to go back to fully online in the middle of the term. And I’ve seen schools saying, and we’re going to wrap things up based on what our what our state or our local county is measuring.

I’m not sure that I’ve seen schools setting their own specific targets, but I definitely think contingency plans based on what the actual rates are. But I think I’ve seen it more often where they’re referring to local governments and that’s what the basis is going to be. I don’t know anything different. Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. Where I teach at S.F. State, the latest transmission, they they haven’t put on thing about the fall since May, but they [00:12:00] just had an update to their website this week saying these are the latest regulations with respect to masks.

And so they’re putting basically some of the onus on decision making around how to execute safety on the local health authorities.

Phil: Actually, I wouldn’t mind talking a little bit about mask, and I realize I might be projecting my own feelings into this as far as what students are looking at. But my daughter, my youngest daughter goes to Santa Clara University and we’ve been critical that they seem, they were not aggressive in putting together their own plans on hybrid, on contingency planning until very recently.

But they just came out with guidance yesterday that actually did have a lot of detail at it. And one element jumped out at me where they’re talking about any if you’re on campus, outside or inside, [00:13:00] you have to wear a mask. And for me, I’m just trying to think, how realistic is that? Are you really going to be able to get students to wear a. Virtually all the time? I’m I have trouble seeing that. That’s a realistic scenario.

Kevin: I think it’s possible it’s you have to set the culture up front. I encouraged in one blog post that they any campus that has a fashion department create a contest for students to design a mask for the campus and then mass produce those.

But I would say that the key thing is, you know, for the students who are developing their identities, this is an opportunity for them to show leadership and to do what’s right. But it’s going to take everybody, including the campus presidents, to be modeling what the behavior should be.

Jeanette: I agree with that, I in my state, in New Mexico, you more often than not see people wearing masks inside [00:14:00] and outside. And I think it’s just part of what’s being accepted right now. I was up and house earlier this week and I was surprised actually at the number of people that, you know, construction workers, you know, just the locals, no matter how far they were aware, no way from somebody else that they were wearing masks. I think it just has become the norm now and it’s not even questioned. You don’t, you know, take it off when you walk outside. You just keep it on all the time.

Phil: Well, I guess I’m that’s where I said I’m concerned I might be putting my own opinions or my own feelings in here.

But what I’m what I’m concerned about is if it’s a binary choice wearing a mask period, as opposed to ‘we expect you to wear mask in these scenarios, but then in this other situation, that’s safer to not have to wear a mask. We’re not going to enforce it if you don’t have some nuance of the policy.’ My concern is, is that people just ignore it, that it becomes too draconian, so bad to wear masks all [00:15:00] the time. I don’t see students doing that by and large. And if there’s no nuance, then the risk is we’re not just pushing back. When we’re sitting alone in a park doing studying that, we’ll just ignore it all the time or as much as possible. So my concern is sort of the binary choice that’s being presented.

Kevin: Sure, and if you look at just even the state guidelines, it’s typically something like wear a mask when being physically distant is not possible or it’s going to change. You know, like if you’re on a running trail and you’re going to come across joggers and you’re going to have to at least have your mask handy so you can put it in place before you get within six feet of somebody. But yeah, that makes sense that you don’t make it an all or nothing proposition.

Phil: Now, if we talk about things that are happening and if we actually put ourselves back a couple months, I think I would be it would be shocking if we were back in February and tried to predict this conversation [00:16:00] back then.

But I have seen just the majority, a large majority of campuses that are going to have any any sort of in-person opening. So hybrid openings that their coursework truly is hybrid, that we really are talking about mass effort where large online large lecturers are going to be done online and HyFlex hybrid flexible that we’ve talked about quite a bit. Kevin, you’ve written about quite a bit. That’s becoming almost a one of the default norms for higher education, at least for all. So on the coursework side, I am seeing a massive movement towards hybrid delivery that is got to have a long term impact on what’s going to happen.

Are you seeing any schools who aren’t working at hybrid force delivery?

Kevin: You mean other than the ones that already know they’re going to be mostly virtual? Yes, yes. For the ones that are opening [00:17:00] up, are you have you.

Phil: So I guess to restate that, it seems like a hybrid and even hybrid flex muscles almost becoming the default assumption on coursework for the goal. It’s not consistent with what you think it is.

Kevin: I would say that the number of faculty going through professional development to handle the non in-person components, the online or asynchronous or even synchronous components is like a 10x increase where you’re seeing hundreds of faculty go through trainings on campuses instead of tens. And so definitely there is a big preparation movement going on. And and one institution I’m working with is working hard to make sure that students feel prepared before they get to campus on fall because we’re not doing enough to help them get ready. Another factor is just access to equipment.

Somebody who works at a community college here [00:18:00] in the San Francisco Bay Area told me that some faculty members, when they shifted to the emergency remote teaching and learning this spring, had to conduct their courses from computers in the library because they didn’t have a computer on their own. So we have to really think about what that hybridization or move fully online in certain cases means for all the players and the and the and the play.

Phil: You know, those are great points. Jeanette, are you surprised at all about just how commonly accepted hybrid course delivery is and HyFlex in particular?

Jeanette: I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve had I’m looking back at the spring. That seems like the most obvious choice. So you’re looking for how you’re going to deliver this in a way that gives you flexibility to be able to go online or to be in person. It just seems like common sense, to be quite honest. I’m not quite sure what else. Unless we come up with another thing, we can do it. It seems [00:19:00] like the most obvious thing that schools would want to to look for and to try to achieve for fall and moving forward.

Phil: Well, I guess I’m trying to separate common sense, and this makes sense, from ‘this is actually happening.’ We do look at higher education. Right. And so just because it makes sense doesn’t necessarily. Yeah.

Jeanette: But who would have thought that the entire world would have gone online and, you know, a matter of weeks. And everybody was able to just do the heavy lifting and they got it done. As painful as it was. And I think nobody wants to recreate and live through that pain again. And so it’s almost like it’s an action of trying to prevent and avoid avoidance marriage measure to me.

Phil: So maybe after 2020, we’ll have to put to bed this whole canard that used way too often. Higher education hasn’t changed in centuries and we’re still using a factory model and nothing changes and higher up and actually acknowledge [00:20:00] no, actually higher ed goes through enormous changes. We certainly did with the G.I. Bill in the US and radically broadening access to higher education and bringing in all of the diversity and issues that that’s brought to the fore.

But then you take that into 2020. Now, you’re right. The rapid shift to remote teaching in a matter of weeks. And then now what we’re talking about is the large scale adoption of hybrid models or the fall within one term.

I mean, this is not a system that doesn’t change or cannot change. I mean, it can be frustrating that change in many times could have been faster.

But to me, this is a system that does change and we need to acknowledge it and figure out how to improve things. But I just hope that we get rid of the canard of higher education never changes.

Kevin: Well, I always say that higher education moves at glacial speed. And I think this is [00:21:00] just a calf came off in Antarctica.

Phil: So one of the things that we were bringing up earlier was the fact of where we need to acknowledge is the existential crisis that schools face.

We just saw another study, a survey that came out this morning that was pointing out just how a majority of students feel that if they’re going to have to be remote or online, they should be paying lower tuition. And a lot of this is a factor in the decision making. Schools have motivation that, if possible, they should open. Part of it is financial. And it’s a legitimate worry. But you obviously have to handle that in balance with other issues, like it would be a mistake for school only looking at finances.

But I guess part of the part of the challenges is we look at these plans. How well do we think [00:22:00] that they’re handling the financial exit central crisis, but with reasonable precautions and certainly need to acknowledge it’s a challenging situation. But at least from my standpoint, I’ve actually been quite impressed with a lot of these plans, even the product Purdue. We just saw the University of Central Florida’s plans. Santa Clara University came out with a plan yesterday. And and so many of these cases, there are fairly thoughtful plans that are trying to think through all kinds of different scenarios and how to minimize the risk as you go through this.

Kevin: So even the level of planning I’ve actually been impressed with recently when I think we’re going to see quite a few more come July 1st, which is, of course, a target date for a number of campuses to have those plans ready. I think it’s a slippery slope when we talk about different cost models for online courses, because those courses that were online [00:23:00] before coded showed that the success rates can be just as high. And so it’s a matter of choice. And I guess if students are saying they don’t get to choose, they shouldn’t have to pay for the lack of choice.

But I think it’s it’s a it’s a rough thing to say, hey, we had a bad semester because people were forced to move to a different teaching format. So therefore, it’s not as. The same quality.

Phil: What’s your just qualitative judgment on how how well the planning is going on and actually that they’re part of this gets into the K-12? You’ve been relating to us how the state of New Mexico seems to be being fairly sophisticated and the analysis it’s using in the planning it’s doing.

Jeanette: You know, I’m sorry. I’m going to get New Mexico again, I feel like I’m starting to sound like a Texan. No offense to any Texas listener, dad, but I am really, really proud of my state.

I think we’ve done you look at [00:24:00] the Southwest, you look at the West in general, and we’ve really managed this better than I think most states have. We know we’re early on. We’ve been wearing mass since early May. It’s been required like I think we’ve really been able to tap this down and to add to that. They did just in New Mexico, the Department of Education just came out with their reopening plans for August. And they did extensive modeling using the data scientists at Los Alamos National Labs. So the modeling and you can go online and see it. They looked at every like lots of different elements to see what was going to provide the less risk while still allowing students to come on campus. And actually, I think I can’t and I want to quote, get the quote wrong, but the percentage of students, the percentage of risk for students that were going to be completely online based on the hybrid model that they ended up going out with was, you know, in the single digits of risk to the student [00:25:00] based on how they were measuring this out. Just because you’re unless you’re completely quarantined at home, being online doesn’t mean you’re not going to have access to other people. So it was it was impressive. So it’s you know, they have a plan in place and they also have the option if any parent is not comfortable with their students going back on campus, that they can take their courses online. So that’s always going to be an option for parents to decide. But right now, it it just feels like New Mexico has done a really good job and getting ahead of it.

Phil: That’s actually a great point and one that doesn’t get discussed, not people having the option. And in this case, it’s good that schools and states are thinking about students. But what about faculty members?

Kevin: Right. And the a group in Texas that I was talking to just last week, system, mentioned that they want to have the possibility that a faculty member or a student could get sick and they like hybrid flexible as an option so that [00:26:00] either party could continue the coursework from any location. So it’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out. But they were thinking of both sides of the teaching and learning equation.

Jeanette: Now you have to look at states or even universities that are going to have and I hope I believe universities are looking at this. And I know the state of New Mexico, that average teaching age or the fourth, fourth, how do I put this the fourth highest of average teaching ages. So we have a fairly older teaching community in New Mexico. And so that’s that is being taken into consideration. And I wonder how universities are looking at that and the safety of, you know, their faculty and how they can protect them as well. We’ve been really kind of focused on the students and the student experience. But, you know, I think this also applies to faculty.

Phil: I think it’s rising in importance, is what I’m saying. This is a case where students are the ones that are looked at first and it’s almost [00:27:00] now starting to come to the forefront. The question that we’re talking about, what about faculty, ranch and faculty options, about teaching remotely or in person? And you’re starting to see your media coverage. Kevin mentioned discussion on a statewide system level, but I see it as rising and important. But we haven’t at all fully thought that through as a system about what this means for faculty choice. And we need to figure that out.

Kevin: Well, I don’t remember if it was the Purdue Protect Purdue plan or if it was the San Francisco state, but they’re the entity where I saw it set up a confidential survey so that H.R. could help people who feel that they’re in an at risk category, make choices and still be able to perform their functions, whether it be teaching or support staff on a campus or some other role from a distance and make sure they have the equipment they need, the training they need before the fall. And [00:28:00] so there are at least some institutions out there that are thinking about these things. And to your point, Phil, I’ve also started to see questions on list serves and in my own e-mail box about do we have any surveys of faculty related to their COGAT experiences the same way we’ve been looking at the student surveys. And so I’ll be on the lookout for those and maybe there’ll be another blog post.

Well, as a seque, although it’s a future seque, we have the opportunity on partnering on a survey and get us having input into how the questions are crafted for faculty.

Kevin: So we should definitely make sure that we ask some of these key questions or the survey that.

Phil: We’ll be able to share in about two months time, I believe. But so that’s where we are today. We’re heading into July 1st next week. And part of what that means is so many colleges are solidifying [00:29:00] their plans. We’re back into this. We talked to the episode Into Darkness that we’re necessarily heading into a term where it’s not going to be clear. There’s going to be a lot of second guessing, whatever choices made. And there’s going to be a high risk that changes that plans might have to change in the middle of the term. You might open up hybrid, but then have to shift to pull a remote depending on a spike in cases. So we’re starting to see this. But at the same time, we’re seeing some pretty fundamental adoption’s of hybrid course delivery. That’s got to have a longer term impact on higher education. So there’s a lot of moving parts.

It’s a fascinating time is all is what we’ve mentioned in the past. And we’ll definitely keep watching on this. Thanks for your time today. And Jeanette and Kevin’s great having this conversation.

Kevin: Good to talk to you. I’m gonna go give blood, so I’ll tell our listeners if you can [00:30:00] donate, do so.

Jeanette: Wonderful. Kevin. Yes. Have a good weekend, everyone.

In this episode, Phil Hill, Jeanette Wiseman, and Kevin Kelly discuss the concept of Chronocentrism as applied by John Watson to an education context. What if a lot of the common predictions we have turn out to be wrong?

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Hosts:

• Phil Hill
• Jeanette Wiseman
• Kevin Kelly

Transcription:

Phil: Welcome to COVID Transitions. I’m Phil Hill, and I’m here with Jeanette Wiseman and Kevin Kelly talking about the transitions that higher education is going through due to COVID-19. It’s been a good week for me. I will say leading off that I was able to go away for the first time and had a meal, a lunch with my wife. It’s part of our anniversary. Out in a real restaurant with real server, so it’s been an exciting week for me. How are you guys doing?

Kevin: I’m doing just fine. I had a birthday this week and doing some good stuff this weekend, taking a class over Zoom. If you can believe it, for how to fingerpicking the blues.

Jeanette: Really? Oh, that’s impressive.

Kevin: We’ll see.

Jeanette: We were hoping to go camping this weekend, but still in New Mexico you can’t camp unless [00:01:00] you find a private campground. The overnights are still not allowed, which we were going to do. But it is so hot here that I think we’re just going to stay home. Except for if we could, we could. Maybe we’ll send the girls outside.

Phil: Well, we had our lunch in ninety five degree heat. I did not complain since I was just so happy to be out with other humans. What we’d like to talk about today builds on something that we mentioned two weeks ago. Two weeks ago we were discussing the community colleges and how their enrollments seem to be going up, and then we also looked at Arizona State University showing dramatically increased enrollment for the summer. And at the same time, it seems like the conventional wisdom had become, based on surveys, that enrollment was going to be dropping somewhere between 10 and 30 [00:02:00] % across all of higher education. We asked the question “at a certain point, we need to question, are these surveys right? We shouldn’t take that those are gospel.” We might be developing a conventional wisdom that’s just wrong. And at the same time, there was an article that came out yesterday from John Watson at the Evergreen Group, a consulting and analysis firm that works mostly in K-12. But I think this post was excellent. “Will post pandemic school be different? The case against.” And essentially what he does is refer to an article that came out in the Atlantic that essentially says, “I predict your predictions are wrong.” And it points out how often we actually look at our times as unique, and that we’ve never faced anything like it. And so there’s [00:03:00] a tendency to overestimate the significance of long term changes based on our current crises. And we’ll go over some more of the details.

John took the argument to bring up – what if so many of these arguments are wrong, and that we’re going to be a lot more normal than we thought we would be once we get into the fall or even beyond that, that we’re not just having fundamental transformations? I think it’s an interesting question and very interesting article. And point out that Moody’s came out today with their estimate of enrollment for the fall. They’re predicting that total enrollment goes up. Now they’re predicting that the rough enrollment revenue, or tuition revenue, goes down overall, but enrollment could actually be up. We have these contradictory signals. I’d like to explore – what do you guys think in terms of how significant [00:04:00] are the long lasting changes that are going to come out of this pandemic? But let’s start out with that idea from a high level. Jeanette, what’s your initial reaction to that argument?

Jeanette: So my thought is more along the lines of the Atlantic article, if you read it, because we’re all human and we crave social connection. And I think, Phil, you said it nicely when you started off, that this was a good week for you just because you were able to go out and be among other people that maybe aren’t related to. One, your lovely wife of 31 years.

Phil: And for the record, I want to state that I was very happy to be with her. That was not my point.

Jeanette: That’s right. So but that’s just we’re social creatures. We want to see people. We want to be with people. I think that what I’ve seen this week, at least in Albuquerque, it’s been respectful. [00:05:00] Anywhere you go, everybody’s in masks. But I’ve seen an uptick of people in the stores. It doesn’t seem as scary. And I can see how New Mexico is starting to open up more next week in terms of retail and things like that. There’s just there’s a desire to be with people. So I think on a high level, those things make sense. Absolutely.

Phil: Kevin, what what are your reactions? Your thoughts?

Kevin: Well, it makes me think of the article I wrote about the Edge of Chaos and how it’s an opportunity moment for education to make bigger changes than they might. And Watson’s statements that, ‘hey, public education is the way it is for many reasons, many of which are difficult to change.’ So what I always think is what is the cost of not making changes when these opportunities arise? We have to wait for the [00:06:00] next pandemic to make some substantive change, around seat time being the reason that we generate revenue instead of student success. California has already started moving in the direction of funding being predicated on student completion as opposed to student enrollment. I’m interested in seeing how we can drive some of those things forward a little more, even though I agree. And that’s why in my article I didn’t say that it would happen. I just said it was an opportunity for change to happen. But I’m interested and hopeful that we can still find some ways to turn the ship a little bit before we hit the iceberg.

Jeanette: I think that’s going to happen. I think that even there may not be massive change. But one thing, from the least a faculty and a teacher standpoint, is there were a lot of teachers who maybe were always resistant, and instructors resistant [00:07:00] to using technology to teach courses for whatever reason. And there is a million of them. And because they were forced to do this, they probably found some things that they really like about that and those types of things. Yeah, there’s gonna be change for good. It could have been the way they’re addressing certain teaching habits or learning needs that they may be had in the past. And I kind of feel like those things are just going to snowball into maybe a larger effect where technology is becoming more important to teachers that were looking at it before as a teaching tool.

Phil: And if you go back and look at the Atlantic article, I like the way they set this up. It said, “In 1974, the sociologist Jim Bowers coined the term Chronocentrism, the belief that one’s own time is  paramount, that other periods pale in comparison.”

But what you’re describing is not so much ‘Our times are paramount and change will happen [00:08:00] no matter what we do.’ You’re both really talking about the opportunity for change. And even the hope that some changes will accelerate, and I assume some that we try to minimize other changes. But it gets to the question, not just everything is gonna change. We have no choice about it, but it’s also, ‘Well, what are the changes that we either hope or even want to advocate for sticking with us as we move forward?’

You mentioned the comfort with technology. Let’s start with a question. Given everything that we know right now, what are the changes you guys see that you think this is happening in the fall and it’s going to continue, and we’ll look back, let’s say, five years from now, and say 2020 was a period where we accelerated X? And that is now with us and it’s stuck. What are the changes that you guys think [00:09:00] or predict will stick with us at least for five years or more based on what’s happening this year?

Jeanette: I think there’s going to be an increase in hybrid or HyFlex classes and courses that are being offered. I think that teachers are going to start seeing the benefit of a flipped classroom and how they teach. I think that there’s been so much literature and research done about how instructors often teach the way they were taught, and this forced them to kind of look at those teaching habits and change them. And I think that’s probably going to stick. And I think the other one is greater use of technology that’s institution-wide like the LMS. Kevin, what do you think?

Kevin: I agree with all of that and I will raise you equity, raise you one equity. I think that the the whole concept of being more aware of students needs at multiple [00:10:00] levels as learners. And that starts with access to the technology. But even this week, with all the tumultuous activity, in Wednesday’s session at the California Community College chancellor’s office, the little webinars they do every week. Chancellor Oakley said ‘we cannot hide behind the veil of collegiality when it comes to racial equity.’ I think equity is going to stay in the forefront of mind space for the next five years at least.

And I do believe that that means it will translate into actions that people take that they normally don’t, whether it be checking their course for equity with things like the rubric that Peralta Community College District created, or taking the time to understand what students’ needs are, and helping meet them before students show up for classes. Because that’s a really hard time for students to gain new skills that they’re going to need to succeed in a class, on the first day of class. We [00:11:00] need to be starting to prepare students with the technology they need. We heard that student during the student Senate of the California Community College webinar. One student said it took a month for her to get the Chromebook from campus a month after courses restarted. She was borrowing other students’ or neighbors’ or relatives’a laptops in order to continue her studies. And if we’re looking at community college, especially as a way to increase upward mobility and give students a chance to get some economic stability, especially in this time where there’s a lot of unemployment, we can’t afford to go back to the way things were.

Jeanette: I agree. You know, what I also think is that I think the health of an institution in the future is going to be based on how they’re treating equity issues and how much they’re doing student outreach. If you’re going to a school and competition may be fierce, [00:12:00] especially as things are moving online, and your school’s not really paying attention to what your needs are, you’re going to probably find another school.

And I think that’s it’s going to help those institutions that are really recognizing equity issues that, well, I think really thrive in the coming years.

Phil: Well, let me bring the conversation down a little bit. It sounds like that’s my role today, since you guys are both optimistic. I was in a session with Future Trench Forum with Brian Alexander yesterday, and George Station asked me a question about how optimistic or pessimistic I was on the access issue and accessibility. When we talked about the equity-based access issues, you know, access for all, I said, ‘well, I think that the conversation around equity issues is absolutely increasing and won’t go away. You’re getting college leaders talking about the subject [00:13:00] quite a bit.’ But the immediate context of our conversation, if I recall, was about the fact that so much of what we learned about supporting different ethnic groups and first generation students comes down to support outside the classroom, advice, not just class activities, but the broader support network, that that’s what’s crucial. Yet at the same time, that’s what institutions are cutting quite often right now. Do they really have a strong belief in doing that type of investment in these economic times to make meaningful improvements to equity? I believe George’s argument is – he was concerned that in the name of equity, we’ll talk about things, but there won’t be strong changes. So I’d like to challenge. Are we going to see actual progress with investment and things that seem to work, such as general advising?

Jeanette: Again, I’m [00:14:00] going to go back to the reason why I think it’s going to happen, and that it’s going to be end up being tied to retention and revenue. And I think more than ever, that’s going to be the crux of it, that schools are going to need to be able to recognize. These are issues where I agree with you. And what is really worrisome, I think, about the spring – and let’s see what happens going into the fall – is the accessibility issues. How people feel like that’s not as important during this emergency time, and that, I hope, changes for fall. But I worry about how many students, and I think having Kevin can speak to this much like in a larger state that I can, but there are a lot of students that were not being served over the spring for whatever reason. And we’ll see what happens there.

Kevin: Yeah, from some of the surveys that I’ve reviewed, some of the populations or some populations of students who did not feel as supported by their [00:15:00] campuses in the spring were non-binary students of color and students with disabilities. Both of those groups felt like the campuses didn’t do enough to support them and meet their needs.

Kevin: I would add – not only Jeanette’s point about some people thinking that ‘hey, I’ve got so much to do, accessibility is just one more thing that I can’t fit on my plate right now.’ But there’s also that group of people who are finding that it’s a lot of work to make every piece of content and every activity and every tool you use to be accessible. And so some people will be kind of frozen like a deer in the headlights. They won’t know exactly how to get started because there’s so much they perceived to do. In a workshop that I gave to faculty about putting their courses online, you could see the tears forming in one teacher’s eyes when she said, [00:16:00] ‘do you really mean that these things that you’re doing, I have to do to every document in my course. There’s like a hundred.’

She she was both visibly upset because of the amount of work, but also because she felt that she was providing all these obstacles.

Phil: That also goes back to the support need, we can’t just rely on instructors to handle the entire set of problems on their own.

Kevin: True.

Phil: We need to have support staff who can either provide a lot of this conversion of materials, audio, video, different different paths for students to take, particularly those with disabilities or at the very least training during professional development to help instructors get the job done.

That’s I guess what I’m worried about – it’s sort of twofold. Instructors, faculty are going to say this is a lot of extra work and now I’ve got to do even more. And at the same time, [00:17:00] there is an important issue for schools to invest in areas at the time where most of their budgets are getting cut. So there’s room for pessimism here. My view was that in the short term, I’m pessimistic. I think things are not going well, just as you said with the survey. Students with disabilities, they’re not getting served well right now. And I don’t believe they’re going to be served very well in the fall. But over time, I think it’s becoming a subject, just like equity, that institutions can’t avoid. My hope or my prediction – and they’re tied up together – is that in the long run, even three years down the road, that we will see a material improvement in both of these areas, not just in words, but the actual actions in investment. I hope you’re right about that. The retention type of issues will ensure that this happens. But short term, [00:18:00] I’m pessimistic. Long term, I’m optimistic on these issues.

Kevin: I have to push back a little bit first, before we move on to a different topic. Because with the different groups I work with, I’ve got an example of a public community college in Southern California and a private four year university here in Northern California, both of which are planning online events for faculty to learn how to teach in whatever format they’re going to be using over the fall. And both have large sections of the coursework related to both equity and accessibility. So while it’s true that there needs to be a greater investment in staff to support faculty, maybe harkening back to the World War II days, when you had these instructional design teams, where you had a subject matter expert, you had a developer, you had a producer, maybe to diffuse some of the workload for faculty who keep having everything piled on them. But [00:19:00] right now, I see active efforts to address these challenges head on before the fall. And so it probably is always going to be the case. More can be done. But I don’t think that people are waiting for the budgets to reconstitute before tackling.

Phil: Actually I like disagreement, I want to build on this given what is common between the two schools that you just mentioned. I don’t know them by name, but you’re essentially saying these are the schools where you actually help them out with some sort of PD training or or advice on how to get the job done? Correct.

Kevin: True. And yet they both had developed their programs before pulling me in to help. So accessibility was on their radar and equity was on their radar before I even entered the conversation.

Phil: I’m not arguing that you created the solution or the awareness. What I’m saying is it’s a selection bias. There could be a [00:20:00] selection bias going on. It’s not just the schools who are already thinking about this. The question is broad based, what’s going to happen across higher education? I mean, I certainly hope that your case for more short term optimism is right. But I just I’m questioning if there’s a selection bias as well.

Kevin: It could be that. Birds of a feather flock together, so I probably could be hanging out with people who feel around the same way I do on these issues. But I will be doing an Online webinar or online keynote for Des Moines Area Community College, so I’m going to check in with them and see what other programming they have in store for faculty preparing for the fall and see if it’s different in the Midwest.

Phil: Let’s take this a little bit of a different direction, even though it’s interrelated. Zoom U. What’s going to happen to the dominant usage of synchronous Zoom [00:21:00] sessions as the major use case of how schools have taken their courses online or hybrid? Are we going to see the over – I’m being pejorative here, but I believe strongly in it – are we going to see the continuation of the overuse of Zoom as the primary way to have courses either online or the hybrid design, the online component of hybrid? Will that continue throughout the fall? Or will it start going down significantly?

Jeanette: I think that Zoom, the use of Zoom was a crutch that people had to rely on. I’m hoping, I don’t know, but I hope that it starts to see a decrease because it’s not good instructional design in most cases. And with that, I hope that there is going to be an increase, at least in the value of instructional design and helping [00:22:00] faculty with their courses. And when you look at it that way, then there has to be a decrease in usage overall for each of the courses, at least not relying on it for the majority of instruction.

Kevin: And you see in some of the threads of conversations and professional developer listservs and on forums and things like that, that they are having challenges with formats even like HyFlex, which are meant to provide flexibility and student choice. Because they’re concerned that faculty will see it as a way to prioritize in-person lectures like they’d been getting all along, and they really want to put it in an equal emphasis on asynchronous instruction, as Jeanette’s suggesting. So I think that the intent is there. I think the challenge will be, maybe I’ll be more pessimistic like Phil for a moment, and say that the timeline from spring 2020 to fall 2020 may not be long enough, even though [00:23:00] there are an infinite number of points between zero and one. You probably don’t have enough time for a faculty member to become highly conversant with the technologies for asynchronous instruction. So they may be relying on Zoom more than they should, but less than they did in the spring. It’ll be a slower on ramp than, let’s say, what people would hope.

Phil: And this will get to long term changes, in my opinion, that the pain of Zoom U. It did help us, that we need to acknowledge it did help. The remarkable transformation this spring, in three to four weeks time moving online. But it’s got to be pulled back. And the balance, it’s got to go on ecreasing the synchronous video methods and increasing asynchronous methods. And even when you use video to do it asynchronously, there’s a lot of solid pedagogical usage of asynchronous video. I also believe that the usage is going to drop this [00:24:00] fall for Zoom and the other synchronous video methods. But here’s where I’m optimistic, because this is getting debated so much in all circles of higher education that it’s hard to avoid the subject. I think that there’s only positive outcomes from the public discussion about Zoom U and about how, by and large, the online courses of spring just have been disappointing to students and we can’t keep this up. This is a case where I think that even if there’s negative discussions, it’s going to lead to a longer term improvement in teaching and learning, because you just can’t avoid the subject, where people even understand pedagogical usage of asynchronous versus synchronous – that’s now becoming part of the lexicon. Even for faculty who had never taught online before. So I tend to be optimistic in this regard that we’re going to see improvements long [00:25:00] term.

Kevin: That I’ll agree with. I think that we’re seeing not only with respect to technology use, but the concept of teaching and learning, as you said, are becoming part of what faculty consider. And when you can think about the fact that not many faculty learned to teach before they are hired to teach. It’s exciting to be in a space where even though it’s a pandemic and it’s chaotic, the fact that faculty are considering the needs of the students and the strategies that they can adopt to help students learn better. Those are all wins.

Phil: All right. Let me ask you to a question that goes on the other side of the coin. What changes that you’ve heard being discussed about higher education do you think won’t happen? Too many people are talking about this, I don’t think this is going to happen. And I’ll lead off this discussion with one that I hear quite a bit now, Plexiglass as a primary method [00:26:00] of controlling physical spaces. I predict that will not last. By and large, and it’s not going to be effective, and it’s not realistic, even in the fall, to use Plexiglass as a primary method of safety between faculty and students or throughout the system. I don’t believe that the Plexiglass is going to be a major change moving forward.

Jeanette: I’m sort of laughing. I totally agree. I have a 17 year old as my oldest. And there is no way. I think one thing, that if you know about older teens and young adults, is that they crave touch probably more than anyone. And they’re just going to get around the Plexiglass. It’s kind of funny to me, actually, to imagine that and actually imagine it working. I just I don’t see it happening at all.

Kevin: Even at the taqueria or the grocery store where they do have a Plexiglas barrier to protect the [00:27:00] people who are working at this time in history. People still go around it to have themselves heard. Because you’re not only speaking through a mask, but also a Plexiglas sheet. And I can’t, I can’t imagine configurations … It’s going to seem like your classrooms are a labyrinth, or a maze of different configurations, even restaurants. That part I hadn’t heard as a trend or an option.

I just know that you are probably going to see fewer students in the classrooms, possibly switching the days. So if you have a Tuesday, Thursday class, half the class goes on Tuesday and half goes on Thursday. And the other time you either squeeze it all into one time space that you only need one or you’re you’re forced to go online. But I could see those Plexiglass fishbowls that everybody could wear them over their heads like scuba old-school [00:28:00] masks when you walked in along the bottom and those giant domes over your head. That could be a way to accomplish it at a much more individualized and cheaper level.

Phil: Personalize Plexiglass. I like that, personalization. This gets back to the original conversation. I think that what we’re saying is the physical methods of addressing the pandemic, and what might be longer lasting. You’re much more likely to see changes due to hybridization of higher education, fewer students in class because the courses have been designed to have various options, or to have some face to face and a lot more online. Those are going to be the changes that likely impact not just the fall, but long term, that we’re going to see that as long term changes. The Plexiglass, in and there are a lot of articles predicting this, I just see that [00:29:00] to be a mostly a waste of time that maybe money gets into the liability front. Maybe it will make some schools feel that they have some protection, from a legal standpoint, but I don’t see that happening and particularly, as Jeanette said, it’s not just that it’s unrealistic, but in particular for younger people.

Kevin: I just can’t see that working out, to go back to students with disabilities. Somebody in a wheelchair is going to have to navigate around these Plexiglas sheets. And are they going to be on wheels so you can move them around the classroom and then you have to clean them? Because you’re going to be touching the thing that’s on wheels. I mean, it’s creating more work.

Jeanette: Yeah, it’s kind of ridiculous. I really I, I don’t know if our schools do that, Phil. I just it seems like also such a waste of money. I hope they’re not.

Phil: I read articles about schools – I don’t know if they’ve spent the money yet, but yes, I see in articles where schools are saying they’re spending a lot of [00:30:00] money on bringing in physical barriers, primarily Plexiglass, and reconfiguring classrooms and dining halls to use that. So yes, I am reading quite a bit about them using it there. I know this is going to harm our ability to get a Plexiglas manufacturer or sponsorship of the podcast, but it’s going to be a waste of money.

Jeanette: That’s a California company that people used. You know, it’s too bad.

Phil: It’s too bad. Well, it’s been a great conversation. But going back to the original premise, we’re talking about so many changes that are going to affect higher education forever.

But most likely, this Chronocentrism that we have means that we’re overestimating how many changes are really going to be with us long term. And certainly, at least among us and the stuff we’re talking about, in part there’s an aspiration here that we hope happens. The hybridization [00:31:00] of higher education is a trend that we do think is going to accelerate and stay with us and hopefully have a much greater emphasis. And true solutions to improve equity based access and disability-based accessibility from a long term, and that these become subjects that schools can’t avoid in the future. We’ll keep watching to see where things go. It’s been a great conversation and we’ll talk to you guys next week.