Since 2017, our Adaptations interviews with higher education administrators, professors and academics have explored how higher education institutions evolve and adapt to changing paradigms. Today, higher education institutions are experiencing significant challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In July and August, we convened (virtually) three Virtual Adaptations panel discussions featuring prominent higher education experts to compare notes, highlight the issues they’re facing, and share potential solutions. Our goal for these discussions was to broaden understanding and to provide a platform for peer institutions to learn how others are thinking about and addressing these issues. Our summaries of the sessions are intended to serve the same purpose.
Our first two panels focused on public health and town-gown relationships, respectively. Our third and final panel, which took place on August 11, took a closer look at virtual learning and how academic institutions in the U.S. and Canada are rethinking how classes will be structured in the fall. Is this the end of in-person lectures? Are hybrid lab sessions a feasible option? What impact does virtual learning have on physical space requirements? We tackled these questions and more in our discussion.
Panelists included:
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Jeff Hollingsworth, Ph.D.
Day-To-Day Life in the Age of COVID-19
Panelists weighed in on what working during the pandemic has entailed, including surprises, hurdles and newly discovered strengths during the planning process and heading toward reopening. The University of Ottawa has a 90% online plan. So for Dr. Jill Scott, navigating the tech component of everything — from ironing out testing details to making sure every class is available in two languages — has taken a significant effort. But she pointed to a five-day turnaround to online in March as indicative of the institution’s ability to quickly adapt amidst many unknowns.
Other panelists discussed the challenges of embracing a hybrid approach including identifying solutions to keep students physically distanced when they do meet in-person and being prepared for the situation to change at any moment. John Kyndt and Pam Garbini shared that their institutions have been able to lean on existing infrastructure for virtual learning to support their efforts. All panelists emphasized that the staff and faculty at their universities have faced these unprecedented challenges head-on.
The Socially-Distanced Campus
When it came to the limited in-person classes and gatherings that the panelists were anticipating in the fall, Garbini shared that Penn State worked to standardize safety and learning measures across spaces located at multiple campuses across the state so they could allow students to take courses at campuses closer to home regardless of where they were enrolled. With an engineering background, Garbini said she and her team got creative about finding spaces that could accommodate extra seats based on geometry. Larger lecture halls could be used for smaller classes as the larger classes went online. And suddenly, classrooms considered outdated became good classrooms because of their configuration.
The panelists also commented that active learning classrooms are often designed for a greater amount of square footage per person so they can naturally be good candidates to use — especially because movable furniture in these spaces provides flexibility, while fixed furniture can create real limitations.
Hollingsworth added that efforts to get classrooms equipped with appropriate technology across campus made everyone more aware of how much of the technology currently deployed in classrooms wasn’t under the central technological umbrella. Those discrepancies were something they were able to overcome and now there is greater appreciation for the common platforms offered by the technology group.
The Campus of the Future
To close out the discussion, panelists were asked for a quick thought on the future of embracing online classes and off-campus learning and how academic institutions can take advantage of new opportunities brought about by the pandemic.
Scaling Up Virtual Learning
The rapid scale-up to virtual learning last spring was a learning experience for many of the panelists, with several of them emphasizing the importance of quality and adaptability within the online environment. They discussed the importance of co-creating solutions with experts from across the institution and forgoing a “one size fits all” approach. Recalling her past success leading initiatives for online course development, Scott shared that online learning must never be treated like a side project. She emphasized that ideally, faculty will have robust supports and funding to develop quality, evidence-based instructional design.
In the current moment when decisions need to be made rapidly and virtual solutions implemented more quickly, Scott reiterated the importance of leaning on experts, such as the Chief Information Officer, and structuring working groups and committees in ways that garner buy-in and commitment. Garbini and Hollingsworth both spoke to the importance of providing appropriate supports to those instructors who may be relative novices when it comes to virtual teaching and platforms.
The Potential and Challenges of Hybrid Coursework
For our discussion on hybrid learning models, we turned to John Kyndt, who we knew from our past discussions has been exploring hybrid courses — which incorporate elements of both the physical and virtual classroom in the same course — for the past several years. Kyndt shared that the impetus for his exploration with hybrid courses was to provide flexible options for all students — for example, those with children, commuters, or military personnel. He noted that most of the hybrid learning is done in lectures, but they have been experimenting with labs as well, including screens and cameras on the side of the classroom so online students can see what’s going on. One of the keys, he added, was modifying actual lectures to incorporate more student engagement both in-person and online.
Other panelists discussed some of their efforts around hybrid learning in smaller collaborative group settings and using the “flipped learning” lecture model. They did note some of the challenges in terms of getting the right technology in place and making sure they had appropriate supports in place for instructors and students and full buy-in from them. All panelists felt it could be a promising model for the future. Scott noted that having some courses already established as hybrid courses made them easier to switch over to fully online during the pandemic.
Six months ago we would not be able to get on a call and connect so many people at one time … Now I think people are used to, "Oh, ok, this meeting's online ... gotta download Zoom, Webex, Bluejeans, or other software ... Now I'm in the meeting." … We're doing virtual reunions, which we never could have done before.
We are providing online mental health supports in ways we just were not doing before. Our Writing Center and Learning Skills Development and Success department now offer virtual support. My hope is that post-COVID, we continue to offer these things on campus.
[A group of local higher ed institutions] meets every couple of weeks, and we've been able to affect change with regard to what the county's put forth for re-opening protocols for the higher education and research enterprises. That organization and collaboration didn't exist pre-COVID.
This year we have gone to “the show must go … online.” We've continued to have our performing arts performances, and we've done them all virtually and made them available to people for free. We did that so that we could actually pay the performers under contract with us, and then also give something back to the community.
We're looking at how to make our virtual events available for the town. If we're going to bring arts events online, how do we get that into a community newsletter so that people could watch? What are we doing on campus that could be helpful for parents who are home having to be teachers of their children?
We're really seeing this as a collaborative effort with our students, staff, faculty and broader community ... to do our very best to ensure that our students have a successful transition back to campus.
[For hybrid courses] you have to change your model a little bit … You have to make sure that you bring those [online learners] in and it does take some extra work or adjustments to your curriculum. Even if you do some lecture portion, have some group work or break them up in that setup as well.
We had some hybrid courses, and this meant that we were very quickly able to move those over to fully online courses. I don't want to give up on the hybrid model, and in particular on the small active, collaborative group piece that it [allows you to focus on], but not in the age of COVID.
We recognize that a lot of students might not be able to make it back to the classroom for various reasons. The faculty have been doing a little bit of double-duty trying to make sure that their class can be as effective in a face-to-face mode and a remote mode at the same time.
The challenge comes when you look at, “How do you move these students through the hallways and then elevators and to the cafeteria?” That's where it becomes really hard to keep distances and rules in place.
—Stacey Sickels Locke,
University of Maryland Baltimore County
—Jennie Massey, Western University
—Ken Hargreaves, Caltech
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
—Stacey Sickels Locke,
University of Maryland Baltimore County
—Jennifer Massey, Western University
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
Professor (Computer Science Department)
University of Maryland, College Park
Pam Garbini
Assistant Director
Space Management, Office of Physical Plant, Planning, Design, Properties
Penn State University
John Kyndt, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Microbiology, Nutrition and Sustainability
College of Science and Technology
Bellevue University
—Ken Hargreaves, Caltech
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
Jill Scott, Ph.D.
Provost and Vice-President
Academic Affairs
University of Ottawa
In the fall, we're going to have everything. We're going to have in-person classes. We're going to have hybrid. We want to be able to pivot so classrooms are set up so they can be used for face-to-face, or face-to-face social distance, or remote delivery of classes.
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
We have to be constantly prepared for the fact that the situation is going to be changing no matter what. Just three weeks before classes started, we announced that the first two weeks of our model, which was going to be a hybrid model, is going to be 100% online.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
We already had hybrid courses and every course that we develop has an online component to it. So even if you do a residential course, you already have a blackboard shell that has everything online as well. So the transition
has been fairly easy from that perspective.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
The biggest surprise for me was the fact that we were able to switch to completely online delivery over a period of five calendar days in March. We actually gave our faculty two business days to turn things around ... It was kind of miraculous.
[Online learning needs] vary a lot by discipline. For
our math faculty, the number one thing was an extremely high quality document camera. For architecture faculty, it was a high powered cluster that could run AutoCAD remotely for the students to do studio. For our musical students, it was a low latency way to experience performance that was critical.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
Our teaching and learning group re-tasked the student assistants who used to provide services in the computer labs and assigned them to support faculty that had any anxiety or any challenge whatsoever in using new technology.
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
A [virtual learning] model may or may not work, and then you have to change it quickly, maybe even mid-semester … So flexibility is a lesson that we have to learn, but we need to be willing to try new things out as well.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
In this era, we need to leverage every expert we have, whether that's in our teaching center or an individual professor who's had [virtual classroom] experience. We need to ensure that those people are appropriately engaged, incentivized, and they're at the table. Professors guiding professors. Round-tables in every department. User-friendly models.
I don't think residential instruction is going to go away 100% ... I think there will still be a place where people can get together and hear about different ideas from people who aren't like them. But being thrown into this has opened everybody's mind and eyes to what's possible.
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
I think the biggest challenge we face is replication of the broader, beyond the classroom experience in the digital world. That's where I think we still have a lot of opportunity to innovate. How successful will we be? I think the jury is still out on that.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
Innovation and flexibility is key. We'll definitely learn our lessons from this and some of the stuff will stick later on.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
We all wanted to become more digital anyway. This is our opportunity. I say you throw enough mud at the wall, and some of it will stick. It's just a question of what do you want to stick? And what would you really want to wash off?
Active Learning in a Virtual Environment
Recreating an active learning environment online is no easy task and Hollingsworth was the first to emphasize that the small group interactive experience is what students found most lacking after the rapid shift to online last spring, especially team-based activities and projects. But he also pointed to successes. For example, in the School of Architecture, faculty went from worrying about whether their students could be equipped with technology powerful enough to work outside their studios and computer labs to being so impressed by the success students had working from home that they wondered how many computer labs will truly be needed in the future.
Kyndt added that using Zoom rooms for break-out sessions worked well for him, but requires the professor to adapt their approach. Scott emphasized that it can be difficult to measure success in a virtual active learning environment, making it important to understand intended outcomes and to utilize assessment tools that allow instructors and administrators to gauge effectiveness.
[In the online active learning environment] it's a question of, "Is it the critical thinking you're looking at here? Or is it actually the collaboration or teamwork?" Then look for the appropriate rubrics or methodologies to really assess that and make sure the students know what they are being assessed on.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
I think it's going to be a mixed story. In some cases, [virtual learning] will be wildly successful, and we will discover something new, but the goal can’t be to exactly replicate face-to-face learning. Envision what's possible with the virtual that was not possible with the physical, and use this as an opportunity to innovate.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
Jill Scott, Ph.D.
Provost and Vice-President
Academic Affairs
University of Ottawa
In the fall, we're going to have everything. We're going to have in-person classes. We're going to have hybrid. We want to be able to pivot so classrooms are set up so they can be used for face-to-face, or face-to-face social distance, or remote delivery of classes.
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
We have to be constantly prepared for the fact that the situation is going to be changing no matter what. Just three weeks before classes started, we announced that the first two weeks of our model, which was going to be a hybrid model, is going to be 100% online.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
We already had hybrid courses and every course that we develop has an online component to it. So even if you do a residential course, you already have a blackboard shell that has everything online as well. So the transition has been fairly easy from that perspective.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
The biggest surprise for me was the fact that we were able to switch to completely online delivery over a period of five calendar days in March. We actually gave our faculty two business days to turn things around ... It was kind of miraculous.
[Online learning needs] vary a lot by discipline. For our math faculty, the number one thing was an extremely high quality document camera. For architecture faculty, it was a high powered cluster that could run AutoCAD remotely for the students to do studio. For our musical students, it was a low latency way to experience performance that was critical.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
Our teaching and learning group re-tasked the student assistants who used to provide services in the computer labs and assigned them to support faculty that had any anxiety or any challenge whatsoever in using new technology
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
A [virtual learning] model may or may not work, and then you have to change it quickly, maybe even mid-semester… So flexibility is a lesson that we have to learn, but we need to be willing to try new things out as well.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
In this era, we need to leverage every expert we have, whether that's in our teaching center or an individual professor who's had [virtual classroom] experience. We need to ensure that those people are appropriately engaged, incentivized, and they're at the table. Professors guiding professors. Round-tables in every department. User-friendly models.
Active Learning in a Virtual Environment
Recreating an active learning environment online is no easy task and Hollingsworth was the first to emphasize that the small group interactive experience is what students found most lacking after the rapid shift to online last spring, especially team-based activities and projects. But he also pointed to successes. For example, in the School of Architecture, faculty went from worrying about whether their students could be equipped with technology powerful enough to work outside their studios and computer labs to being so impressed by the success students had working from home that they wondered how many computer labs will truly be needed in the future.
Kyndt added that using Zoom rooms for break-out sessions worked well for him, but requires the professor to adapt their approach. Scott emphasized that it can difficult to measure success in a virtual active learning environment, making it important to understand intended outcomes and to utilize assessment tools that allow instructors and administrators to gauge effectiveness.
I think it's going to be a mixed story. In some cases, [virtual learning] will be wildly successful, and we will discover something new, but the goal can’t be to exactly replicate face-to-face learning. Envision what's possible with the virtual that was not possible with the physical,
and use this as an opportunity to innovate.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
[In the online active learning environment] it's a question of, "Is it the critical thinking you're looking at here? Or is it actually the collaboration or teamwork?" Then look for the appropriate rubrics or methodologies to really assess that and make sure the students know what they are being assessed on.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
We recognize that a lot of students might not be able to make it back to the classroom for various reasons. The faculty have been doing a little bit of double-duty trying to make sure that their class can be as effective in a face-to-face mode and a remote mode at the same time.
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
I don't think residential instruction is going to go away 100%...I think there will still be a place where people can get together and hear about different ideas from people who aren't like them. But being thrown into this has opened everybody's mind and eyes to what's possible.
—Pamela Garbini, Penn State University
I think the biggest challenge we face is replication of the broader, beyond the classroom experience in the digital world. That's where I think we still have a lot of opportunity to innovate. How successful will we be? I think the jury is still out on that.
—Jeff Hollingsworth, University of Maryland
—John Kyndt, Bellevue University
Innovation and flexibility is key. We'll definitely learn our lessons from this and some of the stuff will stick later on.
—Jill Scott, University of Ottawa
We all wanted to become more digital anyway. This is our opportunity. I say you throw enough mud at the wall, and some of it will stick. It's just a question of what do you want to stick? And what would you really want to wash off?
