CREATING A CULTURE OF HYBRID AND ONLINE TEACHING: A HOT CASE STUDY

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1 CREATING A CULTURE OF HYBRID AND ONLINE TEACHING: A HOT CASE STUDY Linda Weiser Friedman Professor of Statistics & Computer Information Systems Baruch College Zicklin School of Business and the Graduate Center of CUNY Linda.Friedman@baruch.cuny.edu ABSTRACT This paper examines hybrid and hybrid (HOT) learning in higher education, in the context of a large urban university that recently saw a very large increase in its HOT offerings and enrollments over a two-year period. Some of the activities undertaken in order to make this happen include: faculty seminars and workshops, instructional technology support, web support, faculty incentives, and a teaching award. INTRODUCTION Friedman [5] observes that one of the crucial challenges facing government today is: How to generate growth and upgrade the skills of every American in an age when the merger of globalization and the information technology revolution means every good job requires more education. To make matters even more challenging for government, the spigot i.e., the stimulus money which began in 2009 and saved about 400,000 education jobs has been turned off. About 100,000 individuals in the field of education (the White House claims that the number is more like 250,000) have lost their jobs in the last few years. This is one of the problems facing public (and private) education: a shortage of money. There is less money but the skills people need in order to be successful in the workplace are increasing. Another problem facing education is the belief that we are not getting much bang for the education buck. In fact, Arum and Roksa [3] claim that a significant number of college students barely improved their skills in the vital areas of critical thinking, writing, and problem solving/critical reasoning. In fact, after four years, 36% had made no significant gains in those three areas. The average amount of time spent studying by college students is now less than half of what it was in the 1960s. Clearly, we have to transform education and come up with new methods of teaching. There are those who believe that online teaching will have to be part of any solution [6]. After all, online education provides numerous opportunities for educators to introduce writing, critical thinking, and problem solving into courses. Online homework managers enable instructors to provide students with problems that can be corrected by computer. MOOCs (massive open online courses) also allow thousands students to learn from experts in their fields. There is no question that colleges and universities across the country have increased their offerings of online and hybrid classes and programs. It should be noted that until last year, the Sloan Consortium was responsible for the research involving online learning [1]; this research is currently being conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group. According to the most recent

2 Babson study conducted in 2011, about 31% of college students were taking at least one online course [2]. The number of students taking online classes has increased for nine straight years, although it started slowing down a bit. Despite all this, Lytle [9] reports that many faculty members are frightened by its growth and prevalence. Even today, less than one third of chief academic officers reported that their faculty accepted the value and legitimacy of online education [2]. This paper will show how one college convinced faculty to see the value of online teaching and, in effect, changed the culture. THE SETTING The college in question is located in New York City and has more than 17,000 students. It is a college with one of the most ethnically diverse student bodies in the United States. It also houses one of the largest business schools in the country. In fall 2009, students were offered only four small classes in hybrid or online teaching (HOT) mode, of these three were online and one partially online. In fact, during all of academic year , only 197 students were enrolled in HOT classes, all of these in the business school. Barely two years later, by fall 2011, a total of 2,246 students were enrolled in HOT classes, 1,964 in business school classes. These strong numbers, which continued in future offerings, may be related to a flurry of HOT activities that changed the way faculty and students saw curriculum delivery. In any event, there was a definite transformation at the college. What happened? First, let us look at some relevant terminology at the institution in question. At that time, a hybrid class was considered to be one in which one-third to two-thirds of instruction occurs online. This could be scheduled in a variety of ways, e.g., in one- or two-week modules, for some time each week throughout the semester, or in some other arrangement. A class is considered online when at most one-third of the class is delivered in face-to-face (FTF) mode. Hence, students in a "fully" online class can still be required to come into school for exams, labs, problem sessions, review sessions, etc. ONLINE LEARNING Surprisingly, there are quite a few faculty members that believe that online teaching is a scam and that the only way to teach is in a traditional face-to-face classroom. This is why it is important for any proponent of online teaching to know that the evidence does not support the view that the best way to learn is in a classroom. Means et al. [10] did a meta-analysis of more than 1,000 studies published from 1996 to 2008 comparing online with traditional classroom teaching. What they found was that online learning does offer many advantages over traditional classroom learning. In fact, students who take courses that are either completely or partially online will perform better than students taking traditional, face-to-face courses. Interestingly, hybrid courses that combine classroom learning with online learning seem to be the best of all delivery methods. Means et al. conclude: 1

3 Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium. In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction. Diana G. Oblinger, president of Educause, made the following statement in response to the above study: "Online education provides additional opportunities. It gives people greater opportunity for flexibility, for experiential learning, for illustrating things in multiple ways such as visualization." She emphasized that the study makes it quite obvious that colleges have to make sure to use online education and not insist on only offering courses using traditional, faceto-face instruction [7]. The Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University has been using hybrid courses that combine online and traditional classroom courses to accelerate learning. In one study involving different approaches to teach statistics, a comparison was made of a traditional class with a hybrid class. The traditional class met for 15 weeks, 4 times a week. The hybrid class met twice a week for 7 1/2 weeks. Students in the hybrid class had test scores and retention scores that were equal or better than those for the students in the traditional classroom[8]. It appears that a hybrid approach can enhance productivity even with a course as complicated as statistics. The belief that the best way for students to learn is via traditional, face-to-face classes is rapidly becoming obsolete. The best one can claim is that the traditional class offers advantages for some students; after all, not all students have the same learning styles [4]. Younger students, in particular, who are comfortable with social networks, may benefit greatly from online learning communities and social media learning tools. It is important for any advocate of online teaching to recognize that online teaching, especially hybrid or blended courses that combine both online and face-to-face teaching, may very well be the ideal way of teaching most classes. This is the modern way to teach a course. Faculty who refuse to use online tools are as myopic as those who might refuse to use in communicating with students. HOT ACTIVITIES A flurry of HOT-related activities over a two-year period helped increase the number of HOT offerings and enrollments dramatically. Summer Seminars and HOT Workshops The first thing that had to be done was spread the word about online teaching. This was accomplished by using summer seminars and workshops. It all started during the summer of 2010, when faculty representing the various disciplines of the business school met regularly in 2

4 several full-day sessions for the purpose of learning more about the teaching of hybrid and online classes and exploring issues related to this modality. It was important to get the faculty to use word of mouth and word of mouse to tell others about the value of using online teaching tools. One-day faculty development workshops were held twice a year. Each workshop had a different theme, for example, one focused on best practices, one on social media and, in one, the college s own HOT faculty reported on their experiences in the virtual classroom. A two-week Blackboard-based online course for faculty who wanted to teach HOT courses was offered several times a year. This course used a fully online and asynchronous method of delivery and the goal of the course was to help faculty walk the bridge from FTF to HOT course delivery. The course provided them with their own first-hand experience of how the daily activities in an online course unfold. At the end of the course, participants had a first draft of their online course syllabus and course website as well as a clearer idea of how online course activities worked. Faculty Support It is important to have instructors who can help faculty who are having difficulty with online. There has to be a go-to person where to send faculty if they want to learn about online teaching one-on-one. The college hired two instructional technology fellows, doctoral students with specialties in this area who helped faculty with online course materials and ideas. These IT fellows were charged with training faculty and supporting them in their efforts to develop course materials for online and partially online course delivery. Recognizing that it is important to have a specialized website dedicated to helping faculty develop their online course materials, the IT fellows produced and maintain a Website with information about many HOT faculty resources available at the college and beyond. Incentives Incentives are a good marketing tool. Fifteen fulltime members of the faculty were able to receive fully loaded laptops to support them in their online coursework, as an incentive to teach a course in hybrid delivery mode. Participation in the Hybrid Course Laptop Incentive Program required applicants to specify the course and semester in which this class would be offered and to complete a survey at the end of the course to share their experiences with other instructors interested in hybrid instruction. HOT Teacher Award The Hybrid & Online Teaching (HOT) Award was designed to recognize instructors in the business school who adapted instructional technologies in innovative ways in support of student learning and the university's mission to broaden the use of technology in the academic environment. Nominees submitted a personal statement and supporting materials like student evaluations, sample course materials, etc. Selection criteria were based on breadth of technology adoption for student learning and engagement; original and creative use of technology for the given curriculum; use of diverse technologies in the (real or virtual) classroom; and enthusiasm, i.e., a clear interest in and passion for teaching with technology, particularly in the service of hybrid or online courses. The first award was a prize of a Kindle e-reader. The advantage of these awards was that it helped generate additional publicity for HOT courses. 3

5 Assessment Since fall 2010, the school has been piloting and testing online student evaluations for online courses. It is important to be able to demonstrate to faculty that students are satisfied with HOT courses. It is also important to fix problems before they undermine the entire HOT program. Since the college s regular course and teaching evaluations were still conducted using paper and pencil, the online courses needed to be assessed separately. CONCLUSION Needless to say, the school and the college were quite pleased to see the increase in online offerings. Like many other urban institutions of higher education, this college has been operating at nearly 100% room capacity. The number of students keeps growing but there is no money for new buildings. The business model used for HOT classes is quite familiar to those in the retailing and banking industries namely, click and mortar. Many successful retailers have stores but also sell online. Colleges are also doing the same: offering both traditional and online courses. As the number of faculty who have expertise in online teaching increase, it will enable our colleges to grow, and to serve the needs of an increasing student population, without having to find the space or the funding for additional physical buildings. REFERENCES [1] Allen, I. E. and Seaman, J. (2010, November). Class differences: Online education in the United States, Sloan Consortium. Retrieved from [2] Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2011). Going the distance: Online education in the United States, 2011.Babson Survey Research Group and Quahong Research Group, LLC. [3] Arum, R. & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [4] Battalio, J. (2007). Interaction online: A reevaluation, Quarterly Review of Distance Education 8 (4),2007, [5] Friedman, T. L. (2012, August 22). We need a conservative party. New York Times, A25. [6] Friedman, L. W. & Friedman, H. H. (2011, June 22). Online learning as a change agent in education. Available at SSRN: or [7] Jaschik, S. (2009, June 29). The evidence on online education. Inside HigherEducation. Retrieved from [8] Lohr, S. (2010, October 11). In higher education, a focus on technology. New York Times, B3. [9] Lytle, R. (2012, July 6). College professors fearful of online education growth. US News. Retrieved from [10] Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., & Jones, K. (2009) Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. U.S. Department of Education Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service. Retrieved from 4