Meeting Notes 3/4/2021
Hybrid/Online Instruction Programming Working Group
Thursday, March 4, 2021
General Summary
Working Group #1: Faculty/Staff Engagement and Communications
Dennis Slavin
Summary
Sub-Group Members: Sam Johnson, Ted Joyce, Don Waisenen (Dennis is seeking additional female members to balance the team)
Current Status:
- Previous, voluntarily online/hybrid students at Baruch and across the nation indicate that “strong” students, i.e. with strong GPAs learn as much if not more online. Students identified as “poor” students, i.e. with lower GPAs learn less. The divide in student performance online is greater.
- Reports of cheating during the COVID Hybrid/online period has increased by six-fold.
- Students who used the support resources available showed significantly higher end grades and a much lower drop rate than the “at risk” students who did not use support help from the College.
Goal:
- Study is recommended as to the performance of students in the COVID online environment. Their participation has not been voluntary and as such this may have had an impact. An additional concern is indicated as to the impact of the credit/no credit policy on the data results.
- Study of the causes and solutions to the increased reports of cheating.
- It is recommended we investigate issues of equity and inclusivity.
- A study is needed in why “at risk” students do not support services, is it an issue of awareness of the availability, access, or other reason.
- Art King and team will work to incorporate data on the retention rates of overall students and the “at risk” population.
Budget:
- Under review
Working Group #2 Technical and Software Infrastructure
Art Downing
Summary
Sub-group Members: J. Alarcon, J. Albanese, A. Arcelay, D. Cayas, J. Chandler, A. Lehr Samuels, J. Lynch., M. Richichi, G. Smith, P. Tejera, M. Waldman, K. Wolf, W. Young
Current Status:
Major Projects have been identified for now until into the Fall semester including the following:
- Network needs, classrooms to HiFlex and equipment upgrade pilots
- Development of Content development studio
- Laptop loan needs for students, faculty and staff.
- Cloud Service upgrade
- Phone system upgrades
- Learning and Assessment Resources
- Software
- Supportive Technology
Goals:
- Coordinate more extensively with the office of Testing and Evaluation
- Hire AV consultants for developing the HiFlex labs and production studio.
- Expand supportive technology across the campus as much as possible and as needed
- Consider alternate classroom configurations
- Schedule the shift for CUNY Zoom account in potentially the Winter Intercession or next summer
Budget
- A budget has been identified and approved for most items, exceptions include WebWork, Kahoot!, Edge Switches, Cloning of B-12-150, potentially some of the faculty short term laptop needs, and the approach to enabling staff to receive/place calls from off campus using Baruch landline numbers.
- Requests are in place, but are not yet approved for for additional staff in Help Desk, Instructional Tech and School tech Staff.
Working Group #3: Course Scheduling and Student Support Infrastructure
Mary Gorman
Summary
Sub-group Members: In Progress
Current Status:
- All courses for the Fall are scheduled with the input of the three schools and faculty.
- The three schools have small sectors of courses that may move voluntarily from on-site to online.
- CourseDog has launched and will allow for hybrid classroom management.
- Adopted the use of BernieBot in 5 areas
- Navigate is deployed
- Goals:
- Campus consultant review of classroom facilities management for greater efficacy, including but not limited to classroom configuration options.
- New CRM system. CUNY’s current adoption of a new system is stalled and it is recommended that we proceed locally.
- Recommends the study of student preferences for online, onsite and hybrid.
- Improve forecasting for seat demand
- Reduce bottlenecks in scheduling
- Develop adaptable. sustainable data-driven approaches
- Address issues of academic integrity
- Expand the use of BernieBot
- Expand the use of Navigate
- Consider an alternate model of one stop student services
- Assess staffing ratios
- Explore predictive, responsive and direct student support
Budget: in process
Working Group #4: Training and Instructional Design Infrastructure
Allison Lehr Samuels
Summary
Current Status: Due to a lack of time, this presentation focused primarily on goals
Goals:
- Must develop a faculty driven process for this taskforce and her program.
- Develop course templates and options for and with faculty
- Conduct a listening tour for faculty and students individually and in focus groups.
- Stress out to learn online
- Collect and develop best practices
- Build beginning in summer
Budget: In Process
- Additional overall goals/comments of the taskforce:
- Develop definitions of online, hybrid, HiFlex
- Communicate to students what the current schedule means and plans for the future
- Concerned that student have no way of understanding what hybrid means in CUNYFirst much of the time.