required to move to hyflex?

[rac]

Are any other universities starting to demand that required courses in the major be offered in a setting  that accommodates both in person and remote students (who attend everything via zoom)? I think this is called hyflex...My university appears to be moving in that direction. I have not seen any faculty meetings about this at the university level discussing this shift in demands. It appears to me a not insignificant increase in effective workload that will come at the cost of lower student evaluations unless a lot of effort is put into the course. If your university has tried to move in that direction, has there been (successful) pushback?

[Caracal]

Are any other universities starting to demand that required courses in the major be offered in a setting  that accommodates both in person and remote students (who attend everything via zoom)? I think this is called hyflex...My university appears to be moving in that direction. I have not seen any faculty meetings about this at the university level discussing this shift in demands. It appears to me a not insignificant increase in effective workload that will come at the cost of lower student evaluations unless a lot of effort is put into the course. If your university has tried to move in that direction, has there been (successful) pushback?

No, certainly not an expectation at my school. Is this being pushed at the department level then?

[Zeus Bird]

My uni tried to do this during COVID, claiming that the accreditation agency required it.  Faculty and deans pushed back.  Then in the second round they tried to move towards pressuring individual faculty to do hyflex if a student who registered for an in-person course was uncomfortable with attending class in person.  Some faculty were willing to accommodate this, most pushed back.  Hyflex was developed years ago, but the pandemic fundamentally altered the way many universities approach distance learning and it is likely to be with us for a long time.

It is definitely more work, exponentially so for large classes.  Universities should be laying out the details in advance:  1) hyflex courses should be labelled as such in advance and not jerry-rigged ad hoc at the last minute; 2) if possible, faculty should get more compensation for the added work (LOL! good luck); and 3) the issue of synchronous vs. asynchronous (recorded) sessions should be settled at the start.  If faculty are required to record sessions so that students can take the class asynchronously then hyflex makes little sense given that the in-class sessions become superfluous to a large extent.

[fishbrains]

We were able to push back on the idea that students could have the option to attend in-person classes remotely, synchronously, because the technology in the classroom doesn't really work consistently enough for this to be effective--no matter how much money they spend on it.

The way we made our point was to have the meeting about all this in a "Zoom Room" where some attendees were in person and others dialed in on Zoom; and, on cue, the technology pretty much collapsed.

That said, with dropping enrollment I don't think this is really going to go away. Not that I'm saying all this is about money . . .

[OneMoreYear]

My department "required" us to do hyflex last year to accommodate students (not a University level requirement); I think two full professors pushed back, but the rest of us did it. I had one class which essentially turned into an online class, as no one showed up in-person, so I taught to an empty room.
This year, some are continuing to hyflex and some only flex if the student has an emergency. I am required to flex for a student in two of my classes who is claiming hardship to attend in person.  Thus, those classes have become defacto hyflex. As one is a lab-based course, this situation has increased my workload substantially.
I agree that classes should be designated as hyflex in the schedule, and we should not be asked to do this at the last minute.  I can create good in-person class, a good fully online class, or a good hyflex class, but I need to know the format of the class before I set the syllabus, as my decisions will be different. At my Uni, for the rooms that I have taught in, the streaming technology works pretty well, but, as fishbrains notes, that is a serious consideration. If all of your classroom are not not set up to hyflex successfully, it's a no-go from the start.
Some of my colleagues are staunch advocates for hyflex, because it increases accessibility and because we "proved" virtual access could be offered during the pandemic. I think there are some classes in which it may work well. I don't think it's a solution for everything.

[lightning]

During the pandemic, hyflex became a big joke, at my university. For classes where students didn't feel like it was necessary to show up in-person (which included a lot of gen ed courses and lower level courses in degree programs that did not have a "hands-on" component like dissection, biomechanics stations, programming robots, etc.), instructors ended up teaching in a physical empty classroom, with all the students opting to Zoom in. In most cases, instructors gave up and started teaching from elsewhere, because an instructor's physical presence in the physical classroom was not really enforced. If your university is the same, and the teaching of the content won't really suffer, then don't fight it. Play the hyflex game and give everyone what they want including yourself, as long as the effective teaching of the content is not compromised--and as long as it's up to the professor to decide that in practice . . . .

[FishProf]

If HyFlex was used in the 80's...

[Liquidambar]

If HyFlex was used in the 80's...

I was thinking of exactly this.  Thanks for the clip.

[Larimar]

I probably would've been that one kid who kept coming to class in person.

[glowdart]

We have enough academic data from Covid to prove that our residential students do not thrive in a hyflex system that the uni has effectively banned it.

[Puget]

Quite the opposite-- We are no longer required to offer zoom access to students (except for a single digit number with remote accommodations)-- we've gone back to being able to use pre-pandemic policies for students who must miss class due to illness/quarantine. For my class, that means they are required to meet with a TA to go over the material and do the in-class assignment. For COVID they also get a form from the contact tracing office stating what dates they need to isolate for, which stops them making up positive tests as an all purpose excuse. Much better!

[the_geneticist]

We changed the way all courses are listed to explicitly include mode of instruction as either in person or remote. That means we can say "there is no remote option for this course".
In fact, the standards for getting remote instruction approved have been increased to be much more rigorous. No more "60 minutes of recorded lectures per class day = online class".  We have to include substantial student-student, student-instructor, and student-content interactions. Plus assessment, alignment to learning goals, etc.
We don't have reliable technology to do hyflex, even with the recent upgrades.

[artalot]

We have enough academic data from Covid to prove that our residential students do not thrive in a hyflex system that the uni has effectively banned it.

Us too. Students know that attending remotely is a bad idea, but given the option they will still do it. In loco parentis, I guess.

[Caracal]

We have enough academic data from Covid to prove that our residential students do not thrive in a hyflex system that the uni has effectively banned it.

Us too. Students know that attending remotely is a bad idea, but given the option they will still do it. In loco parentis, I guess.

I understand that impulse. Going places is a pain, lying on your couch is easier.

[apl68]

We have enough academic data from Covid to prove that our residential students do not thrive in a hyflex system that the uni has effectively banned it.

Us too. Students know that attending remotely is a bad idea, but given the option they will still do it. In loco parentis, I guess.

I understand that impulse. Going places is a pain, lying on your couch is easier.

And so we seem to be advertently creating a generation for whom lying on the couch is the default setting for most things.  Doesn't seem to augur well for the future.