Cal Poly offers hybrid courses

Sometimes teachers learn by doing at Cal Poly just as much as students.

Statistics professor Beth Chance is learning how to redesign a class. She began teaching a hybrid STAT 217 course last spring; this quarter she is learning what she might change as a teacher.

“It is been very challenging to develop this new course and we are still looking for ways to best fit the unique needs of Cal Poly students,” Chance said.

The change she’s considering could be attributed to the fact that the course may not have been the easiest first choice for a hybrid course in the statistics department. A hybrid course is a class that mixes on-line and in-class elements. So much of the material is expected to be learned outside of the classroom.

“It’s a GE course that many people are already apprehensive about and not everyone is even comfortable with the heavy technology use,” she said. “Many of these students need more support, not less.”

Chance had planned for the course to give the students more free time to themselves outside of the classroom, since it only meets once a week. It was also intended to give them the ability to control what they learn, when they learn it and how they learn it, through the extensive use of online applications.

Some students who signed up for the course did so because they did not have enough time in their schedule for a class that meets four days a week and others had taken another hybrid course which they excelled in.

“I am more into learning on my own type of a person, so I feel that the hybrid course gives me more time to go at my own pace,” animal science junior Tressie Bumpus said.

Giving students the freedom to do their work online independent of the classroom is reason enough for teachers to be worried that their students’ grades will be brought down by procrastination, Chance said.

In order for her students to not get sidetracked by procrastination, Chance sends her students updates via Blackboard regularly, including homework and lab assignments due at certain points during the quarter.

In the hybrid class, Chance said she understands that there is a lack of class bonding, and many assignments that can be done in groups are done alone because students are just not able to get to know each other when they only meet once a week.

“The thing I would improve most in the course is to make sure they get to meet each other and they can work with each other outside of class,” she said. “I don’t do enough community building and don’t do much with any kind of discussion board where they are talking to each other as much as they probably should.”

This quarter, time in the lab was optional since Chance was not able to coordinate a day to have her students work in the lab before registration opened. Students were not aware of the need to set aside time to have a lab, so many scheduled other classes during that time.

“The optimal schedule in the future would be maybe to have it as an optional lab and to have it at a time when there is a high likelihood they will be able to attend,” Chance said.

Chance said she senses students’ anxiety with the subject of statistics and is happy when they asked questions about the content.

“People do ask a lot more questions in class, which to me is kind of fun, but also indicates a little more annoyance, they realize they aren’t getting it,” Chance said. “But they are asking questions, and that kind of interaction is much better in the hybrid course, whereas in the regular class they don’t say much.”

Some of the students in the hybrid class would rather Chance teach them the lesson each time they meet, rather than going over what they taught themselves the previous week and correcting their mistakes.

“It would have been easier for her to instill it in our minds everything that we need to know, instead of just reviewing what you did wrong,” kinesiology freshman Lauren Merchant said.

Jason Slamovich, a environmental management sophomore, feels overwhelmed with the hybrid course and how few instructional hours are offered.

“Especially in math, where you are learning stuff everyday, chapter after chapter, it would be easier to meet four days a week,” Slamovich said. “Like meeting one day a week it is just so much information she is trying to tell you, it’s kind of intimidating.”

Chance does not want her students struggling and realizes that choosing the Stats 217 class to be her first hybrid course was a challenge already.

“I think I’m on the demanding side workload-wise and in really understanding the material, it’s a tough course to just read a bit online and really do well in,” Chance said.

Many other departments are testing out hybrid courses and having good results.

English professor Dustin Stegner is teaching a hybrid course titled “Shakespeare and Film.” He said his course is succeeding because he likes to show his students lots of media clips, which wouldn’t be possible in a conventional classroom setting. His course is a GE course as well, and he said the success of the course might have to do with the department the hybrid course is being taught in.

Engineering professor Anurag Pande, who teaches a hybrid course called “Traffic Engineering,” said he feels his course is successful in what he was trying to accomplish, which was to get more feedback about the material he is teaching and how his students feel they are doing in the class.

“So every class that we meet, they have to do a survey to let me know if there was any material that was not clear,” Pande said. “Now I am able to get immediate feedback, and make changes based on what they are telling me, within the quarter.”

Chance said she has learned that there are revisions that need to be made before she decides to teach this particular course again, and she has a long list of what she would like to change.

“I cannot have the one day a week meeting on a day that will have holidays that quarter, I can make the lab session easier for them to attend, I can offer evening office hours in person, I can set up more discussion boards for them to talk to each other, I can make sure more people know it’s online before they even sign up and I can make them take a “readiness” test before they sign up,” Chance said.

Hybrid programs are new to Cal Poly and Chance is finding much of her difficulty with this course originates from losing out on the small class size benefit of knowing each student and being able to work with them individually. Online interactions, she said, do not compare to classroom interactions and many of the quirks of the course can only be fixed with superior computer programs that bring the students and the teacher closer together online.

“You also need to remember that many faculty at Cal Poly are here because we like the small classes and getting to know our students in person,” she said. “This is harder in the online course.”

Chance realizes that tackling a new course is a challenge, one she is ready to take on because she sees many positive aspects of the course, likes the ability to offer more classes at reasonable times because it would only be offered once a week and the different applets and visuals that students can have online that are difficult to use in a normal classroom setting.

“Cal Poly has been having to do more 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. classes just to fit into the rooms, so this would allow multiple classes to have say a 10 a.m. meeting time just once a week type thing,” Chance said. “The course is now able to do a lot more with applets and visualizations that I think are very helpful to a large majority of our students.”

The hybrid version of STAT 217 is a work in progress; it has its ups and downs, Chance said.

“I don’t see myself spending less time on the course yet – my time is spent differently, partly in the materials development but also in trying to give more individualized feedback to students – so I’m not sure there will be much “savings” in the long run,” Chance said. “But I think once the course is better developed we really could take more advantage of the more individualized instruction and learning opportunities, really being able to offer different students the different types of help they want.”