Our team is focusing on Remote Learning and the Engagement of Students throughout their remote learning experience. The main question we are focusing on is “How might we design an engaging remote learning experience for students?” We have broken down our question into smaller components that we would like to focus on in order to collect more data from the student population, our more focused questions are: “What elements of remote learning worked in the Spring 2020 Semester? What did not work and why? What makes the remote learning process meaningful and enjoyable” and “what are barriers we can identify that remote learning creates for certain populations of the student body.” These questions helped us to frame the interview questions that we have been asking students over the last week.

Our methodology in order to get the most student input possible is to conduct interviews with students using five questions focused on the remote learning experience of last semester. We would like to have over 60 interviews done by the end of the week. We have also devoted time to creating a google form for students to fill out if they are interested in participating in a focus group that can be found here [embed google form link]. We have been working closely with Dr. Kimberly Specht, Associate Provost for Operations, Planning, and Resource Management, Dr. Margot Singer, and Julie Tucker, VP of Student Development. Meeting with our subject matter experts has helped us to learn more about developing and framing interview questions to ask students more specific questions that have a neutral tone. With their help, we have had over 50 successful interviews so far and plan on having many more.

Our plan of action going forward is to continue to collect data from as many students as possible in order to hear as many student voices as we can. We would like to make sure we have enough data to create prototypes that help improve the remote learning experience if we have to implement some aspects of remoteness in the fall. Hearing student voices can help us craft thoughtful prototypes that help create a more meaningful Denison experience that can be improved from the spring of 2020. Together our team will create a prototype that we will pitch to Dr. Specht and Dr. Singer as well as articulate a final report that will be available on the RED Corps website. Individually, we will be creating individual prototypes that Dr. Specht and Dr. Singer will evaluate as well.

In the next coming weeks, we will be communicating with the student body and finding ways to conduct focus groups in order to maximize the student’s voice. Please watch out for an email from a team member! We are very excited to embark on this project over the next month and cannot wait to communicate our findings with the student body.

This past week our focus has been on analyzing data that we have collected from interviews with over 60 students! We have been able to conduct interviews over Facetime and Zoom via one on one interviews and larger focus groups. Our goal is to have interviews with 100 students by the end of our project and get input from a dynamic and representative population of Denison’s student body. Our overall findings have been coming together nicely and we are able to find cohesive themes from our questions that we have asked during the interviews.

Our first question was: “What aspect(s) of remote learning/engagement last semester could have been adjusted to make your experience better and more meaningful?” Findings from this question were very interesting, one of the most common answers being that students, especially in STEM majors, preferred to have their classes recorded. The recording of classes allowed for students to slow them down, pause them, or speed them up for their viewing and studying abilities. Students also enjoyed the use of breakout rooms in Zoom meetings because it allowed for them to have a small classroom feeling, especially when their professor made it mandatory that students utilize the small break out rooms. Students felt comfortable and it was like a mandatory office hour session.

Our second question was: “What barriers did remote learning create for you last semester (time zone, money, technology, mental health concern)?” The findings from this question were more broad, but very helpful to our research. Many students felt like their environments were not conducive to remote-learning. Although we cannot change this aspect of a student's home life, it is very important to know for the future if we have to utilize remote learning again. Students also missed having the emotional support of having motivating professors and peers around them which lowered their drives to do work with a sense or urgency which was very important to note as well. We would like to know if there is a possible prototype that could fix this, or is it something that we cannot control?

Our third question was: “How could collaboration have been better-maintained remotely (class participation, group work)?” The answers to this question were harder to hear because a lot of students had all of their group work cancelled due to remote learning. Students told us that time zoes were a big issue, but utilizing time zones when necessary and creating groups from similar regions could have helped group work continue. Students also said classes in smaller groups and at more convenient times were the best situations they experienced during remote learning. Some professors split up their class into shorter sessions that met less, but at more convenient times. We heard very overwhelmingly that this was a great system, but students were worried they were not getting the same amount of class time that they paid for.

Our fourth and final question was: “What was an assignment that helped you learn and grow during remote learning?” This question gave us a great understanding of what students enjoyed about remote learning and how we can move forward with remote- methodologies that worked the best. Students told us about many different class assignments that professors tailored to their needs with the pandemic. Students noted that professors changed their syllabus and their projects in order to help students learn more about the current global situation instead of sticking to their planned syllabus. Students, specifically in the humanities, enjoyed this process and said that they learned more from their new syllabus and new assignments. Students also reported that professors who changed their course to be more project based than short assignment based learned more and felt that there was not as much busy work as their other classes might have had.

These preliminary findings have helped us start to think about what our prototype may look like in the future. In the meantime, we are continuing to collect data and analyze more of what we have already collected in order to make the most meaningful and useful prototype for Denison’s students.

Final Report Summary

Remote learning is a necessity that will continue to be important to education institutions for an uncertain amount of time. The nuance of remote-learning has provoked many questions and curiosities as we have conducted our research. Because of the uncertainty of the coming year, it is important to know and understand as much as possible about Denison’s student populations' experience with remote-learning. In order to create a world-renowned liberal arts education accessible to students who are unable to join us on campus in the fall, we decided to seek out as many student opinions as possible on the subject of remote-learning. Students attend Denison in order to receive a unique liberal arts education, even if some students are unable to physically be on campus it is important that we replicate the experience that Denisonians are accustomed to in a remote and/or hybrid on-campus experience. Due to the privacy of students who are unable to attend in-person classes in the fall, for the purposes of our project we have decided to work broadly to design prototypes that accommodate the needs of all students both the remote and hybrid learning models.

Overall, we wanted to ask the student body how remote-learning went. We wanted to know about their experience, and what they wanted to get out of remote learning if they could tweak their experience. Because remote-learning is something that we do not know a lot about, we wanted to get an understanding of how students felt about their overall experience. We structured our questions to get a feeling for what students felt went well and did not go well for their semester. Our four questions were: “What aspect(s) of remote learning/engagement last semester could have been adjusted to make your experience better and more meaningful?, What barriers did remote learning create for you last semester (time zone, money, technology, mental health concern)?, How could collaboration have been better-maintained remotely (class participation, group work)?, and What was an assignment that helped you learn and grow during remote learning?” Before we conducted any interviews we expected to hear students talk about time zone issues, mental health concerns, time management struggles, and possibly financial difficulties brought on by remote-learning. We wanted to hear students tell us what they thought an element is that could be improved or implemented in order for remote-learning to be more user friendly and encompass a “Denison Experience”.

Prototype Summaries

Emerson: Hybrid on-campus/remote learning model

My prototype was a hybrid learning model for on campus learning that also had an online component. An effective way to accommodate to every student would be to split classes between a remote component as well as an in person class. This would help the university to minimize the risk of students contracting COVID-19 because they would be seeing each other in person less frequently. It would also allow students who become sick, are international, or are immunocompromised to be apart of the class without having to come to the in person sessions. This prototype would also propose that lecture courses be conducted completely online. There would also be a guideline that seminars and lectures are always recorded for students who are not able to attend the session, and only Seminars, workshops, and labs would have an in person component. If this prototype is chosen, the university should send a letter to advise that international and immunocompromised students make changes to their schedule so that it would primarily consist of lecture courses. By doing this, a Denison student would be able to have a semester that is completely online if they are not on campus, or become sick. In my Presentation to Dr. Specht and Dr. Singer, I created a sample schedule for what the hybrid curriculum would look like.

Song Huang: Develop up a program that helps students stay engaged/focused remotely

During our research, we identified much of the learning barriers can be traced back to the surrounding environment. Some examples of this would be not being able to obtain a suitable environment for learning; constant disruption; learning peers and TAs were unavailable and more. It all comes down to our own mindset.

I propose to tackle this issue via carefully designed programs. This prototype can be approached from psychological perspectives. From personal experience that I learned from the Whisler Center to cope with general disinterest academically. I wonder if a program can be developed up to further enhance and assist students that are experiencing academic disinterest. This program will be targeting all students. For those who planned to be back on campus, remote learning is inevitable; For those who will be engaging remotely, this will be a great source to utilize.

Implantation:

Team up with subject matter experts on student psychological support. Develop program(s) that encourage and teach students to be active in a remote setting. To prevent students from losing interest academically remotely and resume the mindset of being an active learner rather than passive are the top goals of this prototype.

Hannah Morton: Implementing a Hybrid Syllabus System for a Hybrid Learning Model

Our findings showed significant interest in emotional support, better time management skills, and class engagement. I worked to find a solution that would help students who are both residential and non-residential for this upcoming semester. A commonality that all classes at Denison have is their Syllabi that can be found either on a physical piece of paper or on Notebowl. Notebowl is a great platform that allows for class discussion, students have reported using Notebowl consistently throughout their remote experience. Students thought that Notebowl was an engaging factor that created student conversations remotely and helped mimic the “Denison experience” that they were missing. At Denison, there is not an interface where students can see all of their syllabi and plan out their work for the semester in one place. Focusing on syllabi is a general way to connect to all courses at Denison. The students can be remote or residential, have a STEM or Humanities course and the syllabus experience will be the same. Implementing both a hybrid classroom and hybrid syllabus model will allow students to have a seamless transition back to campus.

A hybrid syllabus is a working program that is controlled by the administration, respective departments, and the professor who is teaching the course. Having a hybrid syllabus platform would allow for students to become familiar with their course outline in an organized fashion. A hybrid syllabus would contribute to bettering time management and understanding of all students’ semester’s course work. Because Denison is implementing a new semester layout, students will be introduced to an academic schedule that they are not accustomed to. Using a hybrid syllabus platform would allow for students to plan out their new semesters with ease.

Allen Primack- Re-thinking Projects: Optimizing Hybrid Learning

My prototype is specifically a personalized year-long senior research project that would kick off during the fall semester. However I envision a similar model for research projects for non-seniors- they would be adjusted and much broader in scope. The goal of the project would be to foster independence in students during a time of social distancing and give them the confidence they need to become better problem-solvers as they conduct the thorough, in-depth research on a topic they’re passionate about.

In conjunction with their courses, students would work closely with the Knowlton Center to identify their preferred career path, then strategize ways of setting themselves up for a positive outcome in their career search.

Through a deliberate process, students would propose a project in the fall semester. Subject to the approval of students’ in-major professors and departmental leadership, the Knowlton Center would work to provide students with a mentor in their desired field, who would guide them through the professional side of things, and a faculty liaison, who would match them with a faculty mentor who has an interest in the chosen area of research; this faculty member will help guide students through the academic components of the project.

Syllabi for senior-level courses would be adjusted to account for this project, which would replace group projects, presentations, and in-person exams, which are difficult to conduct while socially distancing.

Many classes already feature projects as a large component of students’ grade, and the project described herein could act as a replacement, with certain checkpoints corresponding to percentages of students’ final grade. The data analytics department already operates a similar program in its senior seminar, in which students select a research topic and dataset, then work to answer key questions. This proposed project would be similar, with students’ projects featuring crossover between various disciplines, roughly modeled after Data Analytics 401.

An example project might look like the following:

Suppose that I am interested in pursuing a position in a professional sports teams front office—baseball, say. As a data analytics, global commerce, and economics triple-major, I can blend these disciplines into my research on a baseball-related topic. The Knowlton Center could connect me with a professional in the sports industry and match me with a professor such as Dr. Mujic in global commerce, who has an interest in professional sports. Throughout the semester, I would work on this project while attending lectures and completing smaller assignments. I would share out with other students in my majors, providing and receiving feedback. At the end of the semester, I would virtually present this, then continue my research in the spring semester, when it would culminate in a written senior research project.

I argue that such a transition to such an approach in a remote setting after Thanksgiving break would be smooth, solving the challenges to the traditional course structure that are posed by social distancing. You can view my full prototype and additional thoughts here !

Check out our full final report here!