Welcome to Episode 128 of the Think UDL podcast: HyFlex Love Affair with Kenyada McLeod. Kenyada McLeod is Associate Professor of Web Design at Brightpoint Community College in the central Virginia region. I first came in contact with her work when she helped me through the QM certification process years ago when I had my First Year Seminar course QM certified. It was then we struck up a friendship around UDL and kept in touch over social media. Just recently, we crossed paths again when I saw she had written about her HyFLex model in practice and I decided it was time to interview her for the podcast to learn about how she has integrated UDL into her HyFlex world. Her teaching in the HyFlex model has been exemplary and is something I think we have needed to revisit on the podcast so I have invited her to talk about how she has been able to remove barriers to learning for her students and for faculty as well. Tune into this conversation to learn more about how to help today’s faculty and students who have varied demands on their time survive and thrive in a HyFlex learning environment.
Resources
Reach out to Kenyada McLeod on LinkedIn
Learn more about HyFlex with Episode 37: HyFlex Course Design Model with Brian Beatty
Transcript
1:03:59
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
students, work, class, learning, flex, UDL, modality, design, teaching, classroom, asynchronous, barriers, instructors, assignments, synchronous
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, Kenyada McCleod
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to Think UDL, the Universal Design for Learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian nave. And I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 128 of the think UDL podcast. HyFlex love affair with Kenyada McLeod. Kenyada McLeod is an associate professor of web design at Brightpoint Community College in the Central Virginia region. I first came in contact with her work when she helped me through the QM certification process years ago, when I had my first year seminar course QM certified. There was then we struck up a friendship around Universal Design for Learning and kept in touch over social media. Just recently recrossed pads again, when I saw she had written about her high flex model in practice, and I decided it was time to interview her for the podcast to learn about how she has integrated UDL into her high flex world. Her teaching in the high flex model has been exemplary and is something I think we have needed to revisit on the podcast. So I’ve invited her to talk about how she’s been able to remove barriers to learning for her students, and for faculty as well tuned into this conversation to learn more about how to help today’s faculty and students who have very demands on their time, survive and thrive in a high flex learning environment. And as always, thank you for listening to the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor Texthelp, a global technology company, helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood, it has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12, right through to higher education for the last three decades, discover their impact at text dot help forward slash learn more, that’s l earn m o r e. So I wanted to welcome you Kenyatta to the think UDL podcast. And I’m so excited that I get to talk to you today. So I’m so glad you’re here.
Kenyada McCleod 02:51
Thank you, thank you so much for having me. I am humbled and just honored and kind of excited, really.
Lillian Nave 02:59
So great. And we go back quite a ways. So you were my mentor in the online teaching and learning space when I went through QM certification, and then that was just I was 2020. That was, yeah, four years ago, a long way back in the before times. But so I wanted to talk about what you’ve been doing. And a lot of what you’re doing is very exciting to me. And I also think is where our future is heading in higher ed, in making very flexible learning spaces. So I’ll start out with my usual question, though, and ask you what makes you a different kind of learner? Well,
Kenyada McCleod 03:45
what makes me a different kind of learner is at any given point, I could have a demonstration of a martial arts move, I can ever request for snacks, I can have anything going on around me. And so my ability to concentrate on long projects in one fell swoop is quite limited. So that definitely makes me a different type of learner. I do require the ability to stop and start quite regularly. The other thing that makes me a different kind of learner is just the way I choose to prioritize my life. I choose family over everything. And so that means that my choices and getting additional education. There are some requirements that I have and it’s pretty much going to be from a distance for me, just because of the way I choose to prioritize my life.
Lillian Nave 04:43
And would you say this is is this a newer understanding of how you learn? Or like has things have things changed in your life, where you are now feeling like you have to do multiple things at once or in small bursts, has that always been the case? Or is that something that’s more adult onset?
Kenyada McCleod 05:06
I would say the latter. Motherhood has changed everything, including my brain.
Lillian Nave 05:15
Absolutely. So
Kenyada McCleod 05:17
yeah, I definitely think adulting and motherhood has definitely shifted that there was a time where I could sit for hours on end and do things. But these days, not so much. I have to schedule the time and divided into how many times I’m gonna have to have that block of 30 minutes, that block of an hour. So definitely with adulting and motherhood, for sure.
Lillian Nave 05:41
Oh, my goodness, when I had three young children, the time that I got worked on was usually like 10 3011 at night, until one or two or three in the morning like that crazy. I look back on that, like 15 years of very little sleep. But I got so much done, because you really do have to prioritize like it is like I won’t I won’t get this three minutes back. I’ve got to do it right now. Right? Yeah. And it really I do think it changed how I think and those short bursts. I used to be able to do long, long, long time and thinking and deep conversations kind of with myself about things. And then for a long time, it’s just been putting out fires mostly. And now I am almost an empty nester. My youngest is Yeah, going to college next year. And I, I’ve thought, Okay, well now, what are we going to do to, I can kind of get back into some other patterns, but I totally get it. And that brings up a really good point, which is about our students today. And more students are coming as non traditional students, they’ve got other lots and lots of other barriers and and responsibilities that will alter the ability to like put in that three hours, okay, you’ve got to watch this. And, you know, spend three or four hours on this one task right now synchronously. And that used to be it was great, wasn’t it that you could just go away to college and spend a lot of money and stay there and not have anything intruding on that? Yeah. It’s a little different. Absolutely. So, okay, so can you tell me about your classes? And what your classes are? And how you’ve made them into some high flexing kinds of things that you do? Yeah, sure
Kenyada McCleod 07:37
thing. You know, when we first connected, I was working in more of the instructional designer space, and I’ve transitioned to full time teaching faculty. And so now my classes are more in the web, round web and graphics realm. And so I teach a computer graphics class, interactive design, and of course, encoding for the web. And so these classes are all unique in in the content. And what I did, how I came into the half legs, our Center for Teaching and Learning, decided to do a cohort for high flex. And this cohort would allow us to work alongside our fellow fellow faculty members, I believe there were seven, if I’m not mistaken, of us. And we would meet regularly to discuss, you know, designing our courses, some challenges we may be facing and things of that nature. And I mean, it was just a fantastic time we the format of the cohort, it was of course high flag. So you could attend in the center physically, you could do lab synchronous, or you could do asynchronous. They really wanted to model high flags, using high flags, right. So it was a great scenario. And what I found with my classes in terms of utilizing high flex, is that the students love it. I get that, that feedback. That’s not really documented. It’s just kind of, can I talk to you for a second? Or let me show you this email that just says I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this format. And how flexible this is because and the things that go into because are so very personal. And I just love that I’m able to serve in that way.
Lillian Nave 09:32
Yeah, you’re at community college. Yes. Right. And that has been my experience when I taught at a community college and then in interviewing quite a few faculty at community colleges that that is really the crux of our diverse populations for students. Or it’s at the vanguard, it is it is where we see the largest. I would say very big ality, in our students, right? non traditional students, the very different preparedness, sometimes you even got you even have dual enrolled high school students. Right? My son is one of those dual enrolled students at our local community college. And so you are teaching a very heterogeneous population, right? Absolutely. The various needs.
Kenyada McCleod 10:26
Yes, absolutely. I have students that to your point, dual enrollment, all the way up to, you know, I’m thinking for my whole career like 70 Plus, right, that want to take these classes. And it’s so very, it’s a beautiful challenge, to meet everyone where they are. And that’s what community colleges are designed for is to meet you where you are. And so having this level of flexibility, again, it just, it just fills in the gaps. It really, it really helps folks achieve those objectives, no matter what their barriers may be, no matter what their challenges may be, or even their advantages, the advantages that they have. They are all able to contribute to the learning environment, which is fantastic.
Lillian Nave 11:13
Yeah, so let’s get into this like a little bit more about talking about our students and the students that we serve. Because it’s not just at the community colleges, it’s it’s at all higher ed institutions, and I am seeing more higher ed institutions doing more online options. But there really is a need for multiple ways of delivering information and and teaching classes. So can you tell me more about your students and why high flex works for them? And you mentioned some of those barriers? are that your students have barriers? What, what kind of barriers? Have you been able to lower by moving to high flex? Yeah,
Kenyada McCleod 11:56
so I’ll start with one is transportation, you know, the ability to YES to physically drive to campus can be a barrier. And I found myself prior to HyFlex, receiving those emails, and saying, Hey, I’m not going to be able to make it to class today, because my car and I’m not going to be able to make it again. So we can just circumvent all of the excess emails to say, Hey, it’s okay. You can go watch the recording. And you can do this. And you can do that and still contribute fully to the learning environment. Other barriers include childcare, you know, that’s one a lot of a lot of working parents or just parents in general, can not see leaving their child somewhere else, while they physically go to a classroom. It’s not their preference. And so this works for them as well. I have some full time working adults in my class. And those are the folks who really, really, really appreciate the high flex from what I’m saying the actual comments that I get, it’s like, I would not be able to do this, if it were not delivered in this way. And I think that speaks volumes. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 13:21
I must say, I’m going to interject here. I’ve started teaching at our new campus upstate, as a new campus in Hickory, and it functions as a commuter campus, we do not have dorms. And so that was the largest barrier was transportation, students not being able to make it to class and they wanted to be there. They had planned to be there, and it might just be that got in the car this morning. It wasn’t, it didn’t start so they can’t make it to class. And, you know, so a lot of the things that are outside of one’s, you know, choices and and purview, etc. And, and so I hadn’t planned on being high flex. And you do need to design it that way. So I did find myself doing a lot of scrambling to make sure that students weren’t penalized because it really was a brand new campus. We didn’t really know how it was going to work and kind of what and who our students were. So it’s kind of a great adventure, but really have been learning what we as faculty need to be thinking about. And when you mentioned that you had a cohort with seven faculty members for your high flex was like, Oh, well, we need to start implementing that. That’s, that’s what I better start doing as a faculty developer down in our new campus and you’ve inspired me to think about that as well. But childcare, non traditional students, those sorts of barriers are increase Seeing in Yeah, in higher ed also jobs, right, you said working students and even students on let’s say a more air quotes I’m using on our podcast traditional campuses, we have students that are have 20 hours a week, you know, have or full time jobs, you know, that’s really difficult to, to meet all of those students. Yeah. And
Kenyada McCleod 15:27
then the other component too, is, you know, illness, right? We’re coming off of COVID, right? Everyone, a lot of people still have, you know, the heebie jeebies when it comes to I hear someone cough, oh, my gosh, you know, like, and so I’m able to share with my students, you know, if you’re not feeling well stay at home, you can still get a very similar experience. But the thing is, you won’t spread germs, you’ll keep everyone safe. And that has been fantastic. It’s like, I don’t have to get yet another email to say, Oh, I’m not feeling well, I’m not going to be able to make it. Okay, so you’re not feeling well, I trust that you’re gonna watch the recording, you’ll do your attendance check. And you’ll be all good. So it’s great.
Lillian Nave 16:12
Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s another big thing. And I think it really gave a lot of faculty a better understanding about absence, or you know, why students might not be able to make it to class where it used to be that we’d say, Oh, well, you know, you’re not tough enough, if you’ve got a cold, and then you’re not going to come to class. And then we started to realize that that’s not really the the two sides of the coin, it’s not that either, you’re not good enough or that you don’t care. It’s that there are lots of other things that might be compromising what we can do in synchronous in class time, right. So yeah, so All right, you know, this is the think UDL podcast. So I’m going to ask a UDL specific question, and ask how does UDL figure into the choices that you have made in designing your course. And we’d love to get specifics to about how your Hi flex works? Like you said, having that attendance check. Like, you know, I’d love to hear specific sewer. Okay,
Kenyada McCleod 17:15
sure. I think I’m honing in on the universal component of UDL for sure. And what Hi flex brings to the table is giving our learners the power of choice. And that enhances their level of dedication in my mind, to the learning process, a sense of ownership, because they can choose how they wish to learn in any given week. And so in addition to the overarching options of live synchronous, fully asynchronous or in person, I also include little mini lectures that cover pretty much the same material, but just in a much abbreviated format. And that way, not only do you have the option to view the lab recording, but you can hone in on this little task here with this mini lecture and move on, right? In addition, kind of stacking on the power of choice when they watch those recordings, their transcripts. And so instead of pressing play, and hoping you can pick the right time stamp, you can go into the transcript and search the transcript for the word that you’re looking for jump to that spot. Oh, yeah, that’s That’s that point where I really needed to hear that again. So if you feel like you’re kind of behind, some folks are really embarrassed to ask questions and things like that. It empowers those folks with those challenges to say, okay, the recording is there. I’m just going to search the transcript. Watch it again. And then if I have questions, I’ll reach out, or I’ll post to the q&a forum. The way that my course runs is they typically meet one or two times a week, but each class session, instead of recording attendance by whether or not there’s a warm body in the seat, or there’s a square with your name on it and zoom, right? I do my attendance check based on your activity. And so I typically design a very low stakes activity that is going to kind of summarize what we went over for that day. So it’s usually a 10 question automatically graded quiz, like something 10 points, very low stakes for them to do by the end of the evening. So no matter which modality you chose to attend that week, every class session, you know, we meet on let’s say, it’s Monday, Monday night by 1159. There’s something for you to do related to that class. And it’s usually something really low stakes. And that I think, has helped a lot of people wants to because it’s that built in review. It’s that accountability. And it also keeps them tapped in to the course because some of those questions. If you’re attending a synchronously, you kind of have to watch that recording. So it’s the whole equity of learning no matter how you choose, you still have a similar experience no matter how you choose to attend. So it’s really just, it’s just a beautiful, beautiful format. It’s a beautiful modality. Yeah, yeah.
Lillian Nave 20:35
So I love that because I am interested in the science of learning and learned a couple years ago about like, how do we really cement information in our heads? Like, how do we actually get I imagine our brains has like a file cabinet? And how is it that we are able to actually put that file folder in our cabinet, and then be able to retrieve that file folder, right, that we can get that information. And that old adage of kind of reviewing your notes, highlighting your notes, that things that I used to do have found that that’s not as helpful as a retrieval practice? That’s the word retrieval practice retrieval practice, meaning a little quiz a flashcard? A way, you know, answer a question in the in the class, let’s review what we did last week. And the more we do that, the more that info is actually going to be learned, like really learned, like, you can retrieve that. It’s not just that you heard it one time, but that you can retrieve that information when it’s useful. So yeah, that’s that means that it’s not just the warm body, your attendance check is actually helping your students to learn the material, it seems right?
Kenyada McCleod 21:50
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that has inspired me to change my attendance policy across all of my courses, it is equivalent to your ability to do the work. So in a synchronous, it’s not just looking to see if you sign into Canvas, it’s Did you submit at least one assignment, right? So this high flex cohort, this high flex experience, has really inspired some redesign and enhancement for the other modalities in which I teach for sure.
Lillian Nave 22:26
You know, one of the things I’ve also learned and use as a mantra to in my design, although you’ve just pushed me into the attendance part, too, with that is the one who’s doing the work is the one who’s doing the learning. So yeah, the one who’s doing the work is the one who’s learning. So let’s say if my, if I teach Tuesday, Thursday in person, and the entire class is me, giving a lecture, I’ve put together all the slides, I’m doing lots of background, and and maybe a little song and dance up there, which is what I used to do as an art historian was like, Come on, don’t fall asleep. I know the lights are off, and there’s pretty pictures, but I gotta make it entertaining. That was just, it’s really draining like I was doing all the work. Yeah. And so my students, they probably liked it, you know, that was it was interesting, but they weren’t doing the work. And so that interaction that you know, retrieval, practice small quizzes, or writing on a discussion board, or turn and talk to your neighbor even or a poll in the middle of the class right there, where they’re just thinking about it, they’re actually having to, to do some work related to what you’re talking about that day, or write or demonstrate a skill, right? Everybody write this code? I don’t know. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. That it’s the one who are the ones who are doing the work or the ones doing the learning. So that really changed the way I thought about teaching and learning is that it’s not about me as the as the main character, right. Then I become more of a facilitator, a coach, a behind the scenes kind of person. And it’s really the students that are the main characters, it’s really changed that, you know, kind of
Kenyada McCleod 24:19
the way I think, yeah, that’s a beautiful transition and instruction, moving from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side, right. It’s a beautiful space to be in and it actually gives us the opportunity to reflect and observe like, you’re just like, oh my gosh, you’re really doing this. You’re really doing this, it just it just it just helps solidify our why, you know, for education when we like remove ourselves and understand that this is really servant leadership. This is really what it is education. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 24:55
Yes, we are. We’re serving our students much better. If we can facilitate ate their their learning with actually evidence based practices that retrieval practice that the attendance check, you know, it’s not just the fact that there’s a warm body seated in your class, or that somebody has clicked into the learning management system online, doesn’t tell us they’ve learned anything. Right? It used to be, you would ask questions of faculty and about their teaching. It’s like, well, I covered all of this, you know, I covered I had to cover all of this information, or I had to cover 15 chapters. And so we had 15 weeks, and it was one chapter quick, so I could cover it all. But just because you cover it doesn’t mean the student has learned it at all.
Kenyada McCleod 25:47
That’s it. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 25:51
So So what’s the inspiration, then beside behind your decision to pilot the high flex course, first
Kenyada McCleod 25:58
and foremost, I’m typically more of a early adopter with mostly, and I’m always up for a challenge. But the true inspiration is just those conversations that I get into with the students that I serve from advising. So I serve as a faculty member, but also as an advisor. And so we learn that those advising sessions, there’s so many, there’s so much detail that is disclosed in those conversations, and I really get a better understanding of what their challenges are, what they’re facing, what some of those barriers are. And immediately as like this problem solver, I want to help, right, I want to fix that I want to make it easier. And so by hearing what the challenges were, that inspired me to provoke change. And so that is why I entered into the half legs, pilot. Additionally, I fell in love with distance learning. When I completed my first master’s degree, my son who’s a grown up right now was two years old. And I didn’t want to take him to daycare or to my mom’s house, after him having been at daycare all day, even if it were one day a week just to attend a class. And I fell in love with distance learning. And without it. Without that distance learning, I would not have been able to get my degree because I was not willing to make that sacrifice. And so putting those two things together, hearing what my students are facing in their barriers, knowing my love affair with distance learning and how it has helped me putting those two together. It’s like, okay, we’ve got new technology. Now there’s different things we can do. Okay, what are we going to cook up today? And that’s precisely why I got involved.
Lillian Nave 27:50
Oh, that’s, it starts at home, you know, literally and, and metaphorically, it starts at home when when I saw things like that impacting me, and you know, what would help out with my learning and my teaching? That’s when I was like, Oh, well, I bet my students would also benefit from these changes that have made my life a lot easier. I really appreciate that, too, about your about your learning, and being able to continue on with your education only because it’s flexible, right? And it’s only going to move more in that direction. It’s not going to be more more folks in the United States and in Australia, in Europe and South America, it’s in Africa, that is just going to be the need for more and more flexibility in our world.
Kenyada McCleod 28:44
Yes, for sure. Yeah. And there’s one one other component that I’d like to add to that, again, starting at home, you know, my family, we are comprised of varying abilities. And as I see how my son’s learn and their process and areas where they may need some additional support and things of that nature. It’s, I’m looking at him saying, Okay, you’re a fourth grade now. You’ll probably do college. And you’re probably going to need something like this to be successful. The ability to play it again, to slow it down, to speed it up to search for what you’re looking for. This can help you. Let’s just get this party started. You know, just looking forward to considering his future helps me move forward with HyFlex for sure.
Lillian Nave 29:38
Yes. And I mean, once you have more than one child and you see how different they are. It just blows up every idea that I had a before. Yeah, and you don’t even have to have children to have these realizations. You can have a classroom of students and you realize, okay, what’s gonna work for one student is Ain’t necessarily going to work for another. And then you come to that kind of decision in the road, it’s like, well, am I going to force the round peg in the square hole? Or the square peg, I guess in the round hole and say, No, you’ve got to do it my way or the highway? Or do we, I think, clarify what the goal really is, and then give multiple ways to, to get to that goal. And I’ve definitely found that my life has a lot better when I choose the flexible route for me. And yeah, and for the students. I want to add another question in here. About the what you’re doing for your students is really fantastic. They can see a mini lecture, they can attend in person, they can do it, you know, synchronously, while in another place if their car doesn’t start that day, or they can do it asynchronously. This sounds like a lot of work on your behalf. And I get that question a lot. UDL sounds like a whole lot of work. And I wanted to know how you answer that. Is it twice as much work? Is it so much more? Or how how do you feel about that question?
Kenyada McCleod 31:21
Is it a lot of work? I think that’s dependent upon a few things. Do you have the right technology, right? If you have the right technology, it’s not so bad. If you’re limited in technology, it can be quite a bit. And I’ll elaborate on that. During our pilot, initially, because of supply chain challenges, we were unable to get all of the equipment that was originally envisioned for a high flex classroom. And so that left us working to become the MacGyver of our classroom, piecing together different components to create that high flex environment without all of the equipment. And so one of the one of the areas that we didn’t have one of the pieces of equipment that we did not have was the monitor that displayed all of the Zoom participants so that everyone in the classroom could see the zone participants. We also didn’t have the mics coming from the ceiling so that folks on lab zone could clearly hear the people in the classroom as they were asking questions. And so it required us as instructors to repeat those questions in the chat, repeat the questions that the folks asked in the classroom, and kind of toggle between zoom to make sure that you were addressing everyone. So was that a lot of work? Yes. But once the equipment is in place, there’s a level of ease that comes with it. And I would recommend for anyone considering this, when it comes to the design of the course, my personal hack is to start with a fully asynchronous course, design that fully asynchronous version and then build from there. And then you can say, Okay, what does this look like and live synchronous? And surely it pretty much looks the same way in the in person. So you’ve done the brunt of the work from the asynchronous component, and you’re not floundering trying to figure out oh, but what about the people in the classroom? What about this? Just keep it as simple as possible. Everyone has the same assignments. You don’t have my in person people do this, my labs don’t do this. My acent No, everyone does the same thing. And you leverage the discussion forums, which, you know, when when you say discussion forum, some people like oh, those things, and I find in a fully asynchronous classroom, they can be kind of cringy. But they fantastic and high flex like this is the space where folks post the recording of their presentations. This is the space where they’re able to review in my classes, one another’s mockups and websites and the art they create like they are active in these spaces, giving one another feedback. So it’s not just a general prompt, reply to people. It’s show your work, tell us about your work and give folks feedback on their work to help them do it better. And though that commentary kind of carries through in their work, like they iterate through their projects, and that feedback was extremely valuable, but to bring it on back to the original question. I say if you have the technology, it can be done with ease. It can be dealt with.
Lillian Nave 34:55
Yeah, I’ve noticed that the cloud class that I’m teaching now is actually the one I worked with you. That was a fully online course it wasn’t online asynchronous. There was one like synchronous day a week. But it was a fully online class, my first one that was designed fully online. And now I’ve changed that into an in person. And this semester, it’s sort of in person and then moved to online, again, with some synchronous parts. But once I had that detailed plan for the online course, it made it a lot easier, right to move into in person, because you do have to do a lot of design work right beforehand. I mean, everything, it’s all designed beforehand. And I’ve just like you said, it’s the students who are doing the work. And so they’re showing off what they’ve done. And that’s means they’re learning. And it was only after designing that online course, that I realized how much work goes into design, and how much easier it is to, to actually, like go through and you know, and teach a well designed course. So, are you going to be doing work? Yes. It’s just where do you want the work to happen? Is the work before the class starts? Or is the work continuously? Oh, you weren’t there? Let me figure out something for you to do. Oh, you need something different? Let me let me make that right now. You’re right, that sort of stuff. So it’s, you’re gonna be doing the work. It’s just when will you be doing that work? Right? Yeah.
Kenyada McCleod 36:37
And that win is key. And yes, I fully agree with you design it to the nines in the beginning, so that you can deliver it with ease, like that is totally the direction because you’ll have a lot to juggle between the modalities. Depending on the types of activities you incorporate in your class, it might require going through transcripts to see who said things and what have you. So if you can have that solid design, so that you can deliver with ease, it will be great.
Lillian Nave 37:10
Absolutely. Such sage advice. I like that design to the nines. That’s a good one. Yeah. And you mentioned MacGyver in their in your last response. And it made me think about, so a lot during the COVID pandemic, and when I was trying to go online, or then when I’m on a lot faster than I thought I was going to, you are just trying to figure out how to fix something with a paperclip. So for the international audience, because I do have listeners all over, they may not understand the MacGyver reference who’s an American TV character who somehow like could defuse a bomb with a paperclip or he’s got two rubber bands, and he’s made a car start because you know, the engine just didn’t work. So that sort of thing. But that’s what I felt like for for a long time is and that’s what we all felt like is trying to, yeah, use a rubber band to paper clip and see if you can, you know, make a class work with, you know, no zoom or something. Yeah. And then everybody’s like, Oh, my, my internet’s out. Okay. So all of that is to say that there I think there are times when you feel like you have to do that. But it’s also all in the design. So if you have it well designed, and you have these fail safes, and it’s designed so that if something goes wrong, there’s Oh, just watch the recording. Or here’s this, this well designed assignment that anybody can do no matter what modality it is. Right? So you don’t have to do the MacGyvering that you did before. Right? Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah. So do you anticipate converting any other courses to high flex? How many do you have? And what do you think I’m converting
Kenyada McCleod 38:59
every course that I can to half? And I say that because you know, I mentioned my love affair with distance learning. And I love the asynchronous courses. But I’m finding now that I’m doing had flags and I’m able to join my my students in the classroom. It motivates me differently. It’s just a special space. It’s I want to be able to deliver those classes in person, record them and then share them with everybody. So I’m honestly thinking about in the next semester, if I have multiple sections, let’s say an async and a HyFlex, asking that my async be merged with my half legs so that I can share the live zone with them as well because they are conversations that come up that you just can’t replicate. There are questions that are asked that you just can’t replicate a capture in every instance of your asynchronous cores. And so I just I just love this, it makes me it makes me feel like I’m serving my students in the best possible way. So yeah, I will transition any that I can to have.
Lillian Nave 40:15
Yeah. And with high flex than those students who have signed up for an asynchronous course, they can have a completely asynchronous experience if they want it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that, really, they just have more options if they wanted to, you know, show up synchronously for something they could. But it’s never a requirement that it can work in their, their life. They’re their kid responsibilities and job responsibilities. And other all you know, overall life responsibilities, whatever those happen to be.
Kenyada McCleod 40:48
Yeah, and I feel from an instructor perspective, it will help with things like time management, if I’ve merged these classes, because right now, you know, I have a high flex, for example, I have a section that’s hybrid. And it’s in person, hybrid, no lab zone, but I took a vote. And I asked them, I said, you know, I’ve had somebody reach out to me about transportation, that feeling well, what if we added a zoom component to this class to give you the option to attend through zoom, if something comes up. And that means every class session will be recorded, you can always play it back. And all but one student voted for the zoom. And so we’re doing that in this hybrid class that wasn’t traditionally scheduled as like high flex, but we’re running it like a high flex, and they love it. And I hear some of them say things like, oh, yeah, I went back, and I watched the recording. So I’m good now.
Lillian Nave 41:48
Want to hear that, because I, in the beginning of this semester, this is a spring course, which means winter in the mountains of North Carolina. And we actually had some times in the beginning of the course, where my students who actually live on campus, and I’m teaching on the traditional campus, at least in this semester, and so students can live in the dorms on campus. Well, even with the weather, there were some times where a student who had a had broken their ankle, and therefore had crutches and then just couldn’t get across on the snow, you know, that sort of thing. And so I started doing a zoom link for those students who couldn’t make it. And it was like the very beginning of class, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. But that’s like, Alright, we’ve got to, you know, we’ve got to join up with our students that can’t make it. But what you just said is, what I love is that the students are empowering themselves. They’re becoming expert learners, because they said, No, I can watch the recording. I can figure this out myself. That’s, you know, that’s all I need. And that is the antithesis of what I hear a lot of my faculty colleagues complain about. And also, I don’t like to get these emails either. Was I miss class? Did I miss anything important? Yeah, no, there was we didn’t really do anything. We noticed you weren’t there. And we just saw just sort of looked at each other and didn’t discuss anything. No, no, you didn’t miss anything. Yeah, and yeah. So that’s just been a long along kind of running joke with with the student that says, oh, did it was there anything important, and they don’t realize that they’re kind of saying there’s that there would be something important? Or that they didn’t think there might be? But But you’ve you’ve circumvented? That is what I’m saying?
Kenyada McCleod 43:43
Yes, yes, it’s just great I can, I can envision the the level of time blocking that I’m going to be able to do with everything’s merge, like, if I have two sections that are merged into one at Teach on a Monday, all my feedback needs to be done by the next Monday, I don’t have to break it up into two separate sessions. Oh, my goodness, the level of efficiency and productivity that I would have as an instructor, I think would improve so much. That’s
Lillian Nave 44:11
what I like to hear too, is that we just talked about how much work it can be and the design that goes into it. But once you have that design, it also makes your daily routine. A lot easier, right? more predictable, more flexible, because, you know, you’re not putting out the fires that often come with the student who misses the class, oh, what can I do? And they’re like, or, you know, or they’re coming into office hours, like it really almost cancels the need for a lot of office hours, because you have, yeah, you’ve got everything there. And they can access at any time. And even the concept of office hours is kind of an old it is it’s an old concept. And students now don’t take us up on it very often because it’s really based on, you would go to a lecture. And if you didn’t understand the lecture, you would need to go and talk to the professor, you know, firsthand. And if you’ve got all of these fail safes and different ways for students to get that information, and they can do it at, you know, midnight or two in the morning, because that’s when their circadian rhythm says that’s when they can learn or whatever, then they don’t have to schedule Oh, I see your office hours are Wednesdays, from 330 to five, and I work during that time, you know, that sort of thing.
Kenyada McCleod 45:31
And I like to to mention the office hours and how they are evolving. You know, at our college, they, they’ve kind of rebranded office hours. And instead of column office hours, they call them, we call them student engagement app. And what I love about that is it gives, it gives us an opportunity to build a pore, to really find out what the challenges are in how we’ve designed the course. The level of clarity and our feedback, it really gives us an opportunity to drill down into those technicalities of our delivery and our design. And I find I’m able to really build relationships with my students now. Like, we use a lot of authentic assessments in my class. So they’re building unique projects. They’re not, it’s not like something out of Publisher material, anything. They’re building new projects. And so a lot of their needs are going to, again, be very unique, very specific. And so this gives them the opportunity to come in and say, Hey, I’m working on this, I can’t get this specific code, right. I know, we covered this, I tried this from the class, I watched the lecture, like they’re doing all the things, and they come into student engagement hours with a specific purpose. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.
Lillian Nave 46:55
That’s fantastic. Yeah, you really are kind of drilling down to personalized learning, in essence, right? That you’re meeting them at the point of need. And it’s, it’s not the blanket policy, or just just much more personalized that it can be. And one would think that’s the opposite. Like, oh, it’s it’s trying to serve all of these things. And so it’s a more general understanding, but actually, you’ve just explained how it becomes a lot more personalized and fit to the student for sure. Yeah, so speaking of like policies, things like office hours and such, or student hours. How has the high flex modality impacted your classroom policies? I think we’ve already talked a little bit about attendance. But I’m interested in how it’s changed those policies for you. Yeah.
Kenyada McCleod 47:54
So definitely the attendance for sure. But one thing with the discussion boards out expand upon, you know, generally speaking, we design these discussion boards, and we say, here’s the prompt reply, and reply to other people, right, like, that’s just the basic rule. But now that I’m doing high flags, I give students the option, I say, here’s the forum, we’re going to discuss this in class. So you can either write your comment, reply in the form to at least two people, you can audibly have the discussion in class during our live session, whether you’re zoom or in the classroom, and that will count for your reply. So giving them that participation credit, in any modality is beautiful. Like, you might have a day where it’s like, I lost my voice, I can’t talk. So I’m gonna type in the forum, or I’m pretty shy, I’m always gonna lean in on the forum. Or you know what, I think I’ve built up the courage. I’m going to talk today. So you begin to see the evolution of each student and what their norms are, and they’re giving things to try just to do it. So that has definitely changed the way that I manage my classroom in terms of participation, and those policies. Yeah,
Lillian Nave 49:15
and I think that’s also important when we think about the diversity of our students, including disability and neuro diversity. So there are some students who are super quick at processing. And if they if you ask a question, they are ready to put up their hand also have the confidence and yeah, and and positionality to say, Hey, I’m gonna answer this question and, and don’t worry if other people are looking at me during that time. And then there are other students who process a little bit longer, and it’s not just the student that first raises their hand that has really interesting things to say. In fact, it’s usually the second and third student who thought about it A little bit longer that have the most interesting or, you know, have a lot more nuanced or understanding about it’s not just the first obvious answer. So I think we really can get a better understanding of what our students are thinking when we provide those multiple ways, right for students to participate. Yeah. And I would imagine, too, that you’re giving, you’re giving students those questions. So they do have time to think about it. And yeah, so they’ve got, I liked, I just want to verbalize it here. And I’d like some feedback immediately. Or I’ve, here’s my thoughts on it, I want to sit with it for a while, I want to put it on the discussion board and kind of see how, see how it percolates week,
Kenyada McCleod 50:45
exactly. So like, as an example, I mentioned the presentations, you know, they will have the option to present live in our classroom, lab, one zoom, or pre record their presentation and embedded into the form. And so in the classroom, they can reply to someone’s presentation. So think about presentation days, within a traditional classroom, you kind of pause and give people the opportunity to share feedback. Well, we can do all of that across all modalities. Some folks will, before we even start, they’ll have comments that they can consider. And the goal is okay, I’m going to I usually have a notebook of physical notebook with a pen, because I don’t want to go back through the transcript. And so I’m writing down who spoke who replied, and things like that, so that I can give them the proper credit. But I also tell them, you know, you’ll want to reply no later than 11:59pm tonight, right? To give everyone the equal opportunity to take their time and review the presentations and comment on who they want to provide feedback.
Lillian Nave 51:55
And you in doing that, I must say, have really clarified why there is a presentation in your class. And not everybody does that. And so when you say you can present live in class, or you can do it via zoom, or you can pre record it. So presumably allowing a student to edit meaning, oh, they kind of they stopped midway, they can cut, edit, you know, close that gap, whatever. That means you’ve determined as the faculty member, and instructor slash facilitator, that it’s really the, the meat of the presentation that’s important, not the mode, or modality, right. So you’re not teaching a public speaking course, that is not one of your learning outcomes, that they right, that they are supposed to be learning designers that are teaching other learning designers or something like that, no, no, they just need to demonstrate that they know how to do this certain thing and you, which I really appreciate, and makes it easier on you. And we don’t do this enough. You’ve determined what the actual goal is. And therefore given that as the final thing they have to do. And not all of those other things that we throw into the assignment, not realizing that they can be a barrier, which is public speaking, you know, or be there on this day at this time, when your car doesn’t work, or you’ve got the flu, right,
Kenyada McCleod 53:31
right. And what’s essential is when when we do those things, everyone has to have their their presentation either ready to present, the day of class, if you’re pre recording, it needs to be uploaded by the start of the class session. So the deadlines are all the same, everything is just the same, same, same, same same, there’s no different treatment, no matter what the modality is, and that in all honesty, we talked about the design and how much work it takes. It takes work to get to that point because naturally our mind wants to say, Okay, for this group, I don’t need to do this for this group, I need to do that. And you’re trying to differentiate, but you really don’t have to be the idea is have a solid set of measurable, measurable objectives and govern yourself accordingly.
Lillian Nave 54:21
And, and that is more equitable. If we think about how that might work in let’s say, a traditional classroom, a seated in person classroom, and you’ve got everyone in the class that needs to make a presentation. Well, then that might take the last and I’ve done this actually in my courses pre pandemic. It was like the last two weeks. So four to six, depending on if I met for, you know, two or three times a week, four or six sessions was alright sign up for the day you’re going to do your presentation. So some students had to go first and then other students was two weeks later Was there a presentation? And you make me think about that design, having everything ready at the same time? And I suppose I could have said everybody has to have your slides in or whatever. But the whole presentation, like all the things that go into how it’s going to be presented, whether it’s live or recorded or via zoom, it’s much more equitable. Yeah, they get to choose. And it’s, you know, that everybody has the same deadline, in essence, yeah, yeah. So, what would you recommend, then, as a starting point, when contemplating a high flex course design? And I, I imagine after hearing this, there might be a lot of people like, I need to talk to her. But so in besides calling or emailing, what would you recommend as a starting point when, when somebody else hears this and is as I am moved by the needs of our students? And you know, the reality of our students? Where do you go? What do you think?
Kenyada McCleod 56:07
I think for HyFlex, and really any course in general, I think, the best starting point is to really figure out what the end goal is. And that will break down into a set of measurable objectives, really understanding what are you trying to do with this course. And I know oftentimes, you know, as instructors, we want to give the world we want to give them everything, we have so many assignments and activities, and we think it’s the greatest thing. But in actuality, things could be simplified. And so if you really take a look at what the end goal is of your course, you can then think about the assignments that would help measure said, objectives. And sometimes it only takes one, right, it’s sometimes it doesn’t take five or six. So if you can master that one, and get that one, perfect to meet the objective, you’re off to the races. And once you have that, you can start to think about okay, now how would someone asynchronously approach this? How would someone in each modality approach this? Will this work across all modalities? If it does, boom, one objective done, and then you can continue to move forward with your others. So same thing with an app jump straight from objectives to assessments, but even those activities, right? Sometimes we like to have these in class discussions and things like that, how can I design this so that everyone no matter their modality can participate in this, it’s going to save us time as facilitators, it’s going to create a more equitable experience for our students. It’s going to build community for our students in that learning environment. Like they begin to know each other they begin to, it’s just amazing, the beautiful things that happen when everyone’s kind of on the same page. And it’s not like, oh, yeah, I’m in this class. But I do it this way. So I have these assignments. Well, yeah, I’m in her class, too. But I have these assignments. So really just focus on meeting those objectives. And as I mentioned before, start with asynchronous so that you have all those building blocks already in place, build that out beautifully, and then begin to think about the modalities and how you can massage it to meet all modalities.
Lillian Nave 58:30
Yeah, that’s, that has been for sure. The best advice about the design, it’s, it’s all in the design. And I mean, I talk about this all the time. And I know you as a faculty member, but also as an instructional designer know that a lot of instructors that are employed at universities have zero background in how to teach their subject. Right, or an instructional design. And that it’s they are experts and fantastic, amazing, brilliant people in their subject matter, right. But being an amazing, brilliant subject matter expert is not the same thing as being able to teach that subject matter. It’s another skill set. And it’s, you know, instructional design is a whole understanding of how people learn and how to get that in front of them. So it’s definitely seems like a partnership that we need to have subject matter experts with our centers for Teaching and Learning with our Yeah, yeah. faculty developers. Yeah,
Kenyada McCleod 59:45
that was the other piece like doing this process and community was extremely helpful, like designed by nature is iterative. And to get the perspectives and to see the beautiful things that your fellow colleagues are Doing what you would have never thought of, is really inspiring. So I really think on top of, you know, designing your individual course, or courses, doing it in community with other instructors, it only enhances this process. Like it, it was really a beautiful experience to go through in that cohort.
Lillian Nave 1:00:22
I can imagine and it does inspire me to, I think we need to be doing that on multiple campuses. But that gives me great ideas for what to do at our new campus that will definitely need flexibility in what we do. And I’ll definitely push for the the type of technology that you’ve mentioned to that’s going to help out our faculty. And I just I love it. I feel like this is a love affair with high flex that we’ve been talking about. Well, I just want to thank you so much Kenyatta for joining me to talk about this, to revisit this whole idea and to see how it wasn’t. It’s not a flash in the pan. It wasn’t just the big topic during the beginning of the pandemic, but that it really is. There’s no, there’s no going back to let’s do it the old way. Because we don’t have the old students doing. No,
Kenyada McCleod 1:01:22
no, no, no, there’s so many. You have folks, we have traditional students. We have folks, we’re taking care of children, we have folks who are taken care of parents, you know, like there’s so many levels to what and who we are as people. And students are not just one thing, right? Yeah. So being able to meet them and serve them no matter what they have going on what their responsibilities are, is really, really
Lillian Nave 1:01:53
beautiful. Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better myself. So I think I’m just gonna stop talking. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it. This was great thanks. You can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released. And also see transcripts and additional materials at the think udl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor, textile Texthelp is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools. Texthelp and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding, with over 50 million users worldwide. The Texthelp suite of products includes Read and Write equates to an orbit note. They work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Texthelp has changed the lives of millions worldwide, and strives to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030. Visit text dot help forward slash learn more that’s l earn m o r e to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Oddyssey quartet comprised of Rex Shepherd, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez an I am your host, Lillian Nave. Thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast.