Written by Payton McPhee

Thumbnail Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

With students slowly being welcomed back to SMU campus, it is exciting to register for courses knowing that soon we will be back in a classroom listening to lectures in person. However, there is a new method of teaching being offered this year which is leaving many students confused and curious as to how it will work. Hybrid courses are being introduced and they are vaguely understood to consist of both online and in-person components. Hybrid courses are a way for SMU to work around the struggles and potential dangers of gathering large groups into a classroom, and their intent seems to be to foster an easier transition from the at-home learning that students have been involved in over the past year. However, among students there seems to be general confusion regarding what exactly a hybrid course means, and what this method of teaching will resemble.

Perhaps the biggest issue with this type of “hybrid” teaching is that there is no structured explanation of what this will look like for students come September. With online or in-person classes, students are aware of what to expect when registering. Similarly, with online synchronous and online asynchronous classes, students have an understanding of what the structures of these courses will consist of. With hybrid courses, it seems as though students lack an understanding of what they are signing up for, and this is likely because hybrid learning means something different to each professor. There is no concrete outline for how these classes will be taught which leaves students confused until the first day of classes.

In an attempt to gauge students' understanding of this method of teaching, I sent a short 5 question survey to 35 students regarding their perception of hybrid courses. When asked what they think a hybrid course might entail, SMU students provided a variety of answers, each one seeming plausible. The following are some examples of what students said they think hybrid courses might be like:

Students have the option to complete the course in-person or to complete it virtually
Half of the lectures will be online and half will be in person
Labs, exams, tests and assignments will be completed in the classroom and lectures will be online
Lectures will be in-person and all assignments will be done online

As one might realize based on these answers, each student had little knowledge on what to expect for hybrid courses. Although 47% of the students surveyed said they were enrolled in a hybrid class for the upcoming Fall term (and 43% were unaware if they were or not), 87.5% indicated that they didn’t know what hybrid classes were!

This confusion is likely due to the university’s lack of communication to their students about these classes, as SMU has done very little to inform their students about what they should expect come September. When asked, 100% of surveyed students said that they hadn't yet had a professor or faculty member inform them of the upcoming hybrid course plan. In addition, 78% of these students reported that they would feel much more comfortable, and less nervous if they were provided with a concrete explanation of what hybrid courses will be like. After more than a year of constant uncertainty, students need to be informed and not left in the dark.

In order to investigate what exactly hybrid courses will look like in September, I reached out to several professors at SMU who are offering these types of classes. Interestingly, each professor that I spoke with explained very different methods by which they are teaching their hybrid classes. Some professors are providing their lectures virtually while also hosting one in-person class each week that will be geared toward discussion and practice questions. Other professors have indicated that in-person class time will likely only be used for tests and exams. Notably, several professors that I spoke with indicated that they are still unsure of how they will teach a hybrid course. If our own professors do not have a consensus on what hybrid classes are, how are students supposed to be prepared?

This lack of structure is making registration extremely difficult for some students. International students who are unable to travel back to Canada in September may register for a hybrid course with the belief that they can choose to attend virtually. Students who work part-time may commit to taking shifts without knowing that a hybrid course may require attendance. Additionally, first-year students may enroll in a hybrid course eager to make friends, only to find out that they are getting less of this opportunity than if they were to take a normal on-campus class.

Aside from the confusion that this teaching method is providing to students, the big question that remains is whether or not this hybrid framework is going to be successful. If so, Saint Mary’s has a lot of work to do during the upcoming summer months to create a plan that will be functional to incorporate hybrid learning into our classrooms. Hybrid courses seem as though they could be a reasonable way to mitigate the gathering of large undergraduate classes, but what protocols will be put in place for when these classes do meet in person? How will safety guidelines be practiced? Is the university taking any steps to decrease the capacity of class sizes in order for these groups to be able to meet on campus safely? Our university should be taking steps to create standards and structures for each method of teaching in every department so that students have a sense of what schooling will look like when September comes.

Additionally, with the world adapting to virtual communications over the past year, it made us realize just how much work we can do from the comfort of our own homes. Many people are now pushing for universities to offer more online classes and programs even after the pandemic has subsided because 2020 has proved that it is possible and long overdue. Likewise, many students and faculty may still be weary and afraid of returning to campus again in large classroom settings. For students such as those who may have an immunocompromised family member at home or may be nervous about catching and passing along the virus, why is there not a plan in place to ensure that each class is offered in both an online and in-person manner? If enrolled in a hybrid course, should students be penalized for deciding not to sit in a classroom and risk their own health if they don’t feel comfortable doing so?

Saint Mary’s University seems to be doing very little to make the transition back to in-person classes easy. The university’s lack of transparency with their students indicates that SMU is unprepared to offer students a definitive plan for hybrid courses, which is overwhelming and frustrating to many students. When surveyed, many students indicated that hybrid classes sound “like a waste of time”, “a strange concept”, and “a way to make classes more complicated than they need to be”. Saint Mary’s University needs to step forward and give their students, as well as faculty, some structure and definition with regard to what hybrid learning is and how they plan to implement it successfully. An explanation and basic structure for hybrid learning would benefit most students immensely going into the fall term. But, unfortunately, it is likely that students will be kept in the dark until the first day of classes in September.

Does SMU Need To Implement a Structure for Hybrid Learning?

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