Rice University plans to return classes to campus this fall, but junior Kendall Vining has had some apprehension.
Like other colleges across the country, the private Houston university closed and shifted courses online in the spring to help curb the spread of the COVID-19. The rest of the spring semester was emotionally and mentally taxing for students. As deaths rose due to the novel coronavirus, communications from college administration and health and local officials changed, and students — many who returned home — attempted to adjust to remote education.
“We still don’t know,” Vining said about what the fall semester will bring. “We just can’t take what they’re saying with complete 100 perfect confirmation. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the world. We don’t know how that’s going to affect our semester.”
Many university officials are flirting with possibilities, all subject to change and dependent on social distancing protocols and guidelines from health and government officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Several colleges — the University of Texas at Austin, Rice, the University of Houston and Texas A&M University among them — have discussed ending the semester before Thanksgiving to avoid a resurgence of the virus on campus after the holidays. And many universities plan a hybrid of online and in-person courses as a way to maintain social distancing.
But Vining and others have questions: Which classes will or will not be available for hybrid? How does the hybrid format work? Are students able to determine which classes they want to attend in-person versus remotely?
On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas A&M, UH systems plan to open colleges this fall
“These are the details we don’t have,” said Vining, who like other students, is eager to know details as they prepare to move back to their college towns.
Contingency planning
Some things are definite: Higher education is in flux and colleges are working on how they will define who they are moving forward, said Adam Garry, senior director for education strategy, and Danielle Rourke, senior higher education strategist at Dell Technologies.
Campuses are planning around the coronavirus pandemic, with contingency plans in place in case of another breakout. And platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams will prevail as teaching platforms.
Garry and Rourke, who have been working with universities returning to campus this fall, say many colleges are choosing the hybrid or “hyflex” option. That option allows people who don’t want to be or should not be on campus due to health reasons to engage in remote learning for classes also offered in-person.
Online summer semesters give schools the opportunity to experiment, further train faculty, and build upon how instruction, community and student support online will work in the fall.
‘It won’t be the way it was’
South Texas College of Law Houston — one of the first schools in the Houston area to quickly transition to remote learning in March — is planning to open in the fall, and now it’s using the summer to start from scratch.
Michael F. Barry, dean of the downtown Houston law school, said South Texas is bringing in consultants to assist faculty in building their courses for both online and in-person and crafting schedules that will allow students to leave or come to class without congregating or creating big crowds.
Barry said officials also plan to modify the school’s building, shrink class sizes and rotate professors.
Rice will take a similar approach.
“We’ll be back on campus, but it won’t be the way it was in the past,” said Caroline Levander, Rice’s vice president for global and digital strategy.
On HoustonChronicle.com: Rice to reopen campus in the fall with in-person, remote classes
Levander said Rice’s “dual delivery” education and “high resilience” plan has required faculty to build their classes in a way that allows instructors and students to switch between the two modes depending on the circumstances, especially as things evolve. Faculty with larger lecture-based classes have started pre-recording presentations for the fall, which will allow students to watch lectures ahead time during the semester and to reserve class-time for discussion.
UH, which has been offering online courses for years and has nearly 30 online degree programs, is intent on offering an on-campus experience, online delivery and “hyflex,” offerings and will require classes to be reorganized so that there is six feet between students seats and at least eight feet between professors and students, according to a Thursday announcement from UH President Renu Khator.
Instructors at Rice, UT and UH will continue to use Zoom and Microsoft Teams platforms, with additional features such as “Zoom in the Room,” which allows professors to live stream in-person classes and also see and engage those who are tuning in remotely.
“One of the things that this is doing it’s forcing everyone to take a fresh look at their teaching, which I think is a benefit,” said Art Markman, a UT-Austin professor who is overseeing the delivery of fall classes.
Markman said UT-Austin, which has worked on online education for more than a decade, will continue to use its on-campus studios that have allowed them to broadcast classes in TV show quality and will incorporate interactive components that will allow students to give live feedback, like quizzes and polls, which can gauge their understanding and engagement.
Officials are also still tackling how hands-on courses might pose challenges for a hybrid learning environment.
Courses in engineering, those that require lab work or performative-based classes — some that “never became online courses because they were thought to be too hard to deliver through a purely online experience” are being reworked, said Rourke from Dell Technologies.
For example, music programs might incorporate software with the ability to record and capture high-tech performances, and experience-based or hands-on courses, like engineering, might use digital simulations or virtual reality to improve the class experience.
Students still wary
Nia Howze, a Rice junior, is skeptical. Some of the classes she registered for the fall semester have been canceled, and she found her Spanish course and biology lab this spring difficult.
“Synthesizing data or doing a full blown lab report without assistance of TA (teaching assistant) in person, or not being able to have consistent data with other people is very difficult,” Howze said. “We felt like we weren’t doing the work we needed to do in order to get the information and to learn.”
Vining said if students aren’t getting the full experience with the online or hybrid options to be offered, it might be best to stay home and save money.
On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas Southern makes temporary changes to admission requirements amid COVID-19 pandemic
“I’m not wealthy. If I can not have to pay for rent in a place that is going to be difficult to afford, I could stay here and take classes remotely,’ said Vining, who lives in Louisiana and has her full tuition paid for by Rice.
Her parents, who are concerned about the pandemic, have also floated the idea of her staying home or taking a semester off, which would allow her to work. But just like others, Vining is unsure.
“There’s so many of these things that are up in air,” she said.
brittany.britto@chron.com
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