College Renews Pilot Project Despite Questions Remaining

In our last Owl Hoots, we reported on the lack of transparency and information regarding the College’s Blended Learning Pilot Project. At that time, we sent an open letter to the Academic Dean and Regular Sector Deans expressing our concerns and again asking for answers to several key questions that we have repeatedly raised. Although the College has indicated its intention to respond to at least some of the Union’s questions, to date, no response has been received.

When the College launched its Blended Learning Pilot Project in the Fall, it clearly indicated that all students and teachers involved in the project would participate in evaluations of the courses. Ideally, these evaluations should have been done so as to allow time for departments to evaluate the impact of the Pilot Project before further pursuing online pedagogy. However, the College has only recently sent the evaluations to the teachers involved in the Pilot Project and has given no indication of whether the results of these evaluations will be made available – to departments, Senate, or the wider community. 

Moreover, we are concerned that the College is being selective in who it is soliciting feedback from. The Academic Dean recently contacted coordinators of departments with at least one teacher participating in the Pilot Project to ask for feedback. The Memo asks those coordinators to provide “comments about blended courses – the process for reviewing them, the criteria or principles the department used to form its opinion on the proposed blended courses, their impact on other courses delivered by your department, their impact on students or other related matters”. These issues are relevant to all departments; it is equally important that the College understand the criteria or principles on which departments decided not to offer blended courses. Furthermore, we have heard from many teachers this semester about the impact that the Pilot Project has had on their students’ (in)ability to attend and participate in their in-person classes; these impacts are not limited to other courses in the same department but have been felt across the College. Unfortunately, despite our efforts, the College has not yet indicated whether it will solicit data from non-participating departments.

As we have repeatedly made clear to the College, if departments are to participate in meaningful discussions about online pedagogy, the process of evaluation and feedback needs to be more transparent. The College, however, has pushed full-steam ahead and launched another round of the Pilot Project for Fall 2022. Once again, it seems that the College is drawing conclusions about Blended Learning without concrete evidence. As the College moves forward with yet another Pilot Project and, presumably, the development of a policy related to online teaching and learning, it is imperative that it solicit feedback from all teachers. Whether or not members of your department participated in the project, feel free to email the Academic Dean directly if you have comments about it, and please copy the DTU.