Hybrid learning at Bentley University is not a new concept. In fact, we have been delivering courses in this format for 20 years. The hybrid model we adopted was one where students can choose to participate and engage in real-time on-campus class sessions, in-person or remotely via Zoom.  The added technology infrastructure in the traditional classroom and the ‘white-glove service’ support placed around this model, ensured that students received an enhanced learning experience. Prior to the pandemic, 15 of our 69 classrooms were equipped with technologies like auto tracking-cameras, 85-inch smartboards, ceiling microphones, and a large LCD display positioned on the back wall for faculty to view remote participants.

In April 2020, with uncertainty looming around the return to campus for Fall 2020, we were facing two problems:

1. Come Fall, some students may be able to return to campus while others may not. Those unable to return, would only have a remote option. In addition, we may need to reduce the density of students on campus.
2. Zoom for teaching, works well when the entire class is remote. However, if faculty are focused on in-person students, those learning remotely over Zoom (in a traditional classroom) may have a lesser experience.

To solve these two problems, we started to think about scaling our existing hybrid model. This meant a) adding infrastructure in remaining non-hybrid classrooms and the more challenging one, b) scaling our ‘white-glove service’ for faculty to teach in this environment. Our ‘white-glove service’ included student technology assistants in each hybrid course who would assist faculty in their classrooms, senior technology assistants remotely monitoring 3-4 simultaneous course sections and full-time staff training faculty and supporting operations around the hybrid class – managing students, classroom recordings, A/V assistance, etc.

Knowing that we would have a reduced presence of students on campus and the recruitment challenges we would face with hiring students for the large number of courses, we set-up two proof-of-concepts for our next-gen hybrid classrooms, one where we would not have a student technology assistant present in the classroom. Our goal was to come up with an innovative design, that would serve as a self-sufficient model.

Our proposal for this project started on April 13, 2020. For our proof-of-concept, we equipped two classrooms with slight variations in classroom A/V technologies and invited 19 faculty for a test-drive. After observing faculty and listening to their valuable feedback, we identified four challenges to overcome for a successful launch:

• Aggressive implementation timeline (3.5 months to complete the installation and supply concerns)
• Faculty setup time to start class, through our proof-of-concept, we discovered that it would take faculty 13 steps (10 minutes) to initiate their class
• Support staff – would require enough support staff during start of each class and would need to train everyone with new infrastructure
• Faculty readiness – asking faculty to attend on-campus extensive trainings before fall especially given strict state guidelines for gatherings

Before the proof-of-concept, our plan was to upgrade and add technologies in our non-hybrid classrooms (54). Given the challenges mentioned above and the need to provide a self-sufficient model, we decided to upgrade our existing A/V infrastructure in all 69 classrooms in addition to the necessary technologies for hybrid learning.

We contracted with CAVT Solutions, LLC our A/V Integrator who began the project on May 26th with a team on-campus managing and working on various parts of the install and programming phases.

Our decision to upgrade our A/V infrastructure, also came with a substantial change in how we did things. We decided to move to a network-based A/V infrastructure which would provide our support staff (Campus Presentation Technologies) the ability to monitor and troubleshoot equipment remotely. Our Network Services team played a significant role in making sure our network was equipped and in place to support this goal.

Outside of IT, our construction and planning team provided much needed support for completing all building infrastructure construction related to installing equipment, electrical, and other aspects needed to complete the project.

On August 3rd, we began offering hands-on Extended Classroom Bootcamps to faculty. We scheduled 73 bootcamps over six weeks with attendance from 125 faculty. These bootcamps were limited to 4-5 faculty per session with 45-minutes of technology training and 45-minutes of hands-on practice.

Following our training, we deployed a survey to faculty who went through the bootcamps and of the 49 faculty who responded, 45 faculty self-identified as being prepared or very prepared with “Overall teaching in a hybrid classroom”.

In addition to training faculty on how to use the classroom technology, we created videos to illustrate pedagogical approaches for the hybrid classroom.

Faculty were also provided an opportunity to test-drive our newly upgraded extended classrooms. Fifty-five faculty took advantage of this opportunity to test drive the classrooms before the beginning of the Fall Trimester.

Students were sent the following video introducing them to the online modalities supported for fall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRFvWC7vWE&feature=emb_logo

Project Lead

• Gaurav Shah, Director, Academic Technologies

Project Managers

• Margarita Alicea-Saez
• Karen Young

Academic Technology Center

• Margarita Alicea-Saez, Manager of Operations for Academic Technology
• Molly Amado, Senior Instructional Technologist for Hybrid Online
• Debra Mascott, Learning Experience Designer
• Fred Monshi, Senior Manager, Instructional and Research Infrastructure
• Tamara Rabinovich, Senior Research and Learning Technology Consultant
• Steve Salina, Manager, Instruction and Research Video Technology
• MaryJo Sanz, Manager, Learning Experience Design
• Gaurav Shah, Director, Academic Technologies
• Maria Skaletsky, Senior Research Consultant

Campus Presentation Technologies

• Ruth Horwitz, former Senior Manager, Online and Campus Presentation Technologies
• Steve Demetrius, Senior Instructional and Online Media Specialist
• Shay Lynch, Senior Instructional and Online Media Specialist
• Mark Tomlinson, Instruction and Online Media Specialist

Network Services

• Jay Matrona, Director
• Vasif Huseynov, Principal Network Engineer
• Carson Gibson, Network and Telecomm Technician II
• Ali Hasanov, Senior Network Security Engineer
• Emmanuel Opoku Bunna, Network Administrator
• William Rizzo, Manager, Telecommunications

Facilities

• Jon Nattinville, Director, Construction and Planning

Systems, Networks, and Telecom

• Travis Peterson, Senior Cloud Engineer

Client Services

• Lisa Duhaime, Associate Director, User Services
• Dan Sheehan, Director, Client Services
• Chuck Perry, Manager, Technical Services

Faculty team behind GUI design and testing:

• Tamara Babaian
• Scott Boss
• Jon Ericson
• Dave Gulley
• Roland Hübscher
• Tracy Noga
• Heikki Topi

The following faculty provided feedback and assistance throughout the project:

Students

• Santiago Mancheno
• Gunjita Dhakal