Expanding the Reach of HyFlex within the Faculty Social System

Note: I advocate the HyFlex delivery approach for faculty and students in courses or disciplines where there is a need to provide both online and classroom participation options to students and where instruction can be effective in both classroom and online modes. This discussion is targeted at situations where HyFlex delivery makes good sense, solving important problems or leveraging some significant new opportunity.

If HyFlex course delivery makes sense for a particular context, it usually begins with individual faculty who are personally motivated and energized to try this approach to meet important goals associated with delivery mode. When we started this in the mid-2000’s, we felt the need to maintain a quality classroom program and add the ability to extend learning opportunities to students participating remotely - in time or geography. (See Chapter 1.1 Beginnings for more of our HyFlex origin story.) In the language used in innovation diffusion discussions, our initial faculty would be “first adopters” in their social system. (Rogers, 2003) In the language of the diffusion of high technology (developed by Geoffrey Moore and the Chasm Group), these faculty would be “Visionaries”, willing to take on significant risk for some big advantage or to solve a major problem. (Moore, 1991)

Figure 1

Categories of Innovation Adopters: The Technology Adoption Lifecycle

When HyFlex works with an initial faculty or course, it is natural to look for additional faculty and/or courses that it could also work well with, in order to increase the value returned to the larger organizational system. In our case, this initial expansion took place within other graduate seminar courses within our own academic program (Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University). Furthermore, several other programs within our larger university community took notice of our success with HyFlex and developed their own implementation programs for HyFlex delivery to help solve their own specific contextualized needs; commonly needs to increase graduation rates and lower the average time to degree among our students (especially undergraduates).

In typical efforts to further diffusion into an academic organization, some faculty (and students and administrators) will not be willing or able to put as many personal resources (time, energy, etc.) into trying this new approach. Rogers (2003) found that people in a social system considering adopting an innovative practice consider the characteristics of the innovation, such as, 1) how well will it work for them, 2) the advantages it provides, and 3) how difficult it will be to adopt. Those considering adoption also rely on their peers for recommendations and information about changing their practice.

Rogers’ Four Main Elements in the Diffusion of Innovations process (2003)

1. The Innovation
   1. Relative advantage
   2. Compatibility
   3. Complexity
   4. Trialability
   5. Observability
2. Communication Channels
   1. Interpersonal channels
   2. Heterophily - membership in diverse groups (enabling the cross-pollination of ideas)
3. Time
   1. Innovation decision process
   2. Adopter categories
4. A Social System
   1. Social structure
   2. System norms
   3. Opinion leaders and change agents
   4. Decision types
   5. Consequences

Educational institutions and communities of scholars are fundamentally human social systems. Quite often (almost always) Hyflex delivery is an innovative idea requiring substantial changes to important aspects of the system, such as, perspective of the role of the teacher, giving control of participation decisions to students, requiring more instructional resources and administrative support, and more. Because of these characteristics, implementing HyFlex beyond the initial adopters is characterized by many of these typical “diffusion of innovations” elements, so understanding the Diffusion of Innovations perspective’s concepts and principles is important. If you are interested in supporting or encouraging faculty adoption of HyFlex delivery, you’ll need to patiently work within these same parameters.

Below I’ll explain a few of these elements I have found particularly helpful in understanding HyFlex adoption and I’ll suggest some concrete strategies you might use with various types of adopters.

Table 1

Categories of Diffusion Groups

Accelerate Adoption: Communicate within and among Faculty Peer Groups

It takes more than just a good idea to bring about change, especially with the majority of faculty. Communication about, around and within a new idea is just as important as the good idea itself. When HyFlex delivery is applied in the right situations, it is a good idea. When HyFlex is implemented thoughtfully, it becomes approachable even to pragmatic faculty. But that’s not enough to facilitate widespread change.

The majority of faculty are pragmatic or conservative when it comes to their beliefs and practices of teaching and learning. Change doesn’t come easy, and new ideas are not naturally attractive to most. Most faculty (including myself) are comfortable with their own teaching, believe that most of their students are learning effectively (or at least adequately), and that there is no compelling reason to change. Fortunately, as faculty are exposed to more data about their own students’ performance and the equity gaps in performance among major groups of students in their classes and institutions, many are becoming more willing to try new approaches to better engage students in the learning process. When faculty are willing to change, to try something new, communication with other faculty is a key factor we should be ready to facilitate and leverage to support adoption.

Peer-based communication. Who do pragmatic or conservative faculty listen to? Where do they hear about new ideas that they’ll listen to and consider for their own practice? Whether in faculty meetings, informal discussions about teaching methods, or through reading professional journals and participating in conferences, faculty listen to their peers. Peers can be trusted in ways that others cannot. Faculty may not be ready to listen to the great ideas of technology support staff if they don’t closely identify with that group. Faculty may not listen to the ideas coming from members of the administration if they don’t trust them. Faculty may not listen to other faculty teaching in another discipline (or even another academic department) if they believe there are significant differences in content, students, or delivery context between them. Overall, if the faculty is content with the status quo, they may not be willing to consider any other teaching approach, even one that promises significant improvement, unless they hear about it from a highly trusted peer.

Well-connected faculty are key players. Faculty who belong to multiple peer groups are valuable connectors. If one of these faculty adopt HyFlex, the effect may be multiplied as they communicate within and across several distinct peer groups. Faculty who are effective connectors may include those with multiple academic appointments, those with strong connections in their professional organizations and who communicate new ideas regularly at conferences, in publications, or through blogs. Faculty with administrative duties (in addition to teaching) may also be valuable connectors, since they may have peers that can become visionary sponsors in other groups.

Why change? Pragmatic faculty change their practice when they see a groundswell of support and evidence of success in a new practice. When many of their peers adopt a new practice, pragmatic faculty tend to go along with the crowd. Conservative faculty change their practice when it becomes harder to continue with their old ways than it is to adopt an innovation. In the case of Hyflex delivery, if students and other key stakeholders (administrators, research funders, etc.) start requesting flexible delivery options – because they want the real value they see elsewhere – it may become hard to resist.

Communicating as a Change Agent: Leverage the Characteristics of HyFlex for Specific Contexts

Faculty in the majority segments of an adoption population are generally willing to accept less risk in a “change” situation than are the early adopters in the same social system. Many faculty are pragmatists when it comes to curriculum design and delivery modes. Generally, pragmatists make decisions to change only when they see evidence of clear and accessible advantage in an innovative practice and when the change isn’t “too” difficult. Pragmatists often change in groups, preferring to stick with the practices of their influential peers rather strike out on their own. This is very different than faculty first adopters, who are often willing to be the first ones to change because they like being ahead in some meaningful way – they want the benefit of the change more than they want the stability of maintaining the status quo.

Specific strategies that may help pragmatic faculty decide to adopt HyFlex delivery include:

1. Highlight advantages. Clarify the specific advantage that the HyFlex approach will provide. Connect the results of HyFlex with issues that the faculty care about and recognize as issues worth solving or opportunities worth pursuing.
2. Take small steps. Develop a HyFlex model that begins with current successful delivery methods and expands only as much as needed to serve the “new” students. Do not ask faculty to give up what they do well now to teach in a new way. (Keep the strength, enhance with the new.) You might have faculty teaching online who are now able to accommodate classroom students as well. If this is your case, what will you need to add to your existing online course to make it work for classroom students as well? More likely, you’ll have faculty who are teaching courses in classrooms who will now teach online students as well. What do they have to add, at a minimum, to serve those students adequately? Beginning with new practices that are close to the existing delivery will make it easier for faculty to change. “Adequate” practices can be enhanced over time … but if a “gold standard” of HyFlex delivery is required to even begin teaching a new way, the barrier to adoption will be very high for most pragmatic faculty.
3. Make success visible and valuable. Publicize initial successful efforts in ways that faculty value. When faculty hear about colleagues who have found success and are recognized for that, adoption from pragmatists may be more likely. Sometimes the advantages may not be readily noticed
4. Provide a trial period. Allow for “tryouts” of the new delivery approach. Select a few courses and faculty for an initial pilot of HyFlex, and make sure they are free to return to their previous (single mode) delivery method if it doesn’t work out for them or their students.

To review, when working with faculty considering adoption, leverage the characteristics of the HyFlex approach itself. What are its clear advantages? How compatible it is with current practice? How complex is it compared to what is being done now? How much commitment is needed to begin teaching with HyFlex? How visible are the advantages? As a change agent, you can make a difference and speed adoption when and where it makes sense.

Working with First Adopters – The “Techies”

The first people in your organization to adopt an innovative practice like HyFlex would fall into the “First Adopter” (or “Innovator”) category of the classic Diffusion of Innovations model. In the world of technology, we might call these people “Techies.” (You may want to read Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore for a good translation of Rogers’ work into the high-technology field, which has strong ties to the use of technology in education.) Techies are usually willing to try any new technology, teaching practice, or both (in the HyFlex case) because it is interesting to them. They may not have any specific goal in mind or severe problem to solve. They are interested primarily in doing new things, in being on the cutting edge of a field, in being “first to market” - to use a business cliche.

Risk is often not much of a consideration for first adopters. They’ll accept huge risk of something not working out, because they have experienced many failures over time with their new ventures. “Nothing risked, nothing gained” might be a common mantra in this group. They don’t typically have much formal power in an organization, but even so, they play a crucial role in the diffusion of innovation process. They act as the eyes and ears – the inputs or open doors – for new practices that might become valuable to the organization over time.

A growing organization needs first adopters to find and bring in new technologies and teaching practices so that they can be tried out and evaluated for potential (or even immediate) value. Without first adopters, change doesn’t happen nearly as quickly, because people in the other adoption groups have more invested in the status quo, have more to lose when change is considered, and are more risk-averse.

In our organization, the first adopters were a mix of academic and information technology staff and a few faculty members. The first adopters were involved in EDUCAUSE, AECT, DETCHE, and other academic technology-focused organizations in order to bring new ideas to our larger organization and (perhaps) provide an initial assessment of value. If first adopters find a good idea or tool, one of their primary roles is to hand it off to someone in the next adoption group – the Early Adopters. If the innovative tool or practice stays within the First Adopter family, it goes nowhere within the larger organization and adds no substantial value over time.

Early Adopters: Providing Initiative and Support for the First Value-driven Implementations

If an innovation is going to continue on the adoption lifecycle it must move on to the next group, the “Early Adopters.” Early adopters look to first adopters for ideas, technologies, and practices that are likely to work in helping them overcome problems and/or take advantage of new opportunities. They are willing to accept a significant amount of risk of failure if the promise of value is correspondingly high. In “The Chasm Companion”, this group is called “Visionaries,” and rightfully so. (Moore, 1991) It takes a certain amount of vision for a future that is different (better!) than today to take a chance on an unproven practice.

First adopters can only take a new practice so far; they typically do not have the opportunity or authority to implement a new practice in any significant way. Visionaries, on the other hand, are able to initiate (sponsor) and implement an innovation that makes a difference in some part of the organization that they have influence within. Visionaries want change with a specific purpose in mind, while techies are more interested in change because it is new. How much risk will a visionary accept? That varies according to the amount of return expected. Visionaries typically keep a “big picture” perspective, and that often leads to radical shifts in practice to meet significant challenges.

In the case of HyFlex, faculty members or members of the administration may play the role of early adopters, or visionaries. An individual faculty member may recognize the need for his or her own students to have more flexible attendance options, and consult with the academic technology (or faculty development) staff on ways to redesign a course to allow for more student options. Often new technologies or teaching practices are part of the solution, and the techies on the faculty support staff are the ones who make them available and troubleshoot problems when they inevitably arise.

Mid-level managers, such as program coordinators or department chairs, may see the opportunity to expand a program’s reach using distance learning methods, but may not have the people, technology, or time resources needed to create and support a fully online, fully staffed program. HyFlex courses can be an effective bridge to an online program, so management may create incentives and an encouraging climate to support the HyFlex innovation.

High-level management (deans, provosts, presidents) may see the need to increase graduation rates or overall student success, and recognize that HyFlex courses may be a vehicle to do so. Offering substantial archived materials (content, discussions, activities), options for attendance that accommodate busy lives, and more student control over learning process, HyFlex courses should contribute to increased student success: higher graduation rates and shorter time to graduation.

If your role is that of a change agent, look for visionaries in your organization. Analyze their organizational pain and opportunities for gain and consider the possible advantages of HyFlex delivery. Visionary projects are often highly contextualized, so take the time to co-develop a solution that meets their specific needs and realizes maximum value for them. You’ll need these people and their success stories to move forward into the next large adoption group, the “Early Majority.” If you can energize high level sponsors in supporting your adoption effort, you may find amazing receptiveness in larger, more pragmatic groups such as the faculty at large.

Early Majority: Pragmatists Travel Together to Shift their Practice

The adoption of an innovative practice within a social system begins with the initial “discovery” or development of a new way to do things that adds value to an organization. The “First Adopters” fulfill the role of explorers, finding new ways to carry out the core practices of the organization. But those savvy explorers aren’t a large segment of the eventual adoption population, and the innovative practice must move on to the next group, the “Early Adopters” who develop visionary projects and find significant value in using the innovation to meet goals, alleviate significant roadblocks to change and performance, in whatever way the organization values. But still, the early adopters do not make up a very large segment of the organization. And in higher education, they are usually removed from the most powerful controlling role –the faculty. The vast majority of potential adopters (faculty) is grouped into the next two categories, the “Early Majority and the “Late Majority.”

Early Majority adopters are willing to assume a small amount of risk in order to achieve the gains they see some of their peers (who have been involved in visionary projects) enjoying. Early majority adopters are largely pragmatists; they’re generally comfortable with the way they carry out their business now, and aren’t exactly looking for new practices … but they will listen to a new idea if they can see evidence of its value in believable and relevant ways.

Crossing the Chasm: A particular challenge in moving an innovation into this segment is that many pragmatic people don’t automatically trust the visionaries in the early adopter group, and may not be willing to try out a new practice without convincing evidence of its veracity. They are risk-averse. As a change agent, your task is to develop evidence that members of this group will readily accept, to help them cross the “chasm” dividing the visionaries’ optimistic perspective of all the wonderful value ready to be realized and the pragmatists’ distrust of someone telling them they aren’t as effective as they can be, and that they need to change and accept someone else’s approach to instruction. Now, that can be a very difficult task, especially if you target the entire early majority group (all faculty) at once. You are much more likely to have success if you segment the early majority group into smaller groups that you (and the visionaries) can more readily persuade to adopt the new practice. When you have a successful implementation with a small sub-group of the larger early adoption group (for example, a specific academic program or set of influential faculty), find another sub-group that will believe the evidence from the initial sub-group’s experience. And so on … . In “Crossing the Chasm,” Geoffrey Moore calls this the “bowling alley” approach. (1991)

The key is to recognize that your faculty will not just jump at an innovative practice because someone, even someone with a high formal position, says, “this is a good idea and we should try it.” This group waits until they see evidence that the innovation is likely to work for them, and they hear that message from people whom they trust.

Applying this to HyFlex courses, identify the people in the early majority group in your organization. On most campuses, this will be a mix of faculty, administrators and students. However, I would argue that faculty are the most influential segment you should address. Most faculty are comfortable with their teaching and their students’ learning, and see no great need to change their practice in a [potentially] disruptive way. So why try HyFlex? Remember, members of this group are pragmatists – they need to see the value and believe that it can be successful for them, too. So, find cases of HyFlex working in situations that are similar to their own – in your own instruction or in a peer-group institution, and where the value realized would be appreciated as well.

For example, if a program wants an online program without giving up a successful face to face program, then show them evidence of a program that was able to do both at once using HyFlex. If a program wants to alleviate scheduling bottlenecks for students, show them evidence of how HyFlex participation options would allow students to enroll in two or more courses that are scheduled to meet at the same time, and participate in each course (in varying modes, of course) each week. If the great need is for more review materials for students so they can perform better on learning assessments, show them how HyFlex delivery can lead to archives of face to face interactions (discussions) and online discussions which can be rich sources of content for later review at a time and place most convenient to students.

As you think about the various groups of potential adopters in your context, I hope you are beginning to appreciate one of the “big ideas” of being a change agent stated earlier: The message to various groups of people should vary in its content, timing, and channel(s) of communication. Pragmatists respond to different claims, supported by different evidence, and carrying a lesser amount of risk than do visionaries.

Late Majority: Conservatives are Finally Convinced of the Need to Change

The second, and last, majority group in most social organizations to adopt an innovation is called the “Late Majority.” You’ve probably heard the term “better late than never,” and that perfectly describes this group’s adoption timing.

Late majority adopters are often the more conservative people in the organization, at least when it comes to the innovation being considered. Members of this group are often heavily invested in the status quo practice and are very reluctant to change. They may be extremely risk averse, too. Conservatives don’t generally trust the early adopters, and may only slightly more trust the pragmatists in the early majority.

“Why should I change? What I’ve been doing [for the past many years] has worked and still works. I don’t want to do things differently. It may be good for others, but I’d prefer to keep doing things the same way, thank you very much!”

Does it matter than a new practice is showing advantages and adding value to the organization in other areas? Probably not initially, but as the pressure to change increases (for valid reasons), members of this group may be persuaded to give up their staunch opposition and “get with the program.” Conservatives often begin to consider change when the pain, or disadvantage(s) of not changing becomes more severe and impacts their performance in ways that they care about. If there is no acknowledged and meaningful reason to change, they won’t. Your challenge as a change agent is to acknowledge their resistance to change (often due to fear of the unknown), continuously communicate the real advantages to change (assuming there are meaningful advantages), and highlight the negative consequences of not changing – maintaining the status quo. When the risk of staying put becomes more of a threat to them than the risk of changing practice, they’ll begin to change.

Clearly, not every innovation makes it into or through this group of people. Reaching this group can take a lot of time and energy. And if the innovation doesn’t add enough agreed-upon value, or remaining the same doesn’t entail meaningful loss (felt organizational pain), then this group will probably never change. If that’s ok in your organization, don’t waste your time convincing this group. A few may trickle into the new practice as they begin to trust and desire the advantages their peers in the early majority are realizing.

How does this apply to implementing a HyFlex course design in a program? Institutions that have been serving students with traditional classroom-based courses are probably well staffed with conservatives when it comes to course delivery modes. At San Francisco State, where I currently teach, I’ve met many. As I’ve shared the HyFlex “innovation” at faculty meetings, gatherings of department chairs, and in other conversations, there is almost always a large subset of hearers that reply with, “I’d never teach that way – I like seeing all of my students each week in class so I can be sure they’re learning.” They often also add, “I like teaching in front of real people, not to a computer!” [Note: These conservative attitudes with large segments of faculty have been consistent over more than a decade of our local implementation.]

My response is typically to reassure them that I am not suggesting that the HyFlex delivery is right for all situations (students, content, program, and especially faculty), and that if there is some clear need for the flexibility that HyFlex offers, then it should be considered. The people I really want to spend time helping with HyFlex implementation plans, at this stage, are the “visionaries” who see a real opportunity for relieving pain: helping students learn better, graduating students faster by reducing course scheduling bottlenecks, providing online attendance options to accommodate travel or other schedule conflicts, or achieving meaningful gain: marketing courses or programs to an extended group of potential students, building gradually to an online delivery, teaching and learning competency. When these visionaries are connected to associated groups of pragmatists (for example, a visionary dean or department chair with pragmatic faculty in specific programs or schools), expanding adoption is more likely.

In the realm of faculty support for course design and practice, we’ve found that many conservative faculty don’t really trust the idea of HyFlex – yet! Our continuing challenge is to build a value proposition that they can’t ignore. Shrinking instructional budgets, transparent and detailed student success data, and growing student demand for scheduling options may raise the felt pain to levels even conservatives cannot endure without considering other instructional approaches.

Laggards (Skeptics): What can you do with those whose heels are dug in and just won’t budge?

In most social organizations, there is a small group of people who simply refuse to change their practices from the way they’ve always done something, even when the majority of their peers have adopted a new way. This group is the non-adopters, “Laggards” or “Skeptics,” and most of them will never change. Some may, especially if the system forces them to change with irresistible pressure, but they certainly won’t go quietly!

In my experience in education, members of this group in schools are often the most “seasoned” faculty or administrators. These people may have decades of experience teaching a certain way, and they probably see no reason to change just because someone else has a different idea and claims some supposed advantage. When I address faculty groups and speak to them about online, hybrid, and HyFlex course delivery, members of this group are easy to identify by their questions or comments at the end of the presentation.

“You’ll never get me to change.” “I’ll be dead or retired before they’ll force me to teach this way.” “This is fine for you, but I’d rather teach students than computers any day.”

Personally, I’ve never seen a situation where faculty were being forced to adopt a new way of teaching, though I am sure it happens when an organization decides on a new delivery approach, such as moving a program from the classroom to online. In my own academic program, Instructional Technologies, existing faculty have always been free to choose their delivery mode, though we do encourage HyFlex where practical, and all faculty teach some HyFlex courses. However, once a course is delivered in HyFlex and the program starts listing it that way, new faculty may not have the option to return to classroom-only participation mode.

Because tenured, public higher education faculty in the US have traditionally had a lot of control over their specific teaching activities, changes in course delivery of existing programs may be difficult to bring about unless the faculty assigned to teach a course is willing to give it a try. Higher education faculty who work for private universities, especially for-profit schools, are not likely to have as much control over course delivery decisions, and in that situation it is more likely that faculty may be forced to change (or lose their job). If an organization is run with more centralized power structures, and if it is responsive to the changes in its operational climate, faculty are likely to have less control.

The bottom line for this adoption group is that they are not likely to change, and that’s that. As a change agent, you may have more success in isolating the impact of their refusal to innovate rather than continuing to try to help them make the change.

Summarizing the Messages to Various Adoption Groups

The message you use to help others adopt should vary based on their perceptions of risk, reward (value) and the behavior of their peers. A common message to all groups at once is likely to work only with 1-2 groups, at best. Many monolithic broadcast messages (which administrators love to send as emails to all faculty) end up being ignored by everyone. Don’t let this happen to you. Target your communication very specifically. Table 2 summarizes messaging to various groups and describes possible HyFlex implementation contexts that may apply.

Table 2

Summary of Adoption Group Characteristic Applied to HyFlex Implementation

References

Moore, G. A. (1991). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling technology products to mainstream customers. New York, N.Y.: HarperBusiness.

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. New York: Free Press.