Spring 2020 Undergraduate Student and Faculty Academic ......Spring 2020 Undergraduate Student and...

Spring 2020 Undergraduate Student and Faculty Academic Experiences | October 23, 2020

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Spring 2020 Undergraduate Student and

Faculty Academic Experiences

Office of Academic Affairs |October 23, 2020

Report Summary

On March 11, 2020, as Covid-19 cases began to surge in and around New York City, CUNY announced its decision to close campuses and shift all courses to remote instructional formats through the end of the spring term to protect the health of students, faculty, and staff. This emergency transition was unprecedented in the history of higher education. CUNY’s Central Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) instructed the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) to monitor and study academic outcomes and experiences during the term, with an eye toward informing future policy and practice. Throughout the spring and summer, CUNY analysts conducted a series of research activities for that purpose. They tracked and analyzed course withdrawals and grades while partnering with researchers at Ithaka S+R to conduct 18 focus groups with students and faculty. OIRA also collected survey results from 14 CUNY colleges and reviewed them for common themes. This final report provides a holistic summary of the main findings from the spring and summer research activities and a list of recommendations based on those findings. Course grades from spring 2020 generally compare favorably to those from spring 2019, and it appears that many students

took advantage of the flexible grading policy and extended course withdrawal deadline that CUNY instated after the

emergency transition to remote instruction. A larger share of students received A grades in spring 2020 than in the

previous spring term (52% compared to 43%, see Appendix A, Table 1). Overall, a significantly smaller percentage of

courses had poor outcomes than in the previous year, with only 13% of all courses taken in spring 2020 ending in a grade

of D, F, Incomplete, or Withdrawal, compared to 18% in spring 2019. About 25% of undergraduates took advantage of the

credit/non-credit (CR/NC) flexible grading policy in at least one course (see Appendix A, Tables 1 and 2). The extended

withdrawal deadline allowed students to wait until near the end of the semester to withdraw from a course and most

students who withdrew waited until near that later deadline to do so. Final course withdrawal rates were very similar to

those in spring 2019. At senior colleges the spring 2020 course withdrawal rate was 3.4% compared to 4.1% for spring

2019. At community colleges the rate was only slightly higher (7.7% compared to 7.0%).1 The flexible grading and

withdrawal policies may have reinforced one another, with the CR/NC grading option reducing pressure on students to

withdraw from courses.

Although the academic outcomes from spring 2020 appear relatively strong, focus group findings and survey results

indicate that students and faculty found the transition to emergency remote instruction challenging and missed many

aspects of in-person, on-campus courses. Some student feedback captured from the focus groups and campus surveys

suggests concrete ways that colleges could improve the remote learning experience for students, some of which CUNY

had been implementing and scaling at the time, such as an unprecedented level of professional development for faculty

1 CUNY’s experience with Spring 2020 withdrawal rates mirrored national trends: Withdrawal rates remained unchanged from pre-pandemic levels, with the peak in withdrawal activity shifting from March to April. (https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/nscblog/new-research-center-report-shows-covid-19-effects-on-postsecondary-enrollment/).

https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/nscblog/new-research-center-report-shows-covid-19-effects-on-postsecondary-enrollment/



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in online instruction. More generally, the results suggest that instructors’ actions and approaches to online courses have

important effects on students’ experiences in those courses. The following recommendations stem directly from results

of this research:

1. Encourage instructors to maintain regular communication with students throughout the term and while focusing on asynchronous instruction, supplement with synchronous interactions, which students say they value. Asynchronous instruction offers students valuable flexibility, and synchronous interactions give students opportunities to connect with instructors and one another. Communications between instructors and students will be particularly important while instruction is delivered predominantly online. In focus groups, both students and faculty noted that they had gotten a chance to know one another in-person before transitioning to remote instruction, which many believed had made the transition easier, and they expressed concern that they would not have that opportunity in fall.

2. Create opportunities for students to interact with classmates to support learning and foster engagement and accountability. Interactions can take many forms including group work, “buddy” systems, and group communication channels, as well as opportunities for students to participate in synchronous course sessions.

3. Create clearer guidance for instructors and more consistency for students around which platforms and tools are used for which purposes to make it easier for students to manage their commitments across courses (e.g., synchronous content and interaction on Zoom, asynchronous courses and homework on the LMS). A broad group of faculty should be involved in establishing guidance to represent the needs of diverse disciplines and course types and determine when it is appropriate for instructors to deviate from common guidelines because of the unique needs of a course.

4. Encourage instructors to take advantage of technology by recording lectures or course sessions—with appropriate notification and permissions—-and making them available for students to re-watch and study. Recording class sessions in which students participate will require establishing terms for students to consent to recording and clear expectations for allowable uses and dissemination.

5. Continue to offer faculty professional development in both the uses of recommended technologies and ways to adapt pedagogy for remote instruction. Pedagogical training could address course structure, norms for communication and participation, learning artifacts, and assessments. Thoughtful approaches to asynchronous instruction can mitigate some of the concerns that students and faculty have about the limitations of mostly asynchronous instruction.

6. Consider whether campus or other community spaces can be opened to give students access to quiet study spaces and reliable internet service that would help them concentrate on courses. Consider allowing students to access the CUNY campus that is closest to their home, as well as the one where they are enrolled, to minimize travel and associated risks.

7. Communicate clearly with students about why in-person instruction is not feasible, and the administration’s decision-making process and trade-offs. Faculty and students in focus groups appeared inclined toward accepting difficult decisions when they understood the reasons for them.

The discomfort that students and faculty expressed with remote instruction in spring 2020 was likely exacerbated by

lack of experience with online instruction, the fact that courses originally designed as in-person were rapidly converted

to online, and the general stress in their lives caused by the pandemic and shutdown. There are reasons to be hopeful

that educational experiences will improve in fall 2020 and beyond as both students and instructors have gained valuable

experience with online teaching and learning and as the pandemic conditions in the New York City area are better

contained than they were when research was conducted in spring and early summer. Implementing the

recommendations above could also improve students’ experiences and signal responsiveness to their concerns.


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Introduction

On March 11, 2020, as Covid-19 cases began to surge in and around New York City, CUNY announced its decision to close campuses and shift all courses to remote instructional formats through the end of the spring term to protect the health of students, faculty, and staff and stem the spread of the coronavirus. This emergency transition was unprecedented in the history of higher education. CUNY’s Central Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) instructed the Offices of Institutional and Policy Research to monitor and study academic outcomes and experiences during the term, with an eye toward informing future policy and practice. Throughout the spring and summer, CUNY researchers conducted a series of research activities for that purpose. They tracked and analyzed course withdrawals and grades, and created a dashboard to help colleges monitor student engagement with CUNY’s Learning Management System (LMS). OIRA also partnered with researchers at Ithaka S+R to conduct 18 focus groups with students and faculty. Finally, OIRA collected survey results from 14 CUNY colleges and reviewed them for common themes in findings. The results of each research activity were recorded in an internal research brief over the summer. This final report provides a holistic summary of the main findings from the spring and summer’s research activities and a list of recommendations that arise from them. It is important to note that the emergency shift to remote instruction that was undertaken during the spring 2020 term was very different from online teaching and learning under more normal circumstances, and the results and experiences recorded here should not be conflated with an evaluation of online teaching and learning more broadly. However, these findings are relevant for the fall 2020 term and any subsequent terms in which large numbers of CUNY courses continue to be offered remotely due to health and safety considerations, and may have some implications for CUNY’s approach to the mix of in-person, hybrid, and remote courses in the longer term.

Table of Contents

Quantitative Academic Outcomes 3 Focus Group and Survey Findings 6 Implications and Recommendations 11 Appendix 13

Spring 2020 Quantitative Academic Outcomes

In response to the emergency instructional conditions, the University implemented new policies and guidance designed to give students additional flexibility in their courses, including an extended deadline for course withdrawal and allowing students to take courses on a credit/no credit basis rather than receive a letter grade. Overall, analysis so far suggests that the credit/no credit grading option and extended withdrawal date were reasonably successful in providing students with traditional and alternative grading options to reflect the disruption caused by COVID-19.

Withdrawal rates

CUNY extended the deadline to withdraw officially from a class from the original date of February 20, 2020 until the end of regular classes to provide additional flexibility to students. Students indeed waited to make their withdrawal decision, with withdrawal rates remaining lower than in spring 2019 up to around 80 days from the first drop date, with the bulk of course withdrawals occurring near the deadline. In the end, overall course withdrawal rates were very similar to those in


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spring 2019. At senior colleges the rate was slightly lower than the previous spring (3.4% compared to 4.1%). At community colleges the rate was only slightly higher (7.7% compared to 7.0%).2

Final grades and the flexible grading policy

Preliminary results show that spring 2020 final course grades were not worse, and perhaps better, than in spring 2019. Students received more A grades than in the previous spring term (see Appendix A, Table 1). Overall, a significantly smaller percentage of courses had poor outcomes than in the previous year, with only 13% of all courses taken in spring 2020 ending in a grade of D, F, Incomplete, or Withdrawal, compared to 18% in spring 2019.

About 25% of undergraduates took advantage of the credit/no credit (CR/NC) flexible grading policy in at least one course in spring 2020. Overall, freshmen and juniors were most likely to use the policy. Baccalaureate students were more likely to use the policy than students in associate programs, and the more courses students took, the more likely they were to use the policy.3 There was some variation in the frequency of students taking advantage of the CR/NC policy by course type. Entry-level Quantitative Reasoning courses stood out with particularly high rates of CR/NC policy use (at 35%, compared to 28-32% for most other course types).4 There was also large variation across colleges in how often the policy was applied. The lowest rate of students using the policy for at least one course at a given college was 16%, and the highest was 45%.5

Application of credit/no credit policy to failing and low-pass grades

The flexible grading policy was intended to offer students flexibility and protection during uncertain and challenging times, acting as a buffer for student grade point average (GPA). In addition to the overall descriptive results above, we conducted analyses on two distinct conditions for using the flexible grading policy: whether a student who received an F grade converted it to an NC grade or not, and whether a student who received a low pass grade (C-, D+, D, or D-) converted it to a CR grade. We supplemented basic descriptive statistics with multiple regression analyses that allowed us to account for student characteristics and college of enrollment to better capture the relationship between student traits and use of the CR/NC policy. 6

2 CUNY’s experience with Spring 2020 withdrawal rates mirrored national trends: Withdrawal rates remained unchanged from pre-pandemic levels, with the peak in withdrawal activity shifting from March to April. (https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/nscblog/new-research-center-report-shows-covid-19-effects-on-postsecondary-enrollment/). 3 Among freshmen, 29% used the flexible grading policy, compared to 24% of sophomores, 27% of juniors, and 19% of seniors. Among,

baccalaureate students, 27% used the policy, compared to 23% of students in associate programs. The more courses students took, the more likely they were to use the policy: 29% of students who took four courses used the policy compared to 6% of students who took only one course. We also observed some differences by demographic characteristics, not adjusting for course characteristics or grades: 29% of male students used the policy vs. 22% of female students. White students were slightly less likely to opt into the policy

than other students (23% vs. 25-27%). 4 Course type was defined by CUNYFirst course requirement designation codes. The other categories were: Required Core – English, Required Core - Life and Physical Sciences, Flex Core - Creative Expression, Flex Core - Individual and Society, Flex Core - Scientific World, Flex Core - US Experience in its Diversity, Flex Core - World Cultures & Global Issues, Other, and Unknown or College Option. 5 Campus liaisons to the CR/NC policy implementation group explained that some variation between colleges might be due to existing policies on some campuses to automatically convert failing grades to non-credit for some students, particularly freshmen or new transfers. Such institution-wide grade changes may not have been recorded at the time we conducted analyses. Students at campuses with such policies had less reason to request individual course changes. 6Regression models included race, gender, full-/part-time status, class standing, age, Expected Family Contribution, whether student was a first-time freshman, transfer, or continuing student, and which college the student was enrolled in. The Low Pass analysis also included the student’s original grade.




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Overall, of the 38,750 Fail grades in the Spring 2020 term, 69% were converted into NC determinations. While freshmen were most likely to apply the CR/NC policy overall (not considering the grade converted), when we restrict analysis to students who actually had failing grades (in which freshmen are over-represented) they were the least likely to convert an F to an NC. Also, part-time students, men, associate-seeking, and Hispanic students were less likely to convert F grades to NC. Multiple-regression analysis confirmed that freshmen were less likely to convert F grades to NC compared to other students with more credits, even when controlling for other student and course characteristics. Differences by race appeared much smaller after controlling for other student and course characteristics.7

There were 37,878 low-passing grades of C-, D+, D, or D- in spring 2020. A little fewer than 60% of those grades were converted to CR. Again, freshmen were least likely to change their low-letter grade to a credit determination (54%), but, unlike with failed courses, seniors were most likely to do so (69%). Overall, full-time students, women, and associate-seeking students were somewhat less likely to convert low-pass grades to credit determinations, not controlling for other student and course characteristics.8 The rate at which low-pass grades were converted to CR, by college, varied from 39% to 80%. With some variation, overall those colleges where relatively few students converted F grades to NC also had relatively fewer students convert low-pass grades to NC.

Application for graduation

The number of students who applied for spring graduation this year was very similar to numbers from previous years (26,072 in spring 2020 compared to 26,135 in spring 2019 and 25,382 in spring 2018). Once degree reviews that are currently in progress are complete, we can compare actual graduation results.

Discussion and implications of academic outcomes

A direct comparison of spring 2020 grades to spring 2019 grades should be interpreted with caution, as instructors in focus groups reported altering their courses in many ways to accommodate remote instruction and learning conditions under the pandemic and shutdown. That said, these academic results suggest that the CR/NC flexible grading option and extended withdrawal date were successful in insulating students from poor course outcomes during a challenging instructional period. They also may have reinforced one another, with the CR/NC grading option reducing pressure on students to withdraw from courses.

There are some indications that the protective policies may have had more impact at senior colleges than community colleges. Unlike for bachelor’s programs, there was a very slight increase in the withdrawal rate for students in associate programs in spring 2020 compared to 2019, despite the extension of the withdrawal deadline. There was also lower uptake of the CR/NC grading option in associate programs, even after controlling for student and course characteristics. First-time freshmen did not use the CR/NC policy to replace failing or low-pass grades as often as more advanced students and it will be worth monitoring whether this impacts their academic progress in the future.

7 The model found no difference in use of the policy between White and Hispanic students who had received F grades. The estimated difference between Hispanic and Asian students shrunk half the size after controlling for other student and course characteristics. 8 Black and Hispanic students were less likely to convert low passing grades to CR compared to White and to Asian students (56% for both Black and Hispanic students, compared to 66% for White and 67% for Asian students). Pathways Required Core Quantitative Reasoning and Life and Physical Science courses were the most likely to have course grades converted to CR (at 65% and 60%, respectively), while the remaining Required and Flexible Core courses were in the low- to mid-50% range. In general, regression models confirmed many of the differences outlined with the descriptive statistics, with some additional findings: the differences by race/ethnicity that we observed in our descriptive statistics either disappeared or changed direction depending on which Low Pass grade the student received. For example, an average CUNY student who was White and received a C- grade would change it to a CR about 53% of the time, compared to 44% and 43% of the time for an average student who was Black or Hispanic, respectively. However, when the original grade was a D-, Black students converted the grade to a CR 74% of the time compared to 71% of the time for White students and 68% of the time for Hispanic students.


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Focus Group and Survey Research Findings

CUNY partnered with Ithaka S+R, an independent non-profit research group, on a pro bono basis, to conduct focus groups with undergraduate students and faculty to learn about their academic experiences following the transition to remote instruction. Over the course of two weeks in June 2020, Ithaka S+R researchers conducted nine focus groups with a total of 46 undergraduate students, and nine group interviews with a total of 37 full-time and contingent faculty members. Student and faculty participants were selected from among groups of volunteers to represent a wide range of majors and disciplines and almost all CUNY undergraduate colleges. All 18 focus groups were conducted virtually. (Additional details about procedural methods and analysis are provided in Appendix B.) Most CUNY undergraduate colleges conducted some kind of student survey during spring 2020 to assess experiences

during the term. Fourteen out of the 18 undergraduate colleges that transitioned to remote instruction reported that they

had surveyed students and shared their results with OIRA.9 The variation in survey content and forms prevented us from

directly aggregating survey results across colleges. 10 However, all the colleges asked at least some similar questions and

had similar motivations for the surveys, so OIRA reviewed the results and grouped findings into common themes. Overall,

many themes gleaned from the college surveys mirrored findings from the student focus groups, so we present results

from both below under thematic headings.

Overall preference for in-person courses and varied satisfaction with remote instruction

In direct survey questions about preferences for in-person versus online instruction, a majority of respondents always reported that they preferred in-person instruction and felt that they learned better that way. Despite these findings, students at some, but not all, colleges also expressed relatively high levels of satisfaction with their remote instruction courses and some reported increased interest in taking online courses in the future. 11 Overall, these findings, combined with the course outcomes, suggest that while students missed many aspects of the in-person college experience (discussed in more detail below) or found the sudden transition to remote instruction challenging, they were generally able to adapt to remote instruction. Loss of designated spaces for learning and difficulty focusing on online courses Throughout the focus groups, students described how the change in their learning environments from campus to home impacted their focus and motivation. The following quote captures the general difficulty most students expressed in being able to be as productive at home as they were on campus:

9 Each college designed and conducted its own student survey, with substantial variation in content and format from college to college. A few colleges simply added new questions to their course evaluations, some administered short surveys, and others administered and analyzed detailed surveys. Not all colleges reported survey response rates. Of those that did, response rates varied from less than 10% to 22%, which is a typical range for student surveys conducted at CUNY. At some colleges, fewer than 200 students responded to the survey, while at others there were around 3,000 respondents. 10 OIRA considered administering a University-wide student survey about academic experiences, but decided not to after learning that

many campuses had conducted their own. Campus Institutional Research Directors expressed concern throughout the semester about student survey fatigue (from two University-wide surveys on health/well-being and economic security and surveys from individual faculty and external organizations) and general information overload during a highly stressful time. For similar future circumstances, it may be useful for the Central Office to begin coordinating assessment plans with colleges in the early stages to avoid duplicative efforts across campuses. 11 For example, one college asked students to compare their in-person learning experience with their online experience in the same course: 52% of students reported that they learned more in person than online, 39% said they learned about the same, and 9% said they learned more online. Despite the majority preference for the in-person part of the course, 86% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I am satisfied with the online experience associated with the course.”


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When you're in a classroom you're going to be more focused on what you're being taught, because that's gonna be right in front of you. Whereas if you're in your house you're going to be like ‘Oh, let me do this, let me do this’, and you're not going to be actually focusing on what you have to learn. And at that point, your education turns [from] let me learn everything I can to let me just get the grade I need to pass.

Several college surveys collected information about which aspects of the online instructional experience were most challenging or beneficial for students. Students often reported a general difficulty adjusting to online courses or focusing attention while studying from home. One student wrote:

I find it personally hard to feel like I’m in a class while I’m at home in my pajamas. It’s hard to turn my brain on to school mode. I struggle to simply sit in front of my computer and focus on an hour long lecture as though it is the same as being in a classroom. Some of my professors do not even turn on their cameras so we are forced to stare at a blank screen while they ‘teach.’ I miss going to campus for class and study time because it puts me in a better mental state to do work. I cannot focus and lack motivation when I am in my house.

This challenge was likely exacerbated by students and instructors’ unfamiliarity with online learning, the rapid transition from mostly in-person to fully-remote instruction, and the stay-at-home order in New York State in early spring that severely limited students’ ability to seek out spaces other than home for participating in classes. On several surveys where students were asked about conditions for studying, more students reported concerns about a

private/quiet place to study than about computer or internet access.12 One student wrote:

Many of us do not have the benefit of a comfortable and private learning environment from where we can

comfortably take exams, do homework and take tests. I live with 7 other people in a 2-bedroom apartment and

share my room with my sister and mom. As my sister is also in college doing online learning through Zoom, it is

quite difficult [to] concentrate...

Another said:

Because we’ve moved to distance learning, our socio-economic backgrounds and situations have been forced into

our learning environment. Whereas during physical classroom sessions, those barriers disappear as we are all able

to learn in the same classroom and benefit from the same available resources. Being at home has forced us to

confront that without a physical environment, we are not all privileged in the same regard. Some of us don’t have

our own rooms, WiFi, personal laptops, etc.

Some faculty in focus groups believed that recreating structures of social accountability that students experience in face-to-face courses is crucial to successful online instruction. Students in the focus groups described peer interaction in class as valuable for aiding learning and comprehension, and professors viewed it as equally important to motivation. Some

12 For example, at one community college, 20% of students had difficulty securing the necessary technology for courses, just under 30% reported that maintaining internet access was difficult or very difficult, but over 55% had trouble finding a quiet place to work, with 27% reporting that it was very difficult. At a highly selective senior college, almost all students (98%) had internet access (though 29% said their internet access was not reliable), 85% of students owned a desktop or laptop computer, and 99% owned a smartphone. However, 33% indicated that they did not have a private space in which to participate in live online class sessions and 31% indicated that they lacked a private space in which to complete homework assignments.


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faculty reported success with fostering a sense of community through WhatsApp groups. Others considered piloting buddy programs to reinforce student engagement in future semesters. Students desire communication with instructors and a balance of asynchronous and synchronous instruction

Both faculty and students in the focus groups reported a wide range of experiences with emergency online learning during the spring 2020 term. Aside from the general challenge of adjusting to learning from home, students’ experiences appeared to depend largely upon their individual professors and courses. Their professors’ communication with students, instructional styles, flexibility, and approaches to assessment all influenced students’ satisfaction with individual courses and the experience of remote instruction overall.13 As one student explained:

There was one really good teacher who had a scheduled Zoom meeting at the same time twice a week. So, that was really good and helpful. She was very helpful. There were these other professors who didn't communicate at all, and just like at the finals just gave us an assignment. And, we wouldn't know how to communicate with them.

The ways in which faculty used synchronous and asynchronous instruction varied greatly from instructor to instructor, and

students appear to want a balance between the different modes. Most students in focus groups greatly appreciated having

asynchronous components to their courses, especially the ability to review recordings of past lectures.14 Fully

asynchronous courses, however, especially those that had few touchpoints between students and instructors or lacked

clear milestones, were challenging for students. Students at a highly selective senior college also expressed this feeling in

survey comments. One recommended, “Requiring the professors to do some type of audio/video learning instead of just

assigning readings and leaving it to us to interpret on our own.” Another student remarked, “For the classes that do not

host class sessions and just operate through written ‘blog posts’ and submitting assignments by following along on the

syllabus, learning is substantially hindered.”

Faculty in focus groups reported receiving different guidance for asynchronous and synchronous instruction based on their department and college. For instance, some were advised to go fully asynchronous, while others did not know it was an option. When choosing how to present course material remotely, some faculty described a tension between student engagement and student equity. Some professors said they originally planned to offer synchronous instruction to maintain student engagement, but had to recalibrate and offer more asynchronous options when they found that not enough students could join live classes because of constraints on access to computers, the internet, or time while handling increased work hours during the pandemic. Challenges from the wide variety of technology and instructional approaches used for remote instruction One broad theme that emerged in focus groups is the wide degree of variation between courses and instructors, and the difficulty that sometimes caused for students. Focus group moderators reported that students seemed overwhelmed by the variety of online platforms and their features being used across courses—or even within a given course. Students struggled to understand and recall what was presented and where, and where to go for various activities, assignments,

13 Some student focus group participants and some survey responses particularly noted concerns with remote exam conditions. On

one senior college departmental survey, student comments indicated that they were very concerned about the conditions and logistics of exam-taking. Students particularly noted connectivity issues for exams hosted on the LMS and the challenge of taking a timed test

on an unstable platform. At another school, 71% of students reported having challenges with sufficient time for a test. 14 This finding also appeared in surveys. A department at one highly selective senior college surveyed students on professors‘ delivery approaches. Multiple students across courses commented on the benefits of recorded lectures, like letting students re-watch lectures and view them at their own pace. Recorded lectures also seem to have special value for online instruction when students fear missing out on course content if they lose internet access or have technical problems during a live class session.


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and resources. Students repeatedly voiced interest in having one centralized online platform for their coursework. For example, one student explained, “[The learning management system (LMS)] just kept everything in one place. So, I didn't have to go searching for it, which was really helpful”.15 This issue was also identified in student comments on the survey at one school. One said, “It would be nice if all the professors used the same platform. Some used [the LMS], others used zoom. Some used [the LMS] for assignments, others email, others dropbox.” Another said, “It would be helpful if the class format was somewhat more consistent. My brain and computer are struggling to keep up with which professor is using which lecture style, which category in [the LMS] has which information...It’s all over the place.” In contrast, most faculty focus group participants seemed to want to quilt together a customized collection of platforms to best support their learning goals for students. One faculty member acknowledged the need for integration, but explained the need for faculty choice when it comes to platforms:

I think CUNY really needs to think about how do we integrate [various different platforms] across CUNY so that everyone in every discipline really has a choice of the things they need to make their classes as robust, dynamic, and interactive as possible.

Students and faculty in focus groups frequently commented on the limitations of CUNY’s LMS. They claimed it is not user-friendly, and its functions do not meet the needs of all content areas. Students desire more institutional supports Students in focus groups experienced varying levels of support from their instructors, but most felt CUNY and their individual colleges could have done more to support them during spring. Participants expressed frustration about student services, particularly financial aid and the registrar’s office, not being responsive to their questions or needs. One student shared: “When I'm emailing them no one responds. I've emailed people before and they still haven't responded for ages.” According to participants, these challenges existed prior to the pandemic, but they were exacerbated when these services were moved online and there was no person-to-person option to turn to. Students who had come to depend on tutoring services found it difficult to locate these services online, and when they could, they were less satisfied with the quality of tutoring. Students also wanted more communication with their advisors as they navigated the many academic changes brought on by the move to virtual learning. Some students also expressed desire for more mental health services:

I feel like CUNY kind of lacked with [offering mental health support], because I remember they only sent me like one email throughout the whole semester saying if you feel like you need to talk to someone or you're going through hard times, go seek out the counseling center.

Other students stated that they wanted to see more creative ways of offering mental health supports, because the current services were not meeting students’ needs.

15 The variety of approaches to course delivery also limited administrators’ ability to monitor student engagement in courses. OIRA created a dashboard to monitor students’ time spent on the LMS and identify infrequent usage. Both analysts who compiled the data and dashboard users noted that it was very difficult to interpret the meaning of usage patterns because there were no common expectations for LMS usage across courses. A course with very few or no LMS logins could indicate an instructor who was experiencing great difficulties teaching remotely, or simply one who had chosen platforms other than the LMS to communicate with students.


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Faculty want more instructional support For participants in the faculty focus groups, experiences with emergency remote instruction were influenced by their prior experience with online education platforms, and their willingness or capacity to adapt to new platforms quickly during the transition. Prior to the emergency switch to digital learning, faculty across CUNY did not have standard requirements around technology use and therefore did not share a common baseline of technology experience or knowledge. For example, some faculty had already used the LMS extensively in their face-to-face courses, so they started with some familiarity with the platform that they were able to build on when converting their courses to remote instruction. Other instructors entered fully-online instruction with little to no experience with using the LMS or other technology that supports remote instruction, making the transition to the virtual context more difficult.16 Participating focus group faculty described how information technology (IT) centers and individual departments across the colleges mobilized to provide them with LMS training and other IT support. Most faculty commended the quality of this technological support, though a few indicated that these tutorials felt sparse or piecemeal. Some faculty members described similar support from their departments in transitioning to online instruction, but others said they received little guidance:

I would have loved… some pedagogical help. There were workshops on how to use [the LMS], how to create assignments and quizzes, which is all good—I need those nuts and bolts—but it also would have been helpful for me to know how to frame my content so that it … work[ed] a little bit better on a virtual platform.

The desire for more evidence-based training in online pedagogy recurred across focus groups. Concerns about some aspects of learning in the remote environment Faculty and students alike in the focus groups worried that student learning had been impacted by the rapid transition to remote instruction. Both faculty and students felt that lab and skills-based courses (like training for psychological counselors) were particularly difficult to deliver remotely, and especially asynchronously. One biology professor reflected: “As far as concepts, I think you can kind of do it. It’s not ideal, because you remove a lot of their decision-making abilities when you do it online. But,” she continued, “skills are impossible [to teach]. It’s just not do-able.” Instructors from many other disciplines also expressed their belief that skill and technique-acquisition require in-person or at least synchronous interaction. Even English instructors worried that student growth in writing and critical thinking suffered because they could not work face-to-face with students or facilitate synchronous dialogue in the way they used to. When instruction was largely asynchronous, students felt they missed out on learning from their classmates’ questions in class and subsequent conversation. The online environment felt more transactional, especially in asynchronous models or large classes. Some faculty members detailed creative solutions to maintaining the personal interactions both students and faculty value, like simulation experiences, WhatsApp groups, buddy systems, and collaborative projects.

16 In a few college surveys, students specifically noted that their instructors were unfamiliar with technology used in remote

instruction. One school asked students, “Which of the following technological issues was a challenge for you during distance learning? (Check all that apply from among ten options). Twenty-two percent of respondents selected “the instructor was unfamiliar with required technologies or applications,” and this was by far the most selected response to the question. Another school surveyed both students and faculty and compared their responses. Interestingly, students and faculty had different perceptions about who displayed more discomfort or lack of familiarity with the required tools. Students were more likely to select instructors’ discomfort as the biggest challenge with courses, rather than their own (45% vs. 33%). Faculty thought that considerably more students were uncomfortable with the technology than they themselves were (66% vs. 32%).


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Faculty concerns for students generally during the shutdown In some ways, the shift to remote instruction made it possible or necessary for faculty to observe their students’ lives in new ways. Faculty in the focus groups seemed acutely aware of, and at times surprised by, the challenges their students’ faced. They related how many students took on increased caregiving responsibilities for their own children or other family members, held jobs as emergency or essential workers, and shared laptops and physical spaces with other members of their household. Faculty expressed their concerns about the negative impacts on vulnerable students, and on student retention and motivation. CUNY faculty described how, in the move to emergency online instruction, struggling students struggled more. They feared that adult learners, many of whom had not used technology in their secondary education, were especially at risk of disengagement. In general, faculty were sensitive to the challenges the pandemic presented to student motivation: “Most students had a lot bigger fish to fry than writing an English paper,” one instructor shared. Strength of the CUNY community While the emergency shift to online instruction and the pandemic itself presented daunting challenges for faculty in our focus groups, they identified many strengths in the response of the CUNY community. In spite of increased workload, many faculty members felt that the move online stimulated their creativity and helped them to refine their learning objectives. Faculty leaned on their professional networks and home departments to problem-solve collaboratively. In fact, during some of the focus group sessions, faculty used the chat feature to share some of their preferred practices and resources, and applauded or comforted each other. Professors also voiced appreciation for campus IT services’ responsiveness and patience. Finally, time and again, professors commended student resilience and dedication. Faculty engrossed themselves in teaching and student service, and they felt that their empathetic bond with students deepened in this time of crisis.

Implications and Recommendations Course grades from spring 2020 generally compare favorably with those from spring 2019, and it appears that many

students were able to take advantage of CR/NC flexible grading practices and an extended course withdrawal deadline.

However, focus group findings and survey results indicate that students and faculty found the transition to emergency

remote instruction challenging and missed many aspects of in-person, on-campus courses. Some student feedback

captured from the focus groups and campus surveys suggests concrete ways that colleges could improve the remote

learning experience for students. More generally, they suggest that instructors’ actions and approaches to online courses

have important impacts on students’ experiences in those courses. We recommend that OAA and colleges consider the

actions below to address some of the issues identified by focus groups and surveys:

1. Encourage instructors to maintain regular communication with students throughout the term and while focusing on asynchronous instruction, supplement with synchronous interactions, which students say they value. Asynchronous instruction offers students valuable flexibility, and synchronous interactions give students opportunities to connect with instructors and one another. Communications between instructors and students will be particularly important while instruction is delivered predominantly online. In focus groups, both students and faculty noted that they had gotten a chance to know one another in-person before transitioning to remote instruction, which many believed had made the transition easier, and they expressed concern that they would not have that opportunity in fall.

1. Create opportunities for students to interact with classmates to support learning and foster engagement and accountability. Interactions can take many forms including group work, “buddy” systems, and group communication channels, as well as opportunities for students to participate in synchronous course sessions.


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2. Create clearer guidance for instructors and more consistency for students around which platforms and tools are used for which purposes to make it easier for students to manage their commitments across courses (e.g., synchronous content and interaction on Zoom, asynchronous courses and homework through the LMS). A broad group of faculty should be involved in establishing guidance to represent the needs of diverse disciplines and course types and determine when it is appropriate for instructors to deviate from common guidelines because of the unique needs of a course.

3. Encourage instructors to take advantage of technology by recording lectures or course sessions—with appropriate

notification and permissions—and making them available for students to re-watch and study. Recording class sessions in which students participate will require establishing terms for students to consent to recording and clear expectations for allowable uses and dissemination.

4. Continue to offer faculty professional development in both the uses of recommended technologies and ways to

adapt pedagogy for remote instruction. Pedagogical training could address course structure, norms for communication and participation, learning artifacts, and assessments. Thoughtful approaches to asynchronous instruction can mitigate some of the concerns that students and faculty have about the limitations of mostly asynchronous instruction.

5. Consider whether campus or other community spaces can be opened to give students access to quiet study spaces and reliable internet service that would help them concentrate on courses. Consider allowing students to access the CUNY campus that is closest to their home as well as the one where they are enrolled to minimize travel and associated risks.

6. Communicate clearly with students about why in-person instruction is not feasible, and the administration’s decision-making process and trade-offs. Faculty and students in focus groups appeared inclined toward accepting difficult decisions when they understood the reasons for them.

Students’ discomfort with remote instruction in spring 2020, as expressed in surveys and focus groups, was likely

exacerbated by lack of experience with online instruction, the fact that courses originally designed as in-person were

rapidly converted to online, and the general stress in their lives caused by the pandemic and shutdown. There are

reasons to be hopeful that educational experiences will improve in fall 2020 and beyond as both students and

instructors have gained valuable experience with online teaching and learning and as the pandemic conditions in the

New York City area are better contained than they were when research was conducted in spring and early summer.

Implementing the recommendations above could also improve students’ experiences and signal responsiveness to their

concerns.


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Appendix A: Academic Outcomes

Table 1. Original Grade Distribution for Spring 2019 and Spring 2020, and Distribution of Grades Converted to "CR"

Grade Group Spring 2019

(%) Spring 2020

(%)

Distribution of Original Grades Converted to CR

Spring 2020 (%)

A 43.1 51.9 2.2

B 28.2 24.1 21.6

C 13.4 9.8 45.6

D 4.4 3.4 29.4

F 5.7 5.2 0.0

Other (e.g., INC, P, etc.) 5.2 5.6 0.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Table 2. Percentage of Undergraduates Who Used the Flexible Grading Policy, by College

College Total % Used Policy

Senior Colleges

Baruch 14,520 37.8%

Brooklyn 13,110 24.8%

City 11,427 34.4%

Hunter 15,236 20.8%

John Jay 12,582 27.1%

Labor & Urban Studies 44 9.1%

Lehman 11,304 19.9%

Medgar Evers 4,793 26.4%

NYCCT 13,695 25.4%

Professional Studies 2,073 12.2%

Queens 14,951 28.0%

Staten Island 10,470 29.5%

York 6,341 23.4%

Community Colleges

BMCC 21,001 23.8%

Bronx 8,092 31.2%

Guttman 840 45.0%

Hostos 5,815 18.9%

Kingsborough 8,863 18.7%

LaGuardia 12,687 15.5%

Queensborough 10,812 20.9%

Senior Colleges 130,546 27.0%

Community Colleges 68,110 21.8%

Total 198,656 25.2%


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Appendix B: Virtual Focus Group Procedures and Data Analysis All 18 focus groups were conducted virtually. In the session introduction, the researchers acknowledged the urgent circumstances surrounding the shift to remote instruction, and that the Spring 2020 term did not represent business-as-usual online teaching and learning. They encouraged participants to reflect on aspects of their experiences that may have been unique to the crisis at hand, as well as those that may have been more specific to the online context more broadly. The student focus groups were sorted into smaller breakout sessions, which were organized by three general areas of discussion: 1) Participant introductions and description of how the Spring term went for them; 2) Supports or tools used or needed to navigate online learning; and 3) Students’ greatest concerns and recommendations for the Fall 2020 term. A number of students experienced technical difficulties and were either unable to join via video, were repeatedly disconnected, or had to drop out of the focus group part-way. Faculty focus groups were more informal in nature than the student focus groups. Each session was led by two Ithaka S+R researchers, who briefly introduced the study and answered participants’ questions. Faculty were invited to introduce themselves and summarize their experiences with remote emergency instruction during the Spring 2020 term and reflect on each other’s responses. Follow-up questions guided faculty to reflect on creative solutions they may have employed and successes achieved, supports provided to them and their students by CUNY, and recommendations for future terms. Students were compensated for participation with a $20 Amazon gift card, which was delivered remotely following the session. Faculty were not compensated for focus group participation. The researchers took extensive notes during the focus group sessions. After each session, they reviewed their notes for completeness and accuracy, and developed summary memos with analytic themes. Data analysis was conducted using open thematic coding, whereby the researchers identified themes across all interview notes and summaries, discussed them for further refinement, and then listened to the audio recordings of all interviews to confirm or adjust the themes and their content, as well as identify suitable quotes.

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