participate in those modes of instruction as Winona narrated

participate in those modes of instruction as Winona narrated:
So they recently . . . so I guess, my college, had like, before . . . it was the college that
used to be a Indigenous boarding school, like in a couple of towns over. And they
recently had, like, I don’t know . . . like some panels on the clock tower that were I think
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mortifying . . . like the use of Indigenous boarding schools. They recently took them
down and had like a big, what is it called? Like, like a ceremony to like, honor the people
who have been impacted by boarding schools and acknowledge the history in which they
took place then, right? So I think like, in circumstances like that, you could use HyFlex to
help people participate in like, the . . . what’s the word I’m looking for? The reparation of
that, you know what I’m saying? Like, you could make that like a piece of that if you
wanted to. I can see that like working together. Other than that, I’m not like 100% Sure,
like, I’m sure like the NAC could use this instead. There’s a . . . there’s like a Native
American Coalition on campus to like, I’m sure that they could benefit from that as well.
But I don’t know exactly like how you would make that happen. You know what I mean?
Lack of . . . representation. Yes, exactly. And, and the people who teach education are
like, majority White women, like all of them, even now, like even at this school, like, the
College of Education is run by a bunch of like middle aged White women, all of them.
As these participants indicated, their HyFlex experience could be improved or augmented by
applying critical perspectives and practices. Institutions could improve the student experience in
all modes of instruction by implementing hiring practices that are more representative of the
student body. Academic disciplines could improve the overall experience, including HyFlex, by
using a decolonizing lens as they develop programs and design curriculum. One other way to
improve the experience in HyFlex as noted by these participants is to provide bidirectional
means of feedback as Lyle explained:
I wouldn’t say that I’ve had to . . . I never encountered any struggles with any of the
HyFlex courses. Well, maybe like how I said like in the parking lot when I was like,
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online. There are days where that was like windy, like really windy, and the network
connection wasn’t really quite solid. So I will be jumping in and out of class a lot . . . and
yeah, just having like, a little like, opinion box. So like, we will give and get more
feedback and, and just looking to make the classroom a better working environment
virtually. Feedback, I think is very, very useful. I know that a lot of lecturers and tutors
from my past have like used feedback. And I know this, like the voice of the students can
. . . can offer the teacher a better advantage and how to maintain the learning
environment, as well as how, in what better ways they can approach the materials with
the students, so everyone will be understanding?
Lyle’s call for a bidirectional feedback process may not be as grave as the call to decolonize
HyFlex, but it was a very important point. Feedback is essential for improving human
performance. Teachers need to improve their teaching, and students need to improve their
academic performances. Bidirectional feedback can help both teachers and students do better in
their respective purviews. This is true for every mode of instruction, and as HyFlex gains
popularity and more faculty are learning to implement HyFlex, the need for student feedback is
critical at this stage.
Indigenous participants in this study identified diversity, self-pacing, and the flexibility to
choose a mode of participation as the best features of HyFlex learning. Although they liked these
features, they also identified ways their HyFlex experiences could be improved. They identified
bidirectional feedback as a critical component to improve HyFlex. They also called for
decolonizing education, so their stories are told accurately. Participants reported their schools
were too White and there was not sufficient representation of people of color at their college.
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Because they perceived HyFlex as a novel way of teaching and learning, they saw HyFlex as
being at a critical moment in which it could go in one of two directions: HyFlex could be
innovative not just in terms of technology use and pedagogical approach but also in terms of
social justice practices in the HyFlex ecosystem. Participants expressed tacit hope HyFlex will be
innovative beyond integration of technology and instruction and saw HyFlex as fertile soil for
social justice practices that promote critical consciousness and practice. The other direction they
perceived with apprehension, HyFlex could go is that HyFlex will innovate in terms of
technology-pedagogy integration, but that it will be more of the same when it comes to social
justice and critical consciousness. If practices in the HyFlex ecosystem remain critically neutral,
there is risk HyFlex learning will become an extension of the status quo. In the next section, I
present the findings of what participant mothers in the study had to say.
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