Theme 3: Disability in HyFlex - Flexible Learning Environments: Minoritized College Students’ Experiences in HyFlex

Theme 3: Disability in HyFlex
One of my interests in this research was to find out about the experiences of students with
disabilities in HyFlex. I was able to gain some insights about the experiences of two participants
who identified as having at least one disability and from a third participant who did not consider
herself disabled but explained her academic experience was constrained during the COVID-19
global pandemic due to debilitating conditions resulting from an auto immune disease she has
developed in recent years. Because of her compromised immune system, Isabel was at increased
risk during the pandemic, but being able to attend HyFlex courses online had allowed her to
continue in her program without taking risks of exposure to the virus. Lorena struggled with
ADHD and relied on assistive technology to participate in her HyFlex courses. Robbie had
multiple disabilities including depression, anxiety, ADHD, and a form of arthritis resulting from
a severe accident in which he broke his foot in multiple places as a child.
For these participants HyFlex has been an important part of their student experience, and
they reported being overall satisfied with their HyFlex experiences. In the next subsection, I
present what these participants reported to be the best features of HyFlex learning for them and
then present some of Robbie’s thoughts about how to improve the HyFlex experience.
Best HyFlex Features for Students With Disabilities. One of the most popular features
of HyFlex mentioned repeatedly by most participants is the ability to mix and match
synchronous and asynchronous participation. Combinations of synchronous and asynchronous
options are characteristics of HyFlex by nature. This application of HyFlex design, specifically
the accessibility principle, is congruent with and supports application of UDL principles in each
mode and the overall course. Participants explained scenarios in which they engaged
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synchronously in the lectures and discussions but then reviewed class recordings and readings
asynchronously, as Lorena explained:
Yeah. I think it kind of overlaps. I think, sometimes it’s hard to get your full thought out
in synchronous participation. Especially like, you know, thinking about all the autistic
students I’ve worked with, there’s just a lot of anxiety there. Maybe they have a stutter,
or they know what they want to say, but it’s just taking them a long time to get it out.
And then the longer it takes, I think the more nervous they get. So, I think when you can
participate in a written way or record the video and submit it later on . . . to not have to be
put on the spot and still be engaged in the class. I think that benefits . . . I mean,
everybody, even if you’re just someone who’s shy, right? Like . . . I think that goes back
to like the universal design, but being able to fully participate in the course, regardless of
your comfort level in terms of like answering on the fly. So, I’m not sure you would
gather that from the description if you read about HyFlex. I also think it’s just . . . you
have the opportunity to just keep reviewing what was said or what happened in class, like
they post the recordings of the class. So, if you didn’t understand it, so if you have like an
audio processing disorder, or you know, visual processing, whatever any of the
processing disorders, it’s you can go back and rewatch, and pause and rewatch, and pause
and whatever. So, I think that makes it really accessible to if you have like, no memory,
like, I have no memory unless it’s really interesting and really stuck out to me. So it’s
helpful to be able to go back and be like, wait, what? Sometimes I just tune out, you just .
. . it just happens. So, in that case, I can go back and see what was going on when I zoned
out. So, I think those are the different ways that it might be an unintended benefit.
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As a woman with a late ADHD diagnosis, Lorena found instead of reacting immediately to
prompts or stimuli in her HyFlex courses, she has had ample opportunity to read or watch what
has been said and can formulate an asynchronous response. She believed this has allowed her to
finish her thoughts and be heard completely. In addition to the ability to respond asynchronously,
Lorena also credited her instructor for using UDL principles to purposefully choose short
readings, which she found helpful. She said:
Women often didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD for a long time, but those symptoms have
always been there . . . and the readings are great because they’re usually short, which is
great for someone like me who has ADHD it’s hard for me to read . . . like really hard for
me to read, especially for an extended amount of time . . . I just start thinking about other
things . . . so, the fact that they’re short readings . . . I also have an accommodation, so I
use a screen reader to keep me focused . . . which is really helpful as well.
Evidently, Lorena was highly pleased with the instructional design of her courses. In addition to
being able to respond asynchronously and having concise readings, she also pointed out a benefit
for introverted students as a result of the UDL approach her instructors took to design the
courses. She said:
If you don’t feel comfortable talking in class, you can post on the forum. If you don’t feel
comfortable doing that, you just reach out to the teacher . . . in terms of like presentations,
if you can’t make the presentation synchronously, you just record it. If you don’t feel
comfortable typing out your responses in the discussion post, you can record a video
like . . . I think there’s many opportunities for involvement and participation that make it
really accessible for sure, and all of at least all of the materials that I’ve come across have
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been like the reading ones, they have been made accessible, because they all work with
my screen reader. I would know if they didn’t. So, they’ve all . . . at least the ones that
I’ve taken, have all been really accessible.
Lorena’s experience in her master’s program was positive. She credited her instructors for the
effort they put into designing HyFlex courses using UDL. She has not had any negative
experiences in HyFlex but wondered if students with motor dexterity may have difficulty with
the online path as it requires manipulating a mouse and a keyboard. She was not sure what that
experience would be like but stated she was very pleased with her experience and how the course
design was very accessible despite her disability.
Another participant, Robbie, described himself as disabled in quite a few ways. When
Robbie was a child, he was in a bad accident. In that accident, Robbie broke his foot in multiple
places, resulting in a Lisfranc injury that has continued to deteriorate as time goes by, causing
Robbie more pain and making it difficult to get around on by walking. Not having access to
proper medical care has been terrible for Robbie because he has struggled to succeed
academically in spite of his multiple disabilities. He said:
I grew up in the country, so I did not have access to a really good hospital or any kind of
health care. So, the doctors there just thought it was sprained. And I never got it fully cast
like it should have been. So, I have arthritis now and some cysts in my foot permanently.
So, I use a cane and I’m actually looking at getting in a wheelchair kind of soon. So, I
also have really hypermobile joints that make me prone to kind of degenerative issues
like that . . . and I have ADHD, which makes schooling kind of difficult . . . and other
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good mental health issues. Yeah, so I would say that’s probably the closest I could get to
describe myself like that.
For Robbie, course accessibility was of critical importance as he relied on accessible course
design entirely in grappling with his multiple mental and physical disabilities. Because of his
multiple disabilities, Robbie has been on and off college for about 8 years, but he was
determined to graduate with his bachelor’s degree even though it has taken him longer than it
should to complete his degree. Robbie explained his disabilities has caused him to fall behind He
said:
I’ve always had to take breaks because my ADHD was very unmanaged. And it’s still not
managed very well. I am in the process of that, but it was just so unmanaged, that I was
burning myself out trying to keep up with the pace of classes, and unfortunately, my
ADHD is also impacted by like, it’s not really impacted by . . . but the fact that I have
ADHD plus my disabilities . . . my physical disabilities, made it so that it was a very big
barrier for me to actually physically get to class.
Robbie has had a difficult life, and he has struggled with school throughout his entire academic
experience. HyFlex learning has offered Robbie hope because he can attend online on those days
when the physical pain is too great to make it to class in person. Prior to being in a HyFlex
program Robbie missed a lot of classes and assignments, and his grades suffered as a result. He
said:
And so, I that’s why my grades would drop very often is because I would be in such high
pain that day that I just could not walk to class. You know? I lived on campus for 2 or 3
years, I think, um, and it’s a beautiful campus, but in the wintertime . . . it gets a little
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slick, and if I take one bad fall, then I’m fully out for the semester. So oftentimes, during
high pain days, I just would not go to class. But even though I had, you know, Disability
Services accommodations with my college, which I don’t have anymore, but at the time I
did. You know, there’s only so many days that they will accommodate taking off and that
just was not up to my schedule.
Despite the challenges in Robbie’s life, he has continued to push forward with resiliency and
dignity. Robbie’s sense of agency was the motor that kept him going. HyFlex learning allowed
Robbie to exercise self-determination and pursue his academic goals, even if has taken him
longer to achieve his objective. During our interviews, his sense of agency and self-
determination came across in a graceful manner. Robbie aspired to continue onto graduate school
and envisioned himself in the next 10 years working as a practicing therapist serving specifically
LGBTQ youth.
Isabel was the third participant whose experience warranted a space in this subsection.
Isabel did not identify as a disabled person. On the contrary, she considered herself able and
capable. Her experience was important to mention here because although she was not disabled,
she did suffer from an immune disease that put her at an elevated risk during the COVID-19
global pandemic. HyFlex has allowed her to continue in her master’s program through
synchronous online participation.
During the initial minutes of our first interview, as we were establishing rapport, Isabel
casually removed a wig from her head and objectively commented about how we had something
in common referring to the fact that we both are bald. She explained she had alopecia as the most
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visible symptom of her condition but there were other symptoms of her disease that made her
very vulnerable during the pandemic. She said:
But I have to admit that with the pandemic, the pandemic started, I had to downsize my
job because I had my child at home with me for personal reason. And I am
immunocompromised . . . so I couldn’t afford to get Covid, and so I had to care for my
child at home, who is seven, while my husband work remotely and maintain [supports]
you know, sustain the family we have to divide and conquer, adjust to the situation. That
said, I started doing a master’s degree because I couldn’t be just a mom. And I started . . .
I also . . . circumstances of life . . . I actually develop alopecia. I don’t have hair. So, I’m
bald . . . here, this is a wig.
Isabel did not require ADA accommodations. She did not use any kind of assistive technology
either as she did not have a disability. Her illness, however, has created debilitating conditions
for her, and HyFlex has made it possible for her to attend her graduate-level courses
synchronously via Zoom and engage with classmates in another continent from the safety of her
home. As the pandemic gradually recedes, Isabel planned to continue to attend online, even if the
option to attend in person became available.
Whether it is a physical or learning disability, permanent or temporary, or a temporarily
debilitating condition, HyFlex learning offers opportunities for students whose life experiences
may be constrained by the specter of disability. For Lorena, the best features of HyFlex were the
ability to respond asynchronously to conversation prompts that happen synchronously and the
course accessibility that results from applied UDL principles in the course design. Robbie also
cited accessible course design as one of the main features of HyFlex in addition to the flexibility
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to choose mode of participation as his health circumstances dictate each week. For Isabel, the
most important feature was also flexibility to choose mode of attendance and participation.
HyFlex allowed her to attend synchronously online and to complete her assignments
asynchronously online. The experiences of Isabel, Robbie, and Lorena illustrated some of the
ways HyFlex can promote educational equity and foster agency by allowing students to self-
direct some aspects of their educational experience.
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