Transforming Courses Across Teaching Modalities in Higher Education

: This article explores the transformation of courses among online, traditional, and hybrid modalities with a special focus on transforming an online course into a traditional classroom format. While there has been much written about transforming courses from traditional to online, especially as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has not been much written about the reverse kind of transformation; that is from online to traditional. We have found that you cannot simply use the same course shells and methods that were used in online instruction. This article provides both a context and specific advice regarding how to conduct a successful transformation from online to traditional modalities based on both failures and successes with successes primarily emanating by enlisting students as full partners in this transformation. The article uses three voices (instructor, student, program director) to explore the context of the problem as well as to offer direction to those who undertake such transformations. Although the course cited in this article is a doctoral course in statistical procedures, we think that the lessons learned here transcend this specific course and can be useful in most other courses whether taught face-to-face or online.


Introduction
This study was initiated because of the challenges encountered when we were trying to convert an online course to a face-to-face traditional modality.Although the particular class was a doctoral-level class in statistical procedures, the authors were immediately intrigued by the fact that while much attention in recent years has been directed to transforming traditional classes to an online modality, especially beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, to our knowledge, little attention has been directed to transforming from online to traditional While this article focuses on the transformation from online to traditional, it is important to contextualize this article by first providing a description of the different teaching-learning modalities and how these modalities might be transformed across higher education.In addition, as we continued our collaboration, we realized that there were larger issues regarding course modalities and transformations that have emerged during the past few years which may have been accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Therefore, to offer insight into the broader challenges and opportunities related to transforming higher education courses for adult learners across delivery modalities, we employed a descriptive case study, informed by constructivist theory and adult learning principles, to provide practical insights and recommendations for instructors engaged in course transformation.

Literature Review
Teaching Modalities Moore (1997) explains this in his theory of Transactional Distance, the concepts of distance education and learning relationships, as the separation of the learner and instructor through both time and space.Asynchronous learning is separation of learner and instructor by both time and space, while synchronous learning is separation by space but simultaneous.Traditional or face-to-face learning occurs when the instructor is at the same time and space.Moore (1997;2006) further explains that distance learning also creates a communication or psychological separation, where more dialogue and less structure reduce the distance between student and instructor, while less dialogue and more structure increase the distance.Much of this is also driven by learner autonomy or learner control.This is at the heart of adult learning theory or self-directed learning.
The pandemic taught us how to utilize the three basic modalities of face-to-face or traditional classroom learning with online synchronous and asynchronous opportunities resulting in a broad variety of online settings of teaching and learning (Fabriz et al., 2021).Faculty and institutions began to find the right balance to reduce the distance between students and instructors through the use of integrating all three modalities in what has traditionally been termed Blended, Hybrid, flipped classrooms, or HyFlex.By necessity, institutions and faculty found that they could meet student needs by blending a variety of pedagogies within the three modalities.Faculty began coming back on campus responding to students who were not able to attend physically and needed to remain remote.The integration of synchronous equipment in the classrooms allowed face-to face-students to sit alongside students at a distance.Through a Simulcast system which allows for students to engage in technology-enhanced learning whether in the classroom or via computer off-campus through a number of different platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Adobe, and others.We realized that this was the best of both worlds allowing students to learn with the same instruction and with the same positive results.During the pandemic, many of the aforementioned synchronous providers evolved their platforms to provide significant viable pedagogical opportunities.For example, Google Meet increased capabilities to include breakout rooms and question and answer polling.There were many challenges, mostly the need to clarify roles and responsibilities (Flumerfelt & Banachowski, 2011, p. 236) and gain a better understanding of the best pedagogies to employ.
Much was learned about when and how to coordinate them, and what worked and what did not work.Traditionally, there are some things that are taught better online than in a traditional setting and others that are better traditionally rather than online.This has not changed.

Adult Learners
Despite changing times and opportunities, faculty should not forget that many students are adult learners with specific needs.Adult learning theory can be described in terms of selfdirected learning, clear course goals, structures, and subject matter content being of critical importance that result in a feeling of safety (Milheim, 2012;Philips et al., 2017).Most adult or non-traditional learners return to school bringing rich life experiences and perspectives that serve as a solid platform on which to continue learning.This distinguishes the adult learner from high school students who do not have this range of life experiences.Consequently, the learning experiences of adults should be considered transformative in nature (Mezirow, 2000;Taylor, 2008) and to internalize new knowledge and theories, an adult's prior experiences and former perspectives should serve as the foundation to introduce new knowledge and skills.Knowles (1984) suggests that adult learners are more motivated to learn if the content is relevant to their goals and has an immediacy of application.Due to their maturity, adult or nontraditional learners (as they are sometimes referred to), are characterized as autonomous selfdirected learners who take responsibility for their own learning to fit the needs of their chosen roles.Day, Lovato, Tull, and Ross-Gordon (2011) also found that adult learners should be provided with structure to comfortably and effectively organize their learning.While adults do not always know the specifics of what they want or need to learn, they are nonetheless selfdirected in achieving personal goals albeit not understanding all that goes into achieving those goals.Adult learners' preference for relevance to life situations and autonomy fit nicely with principles of constructivism (Huang, 2002), where educators serve to model the way for adults to emulate in achieving their goals.The purpose of teaching adult learners should be to inculcate lifelong, profound learning practices and related processes into learning experiences that build upon one another (Kroth et al., 2022).

Constructivist Learning Theory
The goal of instruction can be seen to create or develop pedagogies that will enhance a student's abilities to engage in the learning process through active rather than passive actions.The constructivist theory of learning argues that students learn by creating new knowledge based upon their experiences (Gredler, 1997;Uredi, 2013).The constructivist model emphasizes that learners must have a solid base of knowledge, a foundation that is built through traditional teaching and learning methods of reading and lecture and out of class assignments.The Constructivist Model promotes "active construction of new knowledge by the learner based on experiences" (Paily, 2013, p.39) and that "active involvement of students helps them to construct knowledge (Cubukcu, 2012, p. 52).The constructivist theory of learning supports the value of models of instruction where student-centered activities enhance learning through active and reflective processes that are applied and processed in the classroom (Paily, 2013).Learning is not necessarily an individual or passive process but rather a social activity that is related to what is already known by the learner (Pritchard & Woollard, 2010).Dewey thought that learning should be integrated with life and be grounded in active engagement in the real world."The inclination to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living is the finest product of schooling" (Dewey 1916, p.51;Frenette, 2015).
Constructivist learning theories place "less emphasis on the sequence of instruction and more emphasis on the design of the learning environment" (Jonassen, 1994. P. 35).The classroom-learning environment is one that promotes active participation of students and real-life experiences (Uredi, 2013).Research supports positive effects of the constructivist-learning environment such as enhanced academic success of students, promotion of critical thinking skills, increased creativity and positive teachers and student perceptions (Uredi, 2013).In constructivist learning environments "active learning can develop by thinking about the detail of thoughts, experiences, perception, and emotions that come about during experiences" (Cubukcu, 2012, p. 51).

Cognitive load
No discussion of learning in any modality should occur without a conscious awareness of cognitive load theory.With increased pedagogical opportunities comes the need for faculty to become aware of the volume of work that is posted or required given the increased pedagogical modalities that can be blended using online synchronous, asynchronous, and face-to-face instruction.Cognitive load theory (Paas et al. 2003;Sweller et al. 1998Sweller et al. , 2011) ) uses an understanding that working memory (WM) is limited in capacity and duration and helps us to understand the relationship between working or short-term memory and moving concepts into long term memory systems.Understanding this relationship helps both faculty and instructional designers to maximize learning opportunities without supplanting proficient with nonproficient pedagogies.Through the expansion of new technologies and learning modalities such as synchronous and asynchronous learning environments, research has expanded so that the learning environment can influence WM load and learning (Liu et al. 2014).Through the field of forensic psychology, Vredeveldt et al. (2011), illustrate that while working on a task, working memory can be consumed through focus on the learning environment.The assumption is that instructional strategies and emotional factors need to be considered when designing learning environments and choosing which learning modalities or combination, and the overall volume of work will best meet learner needs.
Each of the three authors had an understanding and appreciation of the importance of teaching and learning modalities, adult and constructivist learning theory, and cognitive load, prior to undertaking this study.However, because of our different roles and experiences, our perspectives reflected these differences which helped us to develop a deeper appreciation of the phenomena that we sought to investigate.

Methods
The course that is the subject of the current study was transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic from online to traditional modality.Unlike the many higher education courses that were quickly posted online for delivery during the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, the transformation of this course from online to traditional took place about one year after the emergency COVID-19 campus closures ended.At the time of course delivery, many faculty, were forced to try new online course delivery options.These faculty adopted these new technologies as part of everyday teaching in the classroom.Among the new opportunities that presented themselves were the use of synchronous platforms where faculty and students were separated by space but were teaching and learning at the same time.Real time interactions in this synchronous modality or methods to augment online asynchronous have been used previously but not to the scale seen during the pandemic.
This collaborative effort could probably be most clearly hypothesized as action research since it emerged as an integral part of our work.Edwards-Groves and Rönnerman (2022) contends that action research is indispensable as a form of educational inquiry because it allows professionals to direct their own practice transformations by eliciting and applying new understanding.Hoppe (2019) noted that action research attained greater legitimacy with innovation-focused journals in recent decades, with higher-tier journals increasingly publishing articles that incorporate action research methods.David Coughlin, when talking about action research said, "… let's go after things that matter and do research on how we build collaboration to address them and build rigorous, relevant and reflective methods to cogenerate actionable knowledge" (personal communication, May, 2019).The researchers employed a descriptive case study approach to explore the real-life challenges, opportunities, and insights derived from the experience of transforming a course.The case study approach allows investigators to "study current, real-life cases that are in progress so that they can gather accurate information not lost by time" (Creswell, 2018, p. 97).In this case, investigators collected real-time observations from multiple perspectives, took detailed notes, examined real-time course discussion board postings, and engaged in reflective discussion of their experiences to uncover insights and develop recommendations for future practice addressing the following questions: 1. What factors should be considered when transforming a course for adult learners from one modality to another? 2. How can instructors leverage formative assessment data to inform real-time changes in course delivery?
What follows are the voices of Instructor (Jim), Student (Alicia), and Program Director (Rick) who viewed the problem of transforming from an online to a traditional modality from their unique perspectives which subsequently expanded into a more general examination of transforming among modalities.The use of "voices" as a dialogic approach in inquiry can be used to invite readers into a pseudo-conversation (Bakhtin, 1975;1981) and in this way these voices can be used to contextualize the investigation of phenomena.There can be multiple participants and voices as in this article or just one person who uses different voices in an imaginative manner (e.g., Bernauer, 2012;Um, 2021).However, voices were used here as the most practical way to draw a more complete picture of what actually happened while trying to transform a course from an online to a traditional classroom approach based on the perspectives of critical actors in this process.Because this study does not fit into a traditional qualitative design (such as phenomenology or grounded theory), we did not use coding per se but rather viewed it using critical thinking and drawing on our experiences as educators (see Bernauer, et. al, 2013).

Three voices
While we did not explicitly identify this study as 'action research", it dawned on us that this was the research design that emerged naturally after we began exploring and writing.Although we taught and were similarly taught to identify the research design prior to "collecting data", action research is an approach where there is a seamless transition between practitioner and researcher (see Gaskill, 2013).We suppose this study could also be classified as a case study since the "boundaries are quite explicit given its focus on only our university.However, because this article emerged from our immersion in our "practice" and our respective roles in this practice, it seems that we have indeed engaged in action research.
Jim will first describe what he encountered when he was assigned a traditional classroom setting to teach a doctoral-level course that he had previously taught online for ten years and his perspective as to what transpired as the semester progressed.Alicia will then describe this process from her perspective as doctoral student in this class while Rick, as doctoral program director as well as director of faculty professional development, will then provide a more holistic and practical view of this phenomenon.We think that this three-part approach will allow readers to appreciate this problem in a more complete context which will then hopefully facilitate their ability to transfer findings to their own settings.

Instructor's Voice
(Jim) Perhaps the best way to set the stage for this article is captured in an online discussion that I had with one of my master's students (Noah Firmstone) in an online course that I taught simultaneously with this doctoral class where he talked about the struggle of adapting from a traditional modality to an online one: Dr. B., When the pandemic began in March of 2020, I was in my last semester of completing my undergrad degree.The transition to online learning was certainly strange, but at the time seemed to be the only option.I found myself with a lack of motivation to tune into online classes that were not engaging or interactive in any way.Often times classes would be canceled and we would be left with assignments that just felt like busy work with no real purpose, again adding to the lack of motivation.It was hard to focus and it was often impossible to find a quiet place to actually be able to tune into class.Being at the college level during this time, I know this was even more difficult for younger kids.Young children who were thrown into online learning fell significantly behind in their learning levels when compared with kids in prior years who were in person.The burden for parents was extreme also as many were forced to play teacher with a lot of the actual teachers either going through the learning curve into teaching online or simply not putting forth the effort.
Here is my response: Noah, thanks so much for sharing your experience!I am currently dealing with a reverse issue; that is, converting/transforming an online course back to traditional classroom --I am finding it to be a surprisingly challenging and so since my goal is always to create a "learning classroom" (Cooper & Garner, 2012) I am now asking my students for their ideas and advice as to how we might do this together.And, like any good academic, I am currently collaborating with a colleague and one of my students on an article whose purpose is to describe and analyze this whole matter in order to create a better learning experience and to offer practical advice on how to go about this.
First, it is important to note that I use assessment-driven instruction which I refer to as "integrated assessment" (Author, 1997) in all of the courses that I teach, whether undergraduate, masters, doctoral, online, or traditional courses (Author, 1998;Author, 2017).It should be noted that the course from which this study emanated is a doctoral-level course in statistical procedures and so the criterion of transferability should be kept in mind by readers.This course is not a class on statistics per se but rather how to use statistical procedures and SPSS to analyze quantitative data and is one of the first classes required of our doctoral student cohorts.It is also the case that because my co-authors and I view teaching as more art than science that the same course taught be different instructors can vary greatly both in the way it is taught and the way it is received and perceived by students.As Dewey (1938) so aptly put it: It is not enough that certain materials and methods have proved effective with other individuals at other times.There must be a reason for thinking that they will function in generating an experience that has educative quality with particular individuals at a particular time (p.46) Because integrated assessment is a central component of what follows, generalizing to other contexts and instructional approaches needs to take this into account.While assessmentdriven instruction can sometimes be described as "teaching to the test", which has been perceived both positively and negatively, I have found that if assessments are consistent with the following three criteria that they can serve as powerful forms of instruction.
1. Comprised of essay/open-ended items vs. selected response items such as T/F. 2. Captures the knowledge and skills that the instructor has identified as most important.
3. Given to students at the beginning of a course to help guide both learning and instruction.
As an early opponent of assessment-driven instruction, I am reminded of hearing something like this from a proponent --"teaching to the test is OK if the test is a good one."However, the arguments against high-stakes tests-driven instruction are longstanding (see for example, Harris et al., 2011;Madaus et al., 2009.).Teaching to the test or tailoring your learning to tests or assignments may indeed, not only result in narrowing of the curriculum, but also require large amounts of instructional time being spent on preparing students to do well on highstakes tests.The problem, as many teachers in our nations K-12 schools have discovered, is that these tests may not mesh with their instructional goals or whose timing when administered may be out of synch with instructional plans.However, at the higher-education level, I have found that if assignments are well-constructed and match to my instructional goals then they provide both my students and myself with a roadmap to follow as the term progresses.I have tried to develop assignments that, while they "drive" instruction, are also flexible enough so that individual approaches to learning are honored.In the present case, where the course I taught was a doctoral course on statistical procedures, the assignments were designed to facilitate student understanding of the concepts underlying these statistical procedures and linking these concepts to practical applications using SPSS statistical software, so that students could develop the skills to effectively analyze numerical data.I think that this same approach, focusing on important concepts and then linking these concepts to their practical applications, can also be used in other types of courses and disciplines including English, history, math, science, social studies, etc.While the content and applications may differ, the underling rationale is the same.
Another contextual element is that the course that I was asked to teach in a traditional format was taught in the Spring, 2022 term after nearly two years of the Covid-19 pandemic where the world learned to do online what it had previously done in-person.In my case, I had actually taught the doctoral statistical procedures class online since 2012 when the online doctoral program was launched alongside the traditional program.Hence, I was quite acclimated to teaching online well before the pandemic began; in fact, I had converted the traditional statistical procedures course (as well as other courses) from traditional to online in 2012.
Subsequently, when I was asked to teach this class in a traditional format in 2022, I had a modicum of concern because I had become comfortable with online teaching and learning.However, while I sensed that I might encounter some challenges as I sought to transform my LMS shell and my instruction from an online to a traditional modality, I thought that any required modifications would be relatively minor and that finding solutions would be painless.I soon discovered that I was mistaken on both counts --even with a small doctoral class of seven students, the challenges were much more daunting than I had anticipated.As an online instructor for ten years, I had developed an approach that was honed over those years and which I found to be effective based on student feedback and my own sense of teacher efficacy.One of the first lessons I learned was that teaching online required teacher presence, the level of intervention and degree of visible involvement demonstrated by the instructor is dependent upon the pedagogical choices and personal preferences of the instructor (Bowden, 2012;Costley, 2015;Ravenna, 2012).The pedagogical choices are critical to the learning process and the role of the instructor, while interacting with students in an authentic way (Cranton & Carusetta, 2004).Establishing an LMS course shell, even if well-organized with weekly goals, simply does not adequately engage most students in learning just as lecturing in a traditional classroom without connecting with students is often simply an exercise in academic rhetoric.As I began the academic term asking students who had always been in a traditional setting to adopt and integrate online practices such as working collaboratively to respond and interact to discussion prompts during the week, I found that a mismatch began to emerge almost immediately -similar to trying to fit the proverbial square peg into a round hole.I continued to try and ameliorate this mismatch for approximately two weeks until the students (most notably my co-author Alicia) made it clear that things were simply not working -and it was from student discontent and the forthcoming suggestions from these students that led to what turned out to be a successful transformation from an online LMS and teaching approach back to a traditional format.
I had to ask my doctoral students only once for their help because as adult learners, they immediately proceeded to not only suggest changes but to actively re-structure how we went about learning and teaching reciprocally during our Wednesday evening class.I used a flipped classroom approach where students are more actively involved and helped me shape both what and how I did things in the classroom -while there were seven students in this doctoral class, there were indeed eight teachers!Probably the first thing to notice about this forum that was originally developed for an online class is the number of items and their complexity which was based on the assumption that 1) students made the decision to take online classes which in this case they did not; 2) there was 24/7 access to respond asynchronously; 3) students recognized that online learning requires a special kind of self-discipline since most (but not all) work was done asynchronously and where the routines of the traditional classroom are absent.In retrospect, none of these assumptions were met when I was trying to overlay this forum on a traditional class setting which led to the need to be open to how I might transform this class which then led to listening to and encouraging students to suggest needed changes!See Figure 1.

First Class Session
What follows are the steps that I followed at the first class for this course on statistical procedures.While this is where I tried to overlay my online teaching approach in the traditional classroom setting.I have placed clarifying comments in brackets at the end of each step: 1.I stressed that assignments serve as Advance Organizers (Ausubel, 1963) and include references to relevant sections of the text to promote self-learning that includes knowledge, understanding, and application which is consistent with "assessment-driven instruction" (see Assignment A1 Appendix 1).(This same approach was used when the course was taught online so thus far no "mismatches" arose!). 2. I then stressed the underlying concepts or "Big Ideas" in relation to Assignment A1.This continued my use of Advance Organizers.[I'm not sure to what extent that I did this when teaching the course online, but I just felt for this group of students in the traditional setting that it was important to do so-see Assignment A1]. 3. When it came time to decide what teams would work on which items on Assignment A1 for the next class, students decided this for themselves (This was a change to what I had done online where I randomly assigned teams prior to the first-class session.In retrospect, I could see clearly that students had come to know each other and to form teams based on their predilections-after all these are adult learners.It may be the case that students in a traditional setting get to know each other better than online students which suggests to me that perhaps more synchronous sessions may be beneficial for online students so they have the opportunity to get to know each other better.In addition, perhaps some sessions should be without the instructor present to give students more freedom to be themselves and to learn from each other).
Students would work on the questions posed during the week and they would then do a formal team-led discussion on class day.While this seemed like a reasonable approach, whether I did have some lingering doubts.Then came that first class where Alicia (after talking to her classmates) explained to me that students were simply doing double-work.
To complicate matters (but as it turned out helped matters).I always use a flipped approach based on "measurement driven" instruction (Author, 1998;Author, 2017).
Students respectfully let me know that there was simply a lot of extra work going on because while online offers a 24/7 window for learning, these students signed-up for a traditional format because that is how they prefer to learn.Online learning requires a different kind of discipline compared to the traditional classroom; for example, whereas students and instructor in a traditional face-to-face classroom have direct visual contact and interact intimately via both visual and auditory cues (including assignments), online learners are physically distant and typically engage in mostly (though not completely) in asynchronous interactions.Thus, the impetus for completing readings, assignments, etc. must emanate primarily from self-directed or intrinsic motivation.

Individual Parent and Family Factors
This does not mean that the traditional classroom setting also does not require self-direction but that online learning requires that students regularly set aside time for focused study and posting 5. Regarding A1b, you are asked to explain data structures and to describe how you might use each in your own study which will again may require you to "turn the story" in terms of your Research Questions.Maybe you can begin to share your ideas and questions --we are all eager to collaborate!6. A1c: "Constructs" are what we are really after in research --these include things such as motivation, anxiety, achievement, self-efficacy, satisfaction, etc!However, because we cannot directly see these invisible constructs we develop "operational definitions" and "variables" to represent these constructs.These variables can be defined in different ways (such as discrete and continuous) and then can be further defined by their "levels of measurement".This stuff is important when we get to statistical procedures and so the assignment asks you to describe "in a nutshell" what you have learned.Can you share some of your thoughts here?7. A1d: The only way to learn "statistical notation" is to read the assigned pages (25-29), work your way through the Learning Check on page 28 and Demonstration 1.1 on pp.30-31.Notice that you do not need to submit any report for A1d; however, how about sharing insights and questions with teammates?8. Part II is hands-on work.How about if your team shares your work here for problems 7,11.
You can snoop on the other teams for the other problems!NOTE: Each of you individually need to submit your work for problems 19 and 21 as part of A1.Please remember that the purpose of these exercises is to increase your understanding, so please try and work through these problems before peeking at the answers at the back of the book!Share any questions here!! 9. Finally, how about "snooping and posting" on the other two teams including to see how they solved their assigned problems for Question #8??!! to discussion boards which is sometimes quite challenging when children, household tasks, jobs, and a myriad of other responsibilities are constantly clamoring for attention.

Interim one-week Period between Classes 1 and 2 and Class 2
At this point, while I was feeling some angst about teaching this course in the traditional classroom, I still thought that required changes would be minor.1. Students and Instructor posted responses to the Blackboard tasks for the second class [While some students posted responses to the assigned prompts, it was nowhere near the engagement when I taught this class online.However, I still labored under the illusion that with but a few "tweaks" to my online shell and teaching approach all would be well.
In retrospect, this was indeed an illusion!]. 2. Week 2 Forum: I continued to trust that my online format would work with this traditional class.Also notice that while I did.See Figure 2.

Third Class Session
When I told Rick that I think all of these students are going to earn an "A" grade, he said something like "so…what is the problem…they are all learning and demonstrating a high level of achievement -why shouldn't they all earn an "A": grade?"He was exactly right -why do we feel the need to issue grades based on the Normal Curve especially for doctoral students?While rigor in learning is important, it comes about based on effective teaching practices that are informed by relationship-building and relevancy-building (see Cooper & Garner, 2012).I should have been celebrating student success rather than bemoaning a lack of "spread" among student grades!It was at this session that we began to hit our stride in transforming from an online to an on ground approach!If you look at the Blackboard forum for Week 3 (Figure 2), you will see that we became even more "assessment driven" but in a way that allowed space for each student and student-team to approach tasks on Assignment A2 in a way that made the most sense to them.Each student exhibited great diversity in how they led us through their responses to each Figure 2 Week 3 Overview task with some projecting their work using PowerPoint while others used SPSS (our statistical program) and others used a combination of methods including engaging the class in dialogue.Most importantly, was their recognizing and exhibiting the admonition from Week 3 -"However, you are not expected to always know exactly what to do or how to answer a question-that is what our class sessions are for-to learn collaboratively" that I found most satisfying.Indeed, that is what we did including me as both instructor and fellow learner.I listened to my adult-learner students and began to shape and transform this class to "meet them where they were" and in the process ended up with something new and exciting!I conclude by saying that although I had been teaching this same topic at two universities for about 15 years, that this was the most exciting learning experience that I had!While it all began with relatively high hopes as I sought to transition from an online to a traditional classroom format and encountered confusion along the way, this experience ultimately led to a renewed appreciation for both the subject matter and a re-affirmation that there are no limits to pedagogical creativity.I was reminded that the purpose of education is not to categorize students and issue grades but learning and growth itself.I hope to carry this realization throughout the remainder of my career.

Student's Voice
(Alicia) I entered the program with a small cohort of seven learners and we likely fit the profile of students who would do well in an online program.Our group included several teachers, an instructional designer, a former daycare center director, and a social service agency director.All of us were familiar with online learning.Since the COVID-19 pandemic had forced educational institutions to quickly offer socially-distanced learning options in 2020, most members in our cohort were actively designing or delivering online instruction in their professional roles.Several cohort members had completed all or part of their master's degrees online.I had worked in the development and delivery of online instruction in higher education settings for more than ten years.Despite our experiences with online teaching and learning, we had each elected to enroll Based on our class discussion, we decided to refashion our forums to focus directly on the assignments starting with A2.We also parceled out who would work on specific items during the week and would then lead discussions on those items in class.
However, you are not expected to always know exactly what to do or how to answer a question--that is what our class sessions are for-to learn collaboratively.So, here is who we decided will sorta lead the discussions for questions on A2 on 3/23--Q1: Ariel and Rob Q2: Roe Q3: Alicia Q4: Ashleigh Q5: Monica Q6: Lauren See the forums below for each of these questions and I encourage discussion among us as we move boldly forward with this new approach!Thanks!Captain Kirk in the on-ground Instructional Management and Leadership Ph.D. program in the summer of 2021, when health and safety concerns related to attending class in person were significant.Our decisions were based on our personal learning preferences and needs.For example, I had selected the on-ground program because I found engaging with my instructor and peers in a faceto-face setting important.I appreciated that most interaction with the instructor and my peers would occur during the established class session days and times.I valued the autonomy that onground learning afforded for completing reading and homework assignments independently, at days and times that fit my schedule.As adult learners, each of us had established strategies for completing schoolwork within the context of our professional and personal commitments that enabled our success over the first year.And so, we entered the statistics course at the end of our first year in the program.
As an instructional designer, my role involves working with on-ground and online courses.As the time for class grew close, I looked forward to engaging with the instructor and the course materials.At first review of the online course shell in the university learning management system, I noticed that the content was well-aligned with the course learning objectives.The instructor developed and posted an extensive collection of lectures and assignments in the learning management system.I noted immediately that the instructor's passion for the role of statistics in our research was evident and almost contagious.I also noticed that, curiously, the assignments involved substantial online interaction and discussion.The course featured multi-step activities and discussion board interactions to be completed and submitted online before class each week.In short, the class seemed structured as an online class.It was a well-designed online class, but an online class, nonetheless.Our instructor posted eight online messages before the first class to welcome our group and provide guidance about the requirements to be completed and submitted as online discussions before the first meeting.In response to the online posting requirements, cohort members posted nearly thirty comments, items, and replies on online discussion boards in the first week.As a result, it was necessary to log into the online course shell regularly to upload completed assignment content and comment on the posts made by the instructor and peers to remain engaged with the conversation.Coordinating assignment completion activities with assigned team members required additional time.Even if learners kept up with reading and homework during the week, those unable to review discussion boards and post comments regularly feared they were falling behind.Several cohort members expressed confusion about the online requirements.
It is important to note that the content we were reading in the text was excellent.The lectures provided by the instructor helped illuminate concepts in meaningful ways, and the assignments provided opportunities to apply what we were learning.Nevertheless, the online requirements presented a cause for concern.What we were learning was not the problem.How we were required to engage with course content, the instructor, and our peers was beginning to present barriers for us as on-ground learners.Challenges included the requirement that students work remotely to complete online group assignments during the week, post completed work in online discussion boards, and engage in online discussions about the content we had posted before presenting the same content in the on-ground class session at the end of the week.Over the first two weeks, it was clear that our collective efforts at coordinating ongoing group work online, posting assignment content, and generating meaningful online discussions were a bit shaky.We were murky about the purpose of online and on-ground presentations of the same content to the same cohort.For adult learners, the situation was problematic for at least two reasons.First, cohort members had already shown a willingness to incur risk to attend in-person class sessions despite the availability of online options.We valued and thrived on the opportunity to engage in live, on-site discourse.One of the primary benefits of in-person learning, in-the-moment discussions about class content, was diminished because we had already presented and discussed course content online before each live class.The overlapping expectations for in-class and online discussions left cohort members unsure where and how to best engage.Although our professor sent multiple messages to generate meaningful discussion online, they were to no avail.Presenting the same work in class that we had already submitted and discussed online made in-class discussions seem redundant.A second concern was the requirement that we log into the online course shell frequently to review and post discussion board contributions to build meaningful, week-long discourse online.Instead of stimulating meaningful online discussion, the required chat board postings pressured learners to make changes to work schedules, created barriers for those unable to post regularly, and led to confusion about the purpose of presenting the material again during live class sessions.
In week three, a change occurred.The instructor invited collaboration with learners to reimagine how we might complete assignments.Through discussions about course transformation, learners voiced the value each of us placed on live engagement in class.The instructor used formative assessment data collected through the first two weeks of class and through collaboration with learners to make adjustments to the course delivery strategy.The course assignments and learning objectives did not change.Instead, on-ground class meetings were established as the primary setting for student presentations and discussions to better align with our needs as adult learners who had selected on-ground as our learning modality.Instead of throwing out the online discussion board, the new design allowed learners to leverage the discussion board, which now served as a resource site for posting authentic questions and relevant information when we needed assistance building presentations for upcoming class meetings which were structured as flipped class sessions.Instead of repeating information we had posted online, student-led in-class discussions focused on explaining solutions to homework due later in the week.This learner-developed content was augmented in real-time by discussion presented by the professor and input from cohort members.Instead of grading comments posted on the discussion board, the professor began to grade the content presented in live presentations and discussions.Rather than passively listening to peer presentations, learners focused closely on the content that would help us complete weekly assignments and asked questions to ensure our understanding.Contributing to the now graded in-class discussions required that we prepare for, learn from, and contribute to the presentations of our peers.Class discussions naturally began to delve more deeply into meaningful content areas as each of us was responsible for contributing to in-class discussions as a primary means of demonstrating our understanding.As a result, we experienced an authentic enhancement to our learning that fit well within the context of the onground modality and addressed our needs as adult learners.It was a transformation of the course modality and the learning trajectory!Researchers have highlighted the importance of using formative assessment data from learners to make real-time changes in course delivery to support learner achievement (Veugen, et al., 2021).Black and Wiliam (2009) noted that the defining value of formative assessment is that it provides data that can be used by learners and instructors to make changes that promote improved learning outcomes.In this case, the instructor used formative assessment data from discussion boards, in-class discussions, and performance on assignments when collaborating with learners to transform the course from an online to an on-ground modality.Several areas stand out to me as a learner: First, more online use does not always lead to better engagement and achievement, especially in cases where adult-learners have selected on-ground as their course modality.The instructor used formative assessment data to determine that the use of technology and the assignment completion procedures presented barriers for learners and made the decision to adjust the strategy.Next, the instructor worked collaboratively with cohort members to reimagine assignment completion procedures and leveraged technology to increase learner engagement.Collaborating with learners to address how we wanted to engage through the technology supported self-directed learning skills and promoted our achievement of course learning objectives.Next, consistent with adult learning principles, the instructor restored learner autonomy by adjusting online posting requirements to reflect the on-ground modality leading to more meaningful discussions during class and more authentic use of the discussion board.Finally, because the formal assessments were already fully aligned with the course learning objectives, it was not necessary to change them.Instead, the instructor used the assessments to guide the transformation and generate data to keep learning on track.

Program Director's Voice
(Rick) As the Director of the Center for Innovative Teaching (the faculty training and development department of the university) and the Director of our Ph.D. program, I have a close and personal perspective of faculty growth and development as well as student perspectives.Over the past two years, forced by the necessity of the pandemic lockdown, faculty moved to online synchronous or asynchronous environments.Moving all the educational activities online showed that many universities already had the tools and resources necessary for digitalization and for implementing effective decisions (Strielkowski, 2020).During this pivotal time, faculty learned a great deal about pedagogical opportunities beyond their traditional comfort zones.They discovered that there were other viable alternatives to teaching and that some things were better taught synchronously while others were better taught asynchronously and still others better taught using traditional face-to-face strategies (f2f).These lessons, after moving out of the pandemic and transitioning back into, a "new normal" have brought new opportunities and new ways for higher education faculty to think about and practice their teaching craft.Dumelescu and Mutiu (2021) pointed out that an adaptive institution is oriented by taking unpredictable contexts and turning them into impactful opportunities for constituents and that openness to change and becoming resilient are essential dimensions of the challenges facing higher education.The pandemic triggered many challenges but also produced many new opportunities for growth and change.
They have kept pedagogies that have worked and redeveloped others to maximize the learning opportunities and many no longer view education as an either or but an inclusive set of teaching perspectives with an enhanced "tool box" of possibilities to differentiate instruction to meet learner needs.By combining or blending modalities, new pedagogies and higher levels of flexibilities were and are still being created.With the use of enhanced technologies that use virtual cameras, hardware, and software, faculty have the option to teach f2f students alongside distance students in what we term a Simulcast format.Through synchronous computer connections, while incorporating asynchronous platforms and other software and Internet tools, faculty can now create a seamless network of strategies that increase student interaction with content, other students, and the instructor in real time (virtually and f2f) as well as asynchronously, separated by time and space.
All of these changes have created a phenomenon of Transitional Pedagogy that has allowed faculty who have taught and used online materials, asynchronously and synchronously, to see that it is not an either-or situation but a menu of potential combinations (Figure 3).Faculty can now see the integration of different modalities used on a sliding scale that is dependent on their understanding of the content, their student's needs, and the modality that matches best to different lessons or lesson components to convey the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for learning and the internalization of course content.Transitional Pedagogy provides greater flexibility in the choices that faculty can employ in their teaching from lesson to lesson and from course to course.Because of all the pedagogical options that faculty have available to them to achieve course and lesson objectives (i.e., Lecture, Presentations, Direct teaching, Demonstration, Cooperative Learning and Group Activities, Debate, Case Study, Discussion, Guest Speakers, Journaling, Learner Presentations, and Problem Based Learning) faculty are no longer limited to a single modality but have options that can be used to differentiate instruction.Because of these pedagogical opportunities, teaching in the higher education classroom is not a static method but a dynamic paradigm (Author, 2015) where faculty utilize their powers of observation, knowledge of content, and understanding of their learners to decide what methods and modalities should be used.The hard edges of solely using, f2f, synchronous, or asynchronous approaches have been softened and different pedagogies and modalities can be integrated based upon the proprietary techniques that faculty choose to employ.

Graphic Depiction of Transitional Pedagogies
As Figure 4 illustrates, we now have pedagogical options that transcend face to face, synchronous, or asynchronous modalities.To employ these properly, faculty must be constantly aware of adult learner needs as well as cognitive load.This awareness assist faculty to make proper modality choices and decide which pedagogy is best for student learning.This ongoing assessment goes beyond formative assessment and moves into a unique form of data driven analysis that informs practice.Faculty including the instructor in this article, listened to his students and what they are telling him they need, which is at the heart of adult learning theory and self-directed learning.Empathetic teaching practices that take into consideration the realtime needs of students are paramount.Choosing, developing, and continuously improving practices are the educational foundations for deliberately developing profound learning (Davin, Carr-Chellman & Rogers-Shaw, 2022 p. 34).

Figure 4 Venn Diagram Depiction of Hyflex Pedagogies
As noted earlier, awareness of Cognitive Load is imperative for an instructor to effectively make the transition from one modality to another or the integration of new pedagogical modalities when transitioning as Jim did.When moving from onground to online or onground to online the instructor must develop and practice transitional pedagogies while being cognizant of the work load required of students.In transitioning from online to onground, the instructor has an increased number of pedagogies already in place and may be more likely to "pile on work" believing that more is better.This can have a deleterious effect on learning and the learner especially in relation to working and long-term memory.
Incorporating varying levels of the three modalities in Figure 4 provides a unique opportunity when curriculum mapping and understanding the overall value of education through outcomes measurement."Data-Driven" means far more than just testing, it relates to using formative assessment data to informs practice.As student-centric instructors, we can focus on student needs and their perspectives on which to build our pedagogies rather than being driven primarily by a need to rigorously "cover the material."Through increased teaching opportunities we find that faculty also have developed skills to map what they are teaching back to program and any outside curriculum standards (i.e., discipline specific goals or outcomes, state standards, accreditation standards, department or school goals).Mapping also provides greater opportunity for both formative and summative evaluations through the combination of modalities that can be utilized for individual and group outcomes measures.Faculty can now employ online or traditional exams, online or traditional projects (i.e., papers, projects, presentations etc.…) and use the inherent properties of online software and platforms to design interesting and effective outcomes measures.They also have the capabilities to formatively assess (as demonstrated in the dialogue between Jim and Alicia) their students through more effective forms of online review.
In a traditional f2f setting, faculty must rely on their abilities to read body language through questioning techniques in order to know if students are comprehending and ready for new information.With the inclusion of online asynchronous and synchronous opportunities, faculty can utilize a variety of ongoing assessment reviews (i.e., synchronous polling and questions, asynchronous review of discussion board, blog, wiki posts, assignment posts etc).These help faculty to assess a student's understanding of content.Through the use of the different modalities faculty are able to apply more tools to establish outcomes measures.In this new learning environment instructors have both the opportunity and responsibility to decide what might work best.
As director of the Ph.D. program during the pandemic, I was approached by a group of first-year doctoral students who had signed up with the understanding that the program would be a traditional face to face program with all classes meeting on campus and in person.Due to the restrictions of the pandemic and the lockdown, all classes at our university and the vast majority of higher education across the country and the world, were moved to remote learning described by Hodges et al. (2020) using synchronous platforms.During one meeting with these first-year students, they requested to talk about the way things were working.I was initially expecting mostly negative feedback only to hear that they were quite pleased with the remote instruction of two different courses and stated that if I wanted to run the entire program this way, they would be supportive!As discussed earlier, some things are better taught and assessed f2f and others taught and assessed better online through synchronous or asynchronous modalities or a combination.One example is the use of discussion boards.An instructor may see value in the f2f discussion at one time while at another time they see the benefit of an online discussion board or both for a particular concept.Having the choice to use a variety of options provides greater freedom to choose the best pedagogy in the appropriate modality to meet the established objectives and curriculum.Choosing how to meet the objectives in their individual courses is based upon their perspectives, discipline specific nuances, and perceived student need to differentiate instruction.We hear a great deal about differentiating to the needs of students which to many has been extremely difficult to meet.Now with the integration of multiple modalities on a sliding scale the opportunities become limitless to accomplish this task.

Voices of Reflection Instructor's Voice
What actually sparked my interest in investigating the problem of course transformation was the unexpected challenges encountered when trying to convert an online doctoral class using Blackboard as the LMS into a traditional f2f class.While I had transformed courses from a traditional to an online modality, I had never done the reverse.Although I vaguely felt that there might possibly be some minor issues in this transformation, I thought that because I have taught at the university level for more than 15 years, that I would be easily be able to resolve any issues with the help of my students.Well, while I was right about the willingness of students to help, I was wrong about the issues encountered being "minor"; rather it required a major overhaul to the way that I teach and how the Blackboard shell was constructed.
What I learned almost immediately from my students is that "more is not better".Alicia in particular helped me (and the rest of the class) understand this.Because I had taught several doctoral level courses online since I transitioned these courses from a traditional to an online format in 2016, I had confidence that I could use the same learning processes again with a traditional class with minor adjustments.However, as noted this has not been the case.Whereas I recall there was not a great deal of difficulty transforming traditional to online classes, the reverse transformation proved much more difficult.Faculty were always told that the quality of our online and traditional classes should be equal; however, I do not think it was emphasized enough that while quality might be equivalent that it would need to be attained in different ways.While I am not sure to what extent there will be a need to transform courses from an online to an on ground modality as the pandemic and other circumstances continue to unfold, I now feel like I am more ready to face the challenges of course transformation.

Student's Voice
What is most remarkable about this case is the instructor's openness to considering options for how assessments would be completed and graded.This openness was instrumental in transforming the course from an online class into a custom offering that effectively addressed the needs of adult, on-ground students while leveraging technology to enhance learning.The experience was one of the most formative learning experiences of my graduate career.In addition to acquiring valuable statistics knowledge that I applied in completing my dissertation, I have had the opportunity to participate in the real-time transformation of a course from one modality to another from the learner's perspective.I witnessed what can happen when an instructor carefully monitors and applies assessment information, changing course delivery strategy to ensure that learners meet the target learning outcomes.Although I have participated in course transformation in my work as an instructional designer, this was the first time I experienced course transformation from a learner's perspective.I will apply the lessons learned in my research and instructional design work.

Program Director's Voice
We are seeing a shift in expectation from faculty and students as well as some new opportunities that have emerged for higher education.The dynamics of either face to face or online learning as divergent options have grown into a different set of expectations for higher ed teachers, learners and for universities in general.Through the use of technological opportunities, we are now seeing, what used to be some crossover through blended learning, flipped classrooms and hybrid approaches has exploded into an entirely new combination of learning environments where faculty can employ and learners can learn through a variety of traditional, synchronous and asynchronous online pedagogies.No longer is higher education limited to the uniqueness of one way.All need to be aware of these new teaching and learning modalities and the implications they have for practice.From a faculty's perspective, it opens up so many new options for deploying a mixture of dynamic pedagogies that can better serve the learners based upon the instructors understanding of the content, discipline and student needs.From the learner's perspective, they now have more opportunities for learning and internalizing content in ways that differentiated instruction to strategies that are preferred and more convenient for adult learning styles.From a university's perspective, this not only provides better opportunities for teaching but also can open and expand learning markets.Online asynchronous has done that to a degree over the years but now with what was learned about the inclusion of synchronous learning coupled with asynchronous a new world of online learners becomes possible.There has always been a certain faction of learners who didn't want to learn at a distance because of the limited real time interactions of asynchronous LMS alone modalities.This can now be rectified and provide distance learners with an appealing alternative through Simulcasting.
Coll & Ruch (2021), stated that leaders must guide their institutions to be studentoriented, have technologically based programming, and have relevant fiscal plans in place.This implies the need for rapid innovation by administrative leaders in higher education with awareness in how to respond to COVID or other threats to instruction and pedagogical designs.The constructivist theory of learning supports models of instruction where student-centered activities enhance learning through active and reflective processes that are applied and processed (Paily, 2013) which hyflex provides through the transitional pedagogies providing an enhanced or broadened set of opportunities.Moore (1997;2006) opines that distance learning creates a communication or psychological separation where greater discussion and less structure reduce the distance between student and instructor and less interaction and more structure increase that distance.Much of this is also driven by learner autonomy or what could be described as learner control.This is at the heart of adult learning theory and models of learning.Consequently, the learning experiences of adults are considered transformative in nature (Mezirow, 2000;Taylor, 2008) and to internalize new knowledge and theories, an adult's prior experiences and former perspectives serve as the foundation to introduce new knowledge and skills through new and fresh educational modalities.Day, Lovato, Tull, and Ross-Gordon (2011) also found that adult learners should be provided with structure to comfortably and effectively organize their learning which the hyflex model with the transitional pedagogies supports.This provides the instructor with an expanded set of tools and pedagogical modalities to deliver content in manners that best fit adult learner needs blending the clarity of real time learning through either f2f or synchronous interactions with the self-directed nature of asynchronous content connections as depicted in Figure 4.

Limitations and Delimitations
There are, of course, both limitations and delimitations of this study.Regarding the latter, we were concerned only with our university and did not place transferability ("generalizability") at the forefront of our study.Therefore, we have with kind intentions placed the onus on our readers to determine the extent to which our environment and circumstances (context) resemble those that they confront or are of interest.All three of us hereby make ourselves available for any further clarification that you may need, and we wish you the very best in your own explorations.

Conclusions, Implications, and Recommendations
The "three voices" reflect our unique perspectives based on our roles as instructor, student, and program director and what we each took away from this "actionable knowledge" since we got to learn from each other as we reflected on the same phenomenon.
Specific findings that we think are important to note include the Student Voice (Alicia) related to formative assessment where she notes how vital it is for instructors to be open to their students' voices.Since all three authors have engaged in teaching in higher education, we all agree that without student feedback, we would have blithely gone our own way thinking that all was well.While this is sometimes the case, most often it is not.Because of his unique position and vantage point, The Program Director (Rick) due to his unique vantage point has been able to discern that that while good teachers can thrive under many different circumstances, pedagogy itself has been transformed as a consequence of the pandemic and how technology can be blended in diverse ways with both traditional classroom teaching as well as with online teaching.Finally, while the Instructor (Jim) started off this inquiry based on the surprising challenges he encountered when transforming an online class to a traditional class, he benefitted tremendously from the depth, breadth, and richness that resulted from collaboration with Alicia and Rick.
This collaborative effort resulted in a mosaic depicting a more complete gestalt compared to what we each would have learned in isolation about traditional and online learning and teaching -it was almost like a literature review in real time.What we learned or more accurately re-learned is that student-centered teaching is much more than an oft-repeated expression but rather gets at the heart of the matter -what do we want students to walk out of our classroom door with at the end of a course with, whether that door is real or virtual, in terms of knowledge, understandings, appreciations, and predispositions to continue learning and growing?The Instructor Voice re-learned this lesson when reminded by the Student Voice that teaching modalities cannot trump student needs and that formative evaluation (aka listening to students) is a powerful component of quality instruction.The Program Director's Voice is one that provides a kind of wisdom that accrues from being intimately connected to the uniqueness of both students and faculty in terms of who they are and how they learn and teach -and the value inherent in this uniqueness.Because of our collaborative efforts, the Three Voices are now more in harmony with each other and open to future opportunities to improve learning and teaching no matter the modality.
Because every university, program, students, and teachers are unique, we hesitate to offer sweeping recommendations; however, if one thing stands out as essential, it is that by creating a culture of collaboration wonderful synergistic things can happen.We look at this article as one of these because it far transcends an academic exercise.Rather, it has set the tone for expanded collaborative efforts based on nurturing the "small" ideas that a faculty member may have and creating a field of inquiry that can go far beyond an individual's vision.In a word, it can be exhilarating and we hope that others can create their own unique versions of collaboration!

Instructor Voice
Addendum During the writing of this article, we have passed inexorably from one semester to another and now I find myself teaching yet another course that I originally developed in the online modality which I now am teaching face-to-face.I felt that it was important to not only reinforce the lessons that I learned based on what we wrote above but to share this lesson with yet another group of doctoral students.Here (Figure 5) is what I announced to them prior to our second class meeting--

Figure 5
Announcement to a New Group of Students All Three Voices now fully understand and agree that the days of fixed demarcations among teaching approaches are outdated and that learning and teaching should no longer be circumscribed by shopworn labels.Rather, it is time for us to be open to innovative and multiple approaches that are authentic to real-life learning and designed to engage, excite, and energize our students.

Dear Students,
Old habits die hard as I continue to put a bit of an online spin on a face-to-face class -such as calling this Week 2 instead of Class 2! As I mentioned previously, I learned from a previous class that we can't just overlay an online modality on a face-to-face class.Face-to-face students (such as yourselves) chose this modality because it is you preferred way of learning even though you are aware of the convenience and flexibility that online learning offers.However, one of the most important characteristics of online learning is that learning is seen as 24/7 and not confined to particular class meetings.
Based on this preamble, I try to offer the best of both worlds when teaching a face-toface class by doing a few things like providing all assignments at the beginning of the term so that you can integrate these assignments with collaborative team planning and discussions during the week in our online forums.This in turn should help each of your teams prepare to take these discussions "live" at our Thursday class.
For our class session this week, your teams will lead us in discussing the following Chapters from our text which are EXTREMELY relevant at this stage of your scholarly journey- Chapter 4: Scholarly Reading as a Model for Scholarly Writing Chapter 5: Working with Tensions: Writing for Publication During Your Doctorate Chapter 6: The Process of Transforming the Dissertation into Publication I look forward to more great learning experiences both online and face-to-face!Thanks and see you Thursday!Jim

the following questions, please place the question number in front of each of your responses so that we can keep our discussions clear and organized both for your own team and for other teams as they "snoop"!!!
1.Your first task is for each of you to update us on anything you would like to share on the Introduction Forum --new jobs, new house, new kid, new dog etc.!!For 2. How about sharing any questions regarding anything that you are unclear about in terms of the syllabus or assignments?Hopefully your team members, other team members, and maybe even me (if I know the answer) will chime in and help!! 3. Assignment A1 (Statistics Fundamentals) Part I asks that you first indicate your emerging sense of your area of inquiry.This may require some of you to transform Research Questions into those that can be answered by collecting quantitative data--a variation of Creswell's "turning the story"!So, how about sharing your Problem Statement and Research Questions that can be answered by collecting quantitative data and consequently using statistical procedures to analyze these data.You might even want to ask teammates for advice regarding how to transform qualitatively-focused questions into quantitative questions! 4. Part I also asks that you write a paragraph that explains in your own words what various statistical terms mean and how they connect to each other and to your Research Questions.These terms include Populations, Samples, Variables, Parameters and Statistics, Descriptive and Inferential Statistical Procedures, and Sampling Error.After you read pp.2-10 of the Gravetter text and have worked through the Learning Checks, how about discussing some important things you have learned and any questions?