The depth piece is draws upon extensive research I conducted for an Online journalism course in the Fall semester of 2024. This piece discusses Thompson Rivers University’s upcoming TRUly Flexible pilot program, which will launch in the Fall of 2025. The program has three phases, and the first phase began in 2024. This new initiative aims to enhance the flexible learning and delivery modalities, including blended, hybrid and online synchronous formats. For this research, I have conducted interviews with the TRU Provost and Vice-President Academic, Dr.Gillian Balfour, The Director of Curriculum Development and Delivery in TRU, Dr. Paul Martin, The coordinator of learning and faculty development (TRU), Dr.Carolyn Ives, The Associate Vice-President, Students(TRU) Dr.Sara Wolfe and TRU open learning and in-person classes International student Seerat Singh’s insights on this research. I have made a YouTube video to make the Kamloops freshman and community aware of this new TRU initiative.
TRU Expands Learning Options for Flexible Delivery Models in 2025
TRU will launch the TRUly flexible pilot program in Fall 2025 to enhance flexible blended, hybrid, and online synchronous course delivery modalities to improve students’ learning experiences.
(Photo courtesy of Thompson Rivers University website)
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) plans to launch a “TRUly Flexible” pilot program to expand its course delivery mode in the 2025 school year. As the 2025 school year approaches, new domestic and international students prepare for their university experience. Hence, TRU believes these prospective new modalities will enhance the TRU course delivery strategy and provide the latest learning opportunities for TRU students.
University settings will have a good impact and provide exciting news for the current and upcoming TRU students, distance learning students, and faculty members. The main goal of this new program is an “implementation model for Flexible Delivery that creates a recognizable design and delivery standard to ensure a consistent quality student experience grounded in robust student supports.” Gillian Balfour said. She said theThe university’s TRUly Flexible initiative will create various course delivery options. Further, she mentioned that the program is expected to start in spring 2025, and the scheduled implementation process will begin in Fall 2025.
(Photo courtesy of Thompson Rivers University OL webpage)
Last April, the TRU Senate discussed and evaluated new educational delivery methods to enhance the learning experience in university settings. After thorough consideration, the Senate has approved three delivery models: a new blended delivery option, hybrid delivery, and online synchronous delivery. As Balfour said, the initiative’s initial phase would focus on introducing new delivery options to four to six specific programs currently available at TRU.
The selected programs will be chosen to ensure they effectively benefit from the newly designed delivery models. Balfour said courses and programs that wish to implement new delivery models will be required to follow the external approval process to ensure that all designs align with the institution’s standards and educational objectives. All the selected programs will be attentively evaluated before approval is granted. “Every program has a faculty council and has a curriculum committee, and so that’s where new program ideas and course changes and all those things come from,” she said.
TRUly Flexible Framework will be implemented in three phases.
- Phase 1: Asynchronous course redevelopment. 2024-2025. Its goal is to have a strategic assessment and revision of approximately 135 asynchronous courses across five faculties.
- Phase 2: Pilot Project to develop select programs for online delivery in 2025. The goal of phase two is to refine and implement flexible delivery design standards & determine the scope of resources and capacity needed for a pan-campus strategy.
- Phase 3: Pan Campus strategy for developing and delivering flexible modalities in 2026. The goal of phase three is to use a framework for a pan-campus process to design, approve, and implement flexible delivery. (Gillian Balfour,2024)
As Balfour mentioned, the TRU provost office is currently focused on phases one and two. In Phase One, during the years 2023-2025, the main focus is on the current strategic assessment and revision of asynchronous courses across faculties. The initiative will be supported by program Chairs and Associate Deans of Online Learning, who will provide leadership and oversight throughout the revision process. Phase two in the years 2024-2025 is focused on a pilot Project which will draw together faculty champions and members of an education design team (with support from LTI, CELT, and IDs) to model a process for redesigning a program in an online modality. The pilot assesses questions of process, design and delivery standards, and resource and capacity needs for a broader institutional rollout.
The Director of Curriculum Development and Delivery, Dr. Paul Martin, mentioned that the hope of the TRUly Flexible program is to increase flexibility to give more flexibility to domestic and international students. “There’ll be courses that are naturally suited to staying fully face-to-face or staying fully remote. So it’s not gonna be for every course, but we’re gonna try to find those courses that might be really well suited to that,” Dr. Paul Martin said.
He mentioned, “There’s enough technology on campus for students to use if they don’t have access to devices because what we wanna add flexibility for students, but we also don’t want to make it more difficult for students to access these courses if they don’t have access to, a laptop or a phone or whatever,” As he stated, any course that moves into one of those modalities must be redesigned at some level. It might not be about the content, but it’ll be about how that content is delivered. “The combination of all those things in terms of delivery models and changes in university technology enhancement will inspire more students to choose TRU,” Dr. Martin said.
He mentioned that the hope of the TRUly Flexible program is to increase flexibility to give more flexibility to domestic and international students. “There’ll be courses that are naturally suited to staying fully face-to-face or staying fully remote. So it’s not gonna be for every course, but we’re gonna try to find those courses that might be really well suited to that,” Dr. Martin said.
He mentioned, “There’s enough technology on campus for students to use if they don’t have access to devices because what we wanna add flexibility for students, but we also don’t want to make it more difficult for students to access these courses if they don’t have access to, a laptop or a phone or whatever,” As he stated, any course that moves into one of those modalities must be redesigned at some level. It might not be about the content, but it’ll be about how that content is delivered. “The combination of all those things in terms of delivery models and changes in university technology enhancement will inspire more students to choose TRU,” Dr. Martin said.
With the new modalities implemented in 2025, the faculty members will have a chance to try things out, and they will have tech support from IT services. “We have a room set up in Old Main. That’s a lab for faculty to try things out. So as things come up and as they are installed, faculty will have opportunities to practice.” Carolyn Ives, the coordinator of learning and faculty development, said.
To provide an excellent learning experience, TRU will focus on faculty members to offer sessions on new technologies coming up with the new pilot program. “There will be lots of sessions not just training on, like how to use technology, but also, in terms of faculty development, in terms of, what are some excellent teaching and learning practices faculty can use. if you’re using a blended modality, if you’re using a hybrid modality or if you’re using a high flex modality, there will definitely be sessions both for the technology from the learning technology and innovations team and also in terms of pedagogy from that team and our team in CELT.” Carolyn Ives said.
From the student perspective, the TRU open learning and in-person class student Seerat Singh mentioned, “The idea of blended or hybrid delivery sounds amazing. For example, having the option to study some parts of the course online while still getting together in person for discussions or labs could make learning way more interactive and convenient.” As most university students have busy lives working and studying, this initiative will help them to maintain a balanced life. “I am really happy about this, and It feels like the university is really paying attention to what students want.” Seerat Singh said.
Reference:
Gillian Balfour (2024, November) TRUly Flexible: Strategy Update PowerPoint title [PowerPoint slides]. Office of the Provost and Vice‑President Academic, Thompson Rivers University. https://www.tru.ca/__shared/assets/TRUly_Flexible_Strategy_Update_-_2024-11-2560682.pdf
Thompson Rivers University, www.tru.ca. (n.d.). Open Learning: Online and distance Education | Thompson Rivers University. https://www.tru.ca/distance.html
TRU will pilot new delivery models next year as part of university-wide initiative. (2024, October 13). Kamloops News – CastanetKamloops.net. https://www.castanetkamloops.net/news/Kamloops/511239/TRU-will-pilot-new-delivery-models-next-year-as-part-of-university-wide-initiative