Instructors Can Help Students Tame Flexibility

This week marks the third in a series of articles on the Hyflex Model of delivery. The last two weeks I have described what the Hyflex Model is, and the type of student that will learn best in this flexible style of Hybrid learning.

While the student must be motivated to be successful in this type of course, there are several things that you can do as an instructor to help your students down the path of success. Many of the suggestions that I will make are things that you could also do in an online course with a few small changes. If you think about these suggestions before your begin developing a Hyflex course, you could easily integrate some or all of these strategies with your content/exercises.

The first day of any class is always an important one. The ground rules are explained and expectations are established. In a face-to-face class, instructors typically hand out all of their administrative items--documents like the syllabus, time lines, etc. To help facilitate this process in the online environment, create a scavenger hunt game. Have students enroll in the online course, and locate the course syllabus, post an introduction of themselves in the discussion board, take a "for fun" quiz about the contents of the syllabus. It is very easy for an instructor to tell if students complete each of these items in a course. It's fun for students and it encourages them to get comfortable with how the course is laid out and how it functions.

People in education, myself included, often forget that education is a social event. No place is it more detrimental to not have a sense of community than in an online course. The discussion board seems to bring everyone together. It gives each student a platform to express their thoughts, feelings, research, agreement, and disgust. When dealing with the Hyflex Model, instructors have to be concerned with bringing two groups together; The face-to-face group and the online group. Encourage both the face-to-face and the online groups to summarize what they do each week and what they learned in the discussion board. It helps to blend these separate entities into one cohesive group. It also allows the student that chooses to participate in one group to see what happened in the other side of the class. It may just build enough curiosity that they begin participating more regularly in both facets of a Hyflex course. These "summaries" are a nice quick way for students to quickly see what content really lies in front of them and ultimately gives them the "choice" that the model is predicated on.

Finally, give your students even more freedom. Have them move away from their computer and do some meaningful research outside of the "classroom". It could be something as simple as watching a movie, going to a public place to people watch, interview a professional in the field of study. Have them do anything that is related to course content. Allow them to experience content in the real world. There is no better way to synthesize what is taught in the classroom than to see it in action. These experiences allow students to further cement course concepts in their mind. It also gets them up and away from their computers, or the classroom. Have them come back to their computers or the face-to-face classroom to share their experiences and thoughts. Regardless of what format the class is taught, these experiences need to be recorded and available for all students to read and respond.

I will be the first to admit that these ideas take some planning and a lot of work. If you haven't, go back and read the first article in this series. I pointed out that instructors will have a great deal of work to do to develop a Hyflex course. The amount of work is in direct relationship to the level of richness and understanding that your students will experience.

Useful link:

http://itec.sfsu.edu/hyflex/hyflex_home.htm


Stay subscribed to this blog as many of my next postings will be regarding the Hyflex Model, how to implement it, who it's good for, and tips for student success in this method of teaching and learning.