Faculty in the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment (ETRA) are now more skilled in the delivery of “HyFlex” – hybrid-flexible – teaching.
Such courses provide “both a classroom and at least one online participation option, or mode, to students. Students are free to choose which option to use for each class session,” according to the HyFlex Learning Community.
Brian Beatty, a professor of Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University who pioneered the development and evaluation of HyFlex course design for blended learning environments there, led a May 16 workshop in Gabel Hall.
Participants “deepened their understanding of the HyFlex teaching, its benefits and best practices for implementation,” ETRA Chair Wei-Chen Hung says.
“Our faculty and instructors are committed to offering HyFlex courses to foster equity, opportunity and inclusion, ensuring all students have flexible, accessible and diverse learning experiences regardless of their location, schedule or personal circumstances,” Hung says. “We also outfitted our classrooms to be HyFlex-ready.”
Agenda topics included confirming the strategy, including clarification of the “why” and the expectations of all stakeholders, and examining the importance of engaged learning and the role of social engagement in learning.
Tom Smith, an ETRA faculty member and early adopter of the HyFlex teaching model, found that his students expressed appreciation of the convenience of online learning but also of the familiar comfort and kinship of face-to-face classes.
“I really wanted to make the classes I was teaching more accessible to a broader range of students, and so I wanted to formalize that process,” says Smith, a Distinguished Teaching Professor who specializes in research methods, educational statistics and data analysis.
“HyFlex is a new challenge in teaching – it’s something new for me,” he adds, “and it’s something that presents issues and problems that I think are interesting from a pedagogical standpoint and from a research standpoint on how to best design a course that meets the needs of students who need different support systems in their learning processes.”
Much of Beatty’s presentation, which also included a discussion of measuring, assessing and revisiting expected outcomes and aligning pedagogy with assessment, as well as a look at issues and solutions others encountered in pursuing HyFlex teaching, focused on “the big question.”
“Dr. Beatty kept emphasizing that it’s really important to clarify in our minds why we’re offering a multimodality approach – not just to do it, but to think about why we’re doing it,” Smith says, “and then to try to design the courses in a unified way so that all students, regardless of the modality that they’re attending, will get something of the same experience.”
ETRA students play a critical role in the process – and, ultimately, develop self-directed and active learning abilities.
“The student is the driver of their own learning more than the instructor is. The students are making their own decisions in terms of their learning much more than in a traditional face-to-face class where you tell students, ‘You come to class every day, and you do this and you do that,’ ” Smith says.
“With the HyFlex approach, the student has much more flexibility – that’s the ‘flex’ part – in choosing what they want to do and when they want to do it,” he adds. “The student might decide, ‘Well, today I really need to cover the class. I’m going to come to class face to face,’ and maybe another day, ‘You know, I don’t need this much today,’ or, ‘My schedule today makes it easier for me to attend online.’ ”
Convenience is especially important to adult learners with work and family responsibilities as well as to students with disabilities, all of whom Smith says should benefit from HyFlex.
And, thanks to the support and work of Dan Hyde, IT manager with the College of Education’s Technology Innovation Learning Services, ETRA’s lab equipment has been upgraded and is now ready for HyFlex teaching in the fall.
That’s good news for students, says Judy Puskar, academic program advisor in ETRA, because “Hyflex is the ultimate in offering the most flexibility in class meeting options.”
“For students, HyFlex means their choices are broadened and optimized to keep themselves on track with courses and engagement in content,” Puskar says.
“It means students won’t be prevented from taking a class because it’s not offered in a mode they are able to attend,” she adds. “Out-of-state students can attend online, and on-campus students can enjoy the benefits of in person, while all can engage and make the class experience even better.”
