FAQ

Faculty often find there are many benefits to teaching a HyFlex course, including increasing enrollment in traditionally under-enrolled classes, providing a rigorous alternative to classroom participation when students are not in class in-person, developing the capacity to teach fully online (possibly in boith synchronous and asynchronous modes) when needed, and supporting the individual participation-related needs of students, including allowing a high degree of customization for students based on learning and inteeraction preference.

Lectures are delivered live for classroom and synchronous students and either recorded (in the live session) or pre-recorded for viewing by asynchronous learners. When available, recorded lectures are also often reviewed by synchronous students (classroom and online).

In most HyFlx courses, we recommend that all students take the same form of test (in-person proctored, fully online, take home, etc.) in all modes. Using a consistent approach should lead to more reliable and potentially valid results. Cheating is almost always a problem when tests are used to determine student grades no matter the course mode – classroom or online. When designing a HyFlex course, we recommend considering whether or not traditional tests are needed to evaluate student learning and outcomes measurement. It may be possible to replace most, or even all of the learning assessment with more “authentic” assessments, like projects, papers, presentation, or other forms of expression. (See the Universal Design for Learning guidance or sites like Indiana University’s Center for Innovative in Teaching and Learning for more.) When high stakes tests are required, some schools and faculty will use programs such as Respondus Lockdown, which prevents student access to pre-selected websites during the test. The program has the option for students to provde video evidence of their surroundings before and during a test to ensure they don’t have prohibited supplies with them. There are also options, such as ProctorU for the test taking to be recorded. Some schools, many faculty, and possibly all students do not want to use online proctoring to mitigate cheating, and some institutions ban the practice outright. You can design an assessment approach that reduces student cheating without using online proctoring, but you have to be very intentional. For more guidance on how to reduce the liklihood and impact of student cheating, see the work of James Lang, especially the book Cheating Lessons – insightful book review here.

Active learning is important in all modes of a HyFlex course. Many faculty and designers are familiar with active learning strategies in the classroom, and most of those may work well in a HyFlex course also. When students join the class live online (synchronous, for example with Zoom), some of the classroom approaches may still work with two types of participation happeening. See Derek Bruff’s post explaining “Active Learning in Hybrid and Physically Distanced Classrooms” for some very good ideas about making this work. Online asynchronous students need different activities for active learning, and the faculty will have to be actively engaged in those, most likely, for the best outcomes. See this paper, Actively Engaging Students in Asynchronous Online Courses, from Shannon Riggs and Kathryn Linder of Oregon State University for some excellent strategies for active learning in the online asynchronous mode. You might be able to use some of these approaches for all students, as a form of out-of-class learning experience. That would support the development of learning community across all modes as well!

In this case, you may be seeing evidence that students find the online option more appealling than the classroom, perhaps due to schedule conflicts, classroom practice, or just about anything else. It is helpful to have a “Plan B” in mind for the live classroom session in case only a few students are present. (It becomes small group instruction, rather than large group instruction.) The classroom session can still be an interactive, engaging learning experience for students and for you, as long as you plan for this possibility.

If no students attend class live in-person, they are letting you know that they don’t value attending class in person as they do online, and that could be for many reasons. Ma y times, students have time or location conflicts that prevent them from being thgere in person. Other times, they may not find the classroom experience very engaging or useful to their learning. Letting students know what is planned for the next live class session can help them make better choices about participation. And if no one shows up, you would teach to the synchronouss online students only, if you offer that option. If you think students may choose the online option frequently, you may want to ask them, and if no one plans to attend class live in-person, you now have an online-only course!

In this case, you may be seeing evidence that students find the online option more appealling than the classroom, perhaps due to schedule conflicts, classroom practice, or just about anything else. It is helpful to have a “Plan B” in mind for the live classroom session in case only a few students are present. (It becomes small group instruction, rather than large group instruction.) The classroom session can still be an interactive, engaging learning experience for students and for you, as long as you plan for this possibility.

If no students attend class live in-person, they are letting you know that they don’t value attending class in person as they do online, and that could be for many reasons. Ma y times, students have time or location conflicts that prevent them from being thgere in person. Other times, they may not find the classroom experience very engaging or useful to their learning. Letting students know what is planned for the next live class session can help them make better choices about participation. And if no one shows up, you would teach to the synchronouss online students only, if you offer that option. If you think students may choose the online option frequently, you may want to ask them, and if no one plans to attend class live in-person, you now have an online-only course!

Active learning is important in all modes of a HyFlex course. Many faculty and designers are familiar with active learning strategies in the classroom, and most of those may work well in a HyFlex course also. When students join the class live online (synchronous, for example with Zoom), some of the classroom approaches may still work with two types of participation happeening. See Derek Bruff’s post explaining “Active Learning in Hybrid and Physically Distanced Classrooms” for some very good ideas about making this work. Online asynchronous students need different activities for active learning, and the faculty will have to be actively engaged in those, most likely, for the best outcomes. See this paper, Actively Engaging Students in Asynchronous Online Courses, from Shannon Riggs and Kathryn Linder of Oregon State University for some excellent strategies for active learning in the online asynchronous mode. You might be able to use some of these approaches for all students, as a form of out-of-class learning experience. That would support the development of learning community across all modes as well!

In most HyFlx courses, we recommend that all students take the same form of test (in-person proctored, fully online, take home, etc.) in all modes. Using a consistent approach should lead to more reliable and potentially valid results. Cheating is almost always a problem when tests are used to determine student grades no matter the course mode – classroom or online. When designing a HyFlex course, we recommend considering whether or not traditional tests are needed to evaluate student learning and outcomes measurement. It may be possible to replace most, or even all of the learning assessment with more “authentic” assessments, like projects, papers, presentation, or other forms of expression. (See the Universal Design for Learning guidance or sites like Indiana University’s Center for Innovative in Teaching and Learning for more.) When high stakes tests are required, some schools and faculty will use programs such as Respondus Lockdown, which prevents student access to pre-selected websites during the test. The program has the option for students to provde video evidence of their surroundings before and during a test to ensure they don’t have prohibited supplies with them. There are also options, such as ProctorU for the test taking to be recorded. Some schools, many faculty, and possibly all students do not want to use online proctoring to mitigate cheating, and some institutions ban the practice outright. You can design an assessment approach that reduces student cheating without using online proctoring, but you have to be very intentional. For more guidance on how to reduce the liklihood and impact of student cheating, see the work of James Lang, especially the book Cheating Lessons – insightful book review here.