1. Why?
- To ensure the continuity of learner experience: Unrelenquished attention and engagement are the greatest predictors of learning success (no matter what environment). Testing, exams, diagnostic can be argued as effective measures of learning effectiveness, but nothing beats attendance
- To accommodate the various needs of learners: covid, sick day, bladder controls, different learning modalities, and various comfort levels. different time zone, class size, you name it
2. What for?
From and To different learning technologies: As a step to transition to technology adoption OR to revert a bad technology being adopted.
Hybridization of learning serves as a good briding phase for technological adoption, ranging from partial to full adoption. Hybridization of learning experiences allow learning designers to make changes and tweak their designs to fit both the technologies and learners need
A rather counter-intuitive point: Hybrid learning can also be used to scale back the once poorly adopted technologies, allowing room for technology improvement, or replacement.
Instead of thinking of hybridization as an end product, imagine it is a phase, a process of shifting and adopting technologies
3. How?
First, think of the learner: Is this hybridization, in any way, enhance their learning experience?
Are learners structurally and technologically competent for hybridization? In other words, whether they have access to the technologies that are available to them: smartphones, computers, tablets, internet connection, and if they are actually affluent in navigating these techs,
Do not design for the learners, design WITH them
Second, ask the question: What are we actually hybridizing, are we mixing:
- Instructional Modalities: Offline and Online?
- Learning Modalities: Synchronous and asynchronous?
- Instructional activities: Homework, Discussion, Assignments?
Third, play legos – tinkering with the elements
Do not jump immediately into setting up cameras and buying expensive gear, coming up with blueprints, sometimes even a rough drawing would do
- List out all the course experiences that you want to do
- Prioritize them, which one is fine? (If it ain’t broke, do NOT fix it), what could be improved? Would improving that part significantly enhance the learners’ experiences?
- What technologies and equipment that you already have? What new technology is available to you at a reasonable cost or no cost at all?
Fourth, test it before launching it – A/B test it if you can
The rolling out does not necessarily have to be on a scale – an interview or even a team would do. You might be surprised that even a small group with whom you have worked with and know well might have a completely different opinion of how they imagine learning should work. If you are transforming a course, start with past learners: because they have imperative views about what worked well for them.
“The one who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The person who invented the other three, they were a genius.“
Sid Caesar
Finally, always perform a walkthrough tutorial
Never assume. Always set up a significant amount of time walking them through the tech, because everyone uses the same technology differently. Just because you both have used Facebook for 10 years does not mean that you are interacting with it the same way.
5. Looking forward to the future
Hybrid learning is a good intermediate step, but should not be the end if we wish to reach our learning design goals
Consider the next distinction by Panopto, the video developers who have delivered millions of videos for the famous Learning Management Platform, Canvas
- Blended Learning (sometimes got mixed up): The element got together, go beyond the technical implementation that hybrid offers:
- HyFlex (Hybrid/Flexible classroom) – coined by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Teachers College, Colombia University: Idealistic – first came out of urgency but should also be considered
References:
- Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning, 2020, Hybrid/HyFlex Teaching & Learning, https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/hyflex/
- Panopto, Blended Learning, Hybrid Learning, The Flipped Classroom… What’s the Difference? 2021, https://www.panopto.com/blog/blended-learning-hybrid-learning-flipped-classroom-whats-difference/