Hybrid teaching
I am using this page to compile a list of some of the practical approaches that I use within my hybrid teaching, or ‘fusion teaching’ as it is known locally within Edinburgh Futures Institute. Following the EFI model, my course (The Future of Learning Organisations) includes a ‘2 day intensive’ of hybrid teaching, preceded and followed by online, asynchronous activity.
The practical approaches set out below are suited to the students and subject materials associated with my course, and the specific conditions of teaching in hybrid mode within EFI. This includes having a Teaching Assistant on hand to help manage the complexity of the different audio-visual technologies, and the challenge of working with a group of students attending across modes. The list is emergent rather than exhaustive, and I’ve separately shared my thoughts around engaging students online within hybrid teaching, including why I developed asynchronous tutorials in Miro to augment hybrid intensive teaching. More generally, a good deal of my thinking about online teaching is captured within the Manifesto for Teaching Online (MIT Press, 2022) that I am a co-author of. Siân Bayne was a fellow author of the Manifesto, and did much of the thinking that led to the fusion teaching that now happens in EFI. You can hear Siân, Martin Hawksey (former EFI Learning Technologies Lead), Emma McAllister (current EFI Learning Technologies Lead!) and me talking about our work in this episode of the Teaching Here and There podcast on Spotify. And most recently, I wrote about 'Choreography and improvisation in hybrid teaching' (with Tim Fawns, Joe Noteboom and Jen Ross) in an article that should be published in Higher Education Research and Development early in 2025. Some of the ideas from our article are captured in this write-up of a keynote I delivered at University College Dublin in 2023. |
Practical approaches for hybrid teaching Perhaps an obvious point to make before moving onto the practical pointers is that 'fusion' and 'hybrid' imply a combining of in-room and online teaching. This is different from teaching in dual-mode, for example, which is suggestive of spaces and student groups existing synchronously but separately. It's helpful to think about how designing for hybrid involves combing modes to create something new (and remarkable!), rather than trying to find a way of replicating online what will be happening in the physical classroom (or even worse, settling for online students being able to follow what's happening in the physical classroom). These design principles (among others) inform quite a lot of what follows.
Visit the teaching room in advance to become familiar with the space: there’s enough complexity to contend with on the day of the intensive without having to think about layout, the best place to stand when presenting, how the microphones work, which cameras to use, and so on. Create a reasonably detailed format for each intensive day. This is more granular than the equivalent that you will share with students. The format can anticipate how online students (and those in-room) will experience every aspect of the day. Print two hard copies of the document for use on the day (one for the Teaching Assistant). You could follow the format with a rough floor plan of how you want the room layout to work. Again, this might mean that when you arrive for the intensive, you are quickly able to get everything in place before turning attention to welcoming students. On account of online students typically having more (or more relevant) work experience, their insights can be a brilliant resource. For this (and other) reasons, where the intensive involves group work, organise groups that mix on-site with online students. Where the intensive involves several different group exercises, change the make-up of groups each time, so that on-site students can benefit from the insights of different online members of the class. When designing the format of the intensive, structure-in times to review how the approach has been working, and whether any changes need to be made. Do groups need to be revised based upon the students who are present on the day? Are there any issues with sound that involve rethinking the layout? Are in-room students following the guidance set out for how to engage? Have online students been able to participate fully? Perhaps set aside 10 minutes at the beginning of lunch to discuss this with the Teaching Assistant. When communicating with students, avoid using language in ways that privilege those in-room: ‘in class’, ‘being present’ and ‘eye contact’ also apply online. Think about what it means to ‘arrive in class’ as an online student. Maybe the Teaching Assistant can be ready to welcome each student when they arrive in the Teams session? Perhaps open the meeting early and switch on the class-wide camera, so that online members of the group can see their in-room counterparts also arriving for class. Email online members of the group in advance of intensives to let them know that they can expect to engage fully in the sessions. Explain that the Teaching Assistant will welcome them, resolve technical problems, and will more generally be monitoring Chat to ensure they are able to participate. Basically, this is about signalling to online members of the class that their experience has been carefully considered, and that they won't simply be 'joining the in-room meeting'. Ensure that in-room students know to bring a laptop or equivalent device to the intensives (and that the University can provide them with a device if they do not already own one). Think about having the Teaching Assistant attending in-room, but as an online member of the group. They can ensure that online students are able to see and hear what is happening in class. The TA can remind the you switch on you mic, to repeat in-room audience questions where they have not been audible, and to direct you back into view of the camera when you wander out of sight. Unless absolutely necessary, avoid delaying the beginning of sessions to accommodate in-room students arriving or returning late, unless you plan to do the same for online members of the group. It can feel 'othering' for online students to be given a start time, and then have to wait for their in-room counterparts to settle. As students arrive at the session (in room or online), encourage them to post a short message in the Team Chat. This can help to create connections between students across modes, and emphasise that they will be working as a single group. Try to stay close to the advertised format for the day. As they are typically studying full time, in-room students are unlikely to have competing commitments, whereas online members of the group might have organised meetings, childcare or other activities based around the start, lunch and end times. Think about using the wide camera view at different times, in order to enable online students to get a feel for the classroom and the group that they are part of. Constrain the natural ability/instinct of in-room students to speak without being invited to do so, or ‘jumping the queue’ ahead of their less immediately visible online colleagues. Instead, think about an arrangement where all students have to raise their hand in Teams when they wish to ask a question, with the Teaching Assistant monitoring this. During presentation-style (or other) sessions, consider inviting all students to use Teams Chat to respond and ask questions. The Teams chat then becomes a shared space where online and in-room students congregate, rather than solely being a space for online students. This can be monitored by the Teaching Assistant, who can summarise discussion, raise questions, or invite individual students to speak. A variation of this would involve using a shared Miro board for crowdsourcing. Other platforms and approaches will do the same kind of thing. For lecture-style sessions, think about arranging seats so that in-room students are seated in front of the camera that will be used. This means that when you are looking at the in-room audience, you are also looking in the direction of those online. This can enable online students to feel like they are being spoken to directly, while creating the feeling of there being a single audience of students. If you offer ad hoc opportunities for conversation outside of class times, they should be available to all students. Therefore, if you explain to in-room students that they can drop in at break with individual questions, there needs to also be an opportunity for online students to do the same. At the beginning of group work sessions, encourage students to find a comfortable sound-level for their conversations. Students are able increase the volume on the audio speaker, however there can be a tendency to raise this too high, which in turns increases the volume of conversation across the room, as other students and groups ‘compete’ with sound trespassing into their spaces. Following on from the above, along with the Teaching Assistant, monitor the sound level during the session. Conversation can sometimes be loudest at the beginning of group sessions as students introduce themselves and check that they can be heard: it might be possible to reduce the speaker volume once they move onto other activities. During or at the end of intensive sessions, contact online members individually to ask whether there is anything that can be done to further improve their experience. Even if their requests can't reasonably be accommodated, they might appreciate being asked. |