HyFlex Design Enables a Quick Flip

Posted on March 23, 2012 by admin

 

The term “flipping the classroom” has been used more and more in discussions around using technology to change classroom practice.

Flipped Classroom

A "flipped" classroom?

The term seems to have been coined as “Inverting the Classroom” in a 2000 Journal of Economic Education article by Lage, Platt & Treglia. (See http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/09/the-flipped-classroom-defined/ for more on flipping a classroom and http://interacc.typepad.com/synthesis/2009/09/inversions.html for more about “inversions” in classroom pedagogy.)

I’ve found that using a HyFlex course design enables the instructor to effectively “flip” his or her own classroom with less effort than it would be if starting from scratch with a fully online or classroom-only design. Here’s why.

Boring Lecture

A boring lecture - typical?

In a well-designed HyFlex course, the basic informational materials needed by online students to learn course content are provided ahead of time, typically in assigned readings and other resources (files, links, media) posted to a course website. These same resources should be available to students who choose to attend class in person, of course, since the HyFlex course design allows all students to make their participation choice each session.

 

Interactive Classroom

An interactive classroom

When learning complex content, however, most effective instruction also requires some type of interaction among learners and between learners and an instructor. This interaction cannot be facilitated with just informational resources. That is where the flipped classroom approach is powerful. If the information access function is complete before students arrive in class (or in the online classroom interaction space – forums, for example), then the time allotted for the “post information delivery” segment of instruction can be taken up by meaningful interaction.

Meaningful interaction will usually implement some form of generative learning activity to help students apply new information in meaningful ways, perhaps by discussing topics to develop and shape understanding or by applying new approaches to solving domain-specific problems with guidance from peers and an instructor. (For more on generative learning, see this Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology chapter – http://www.aect.org/edtech/ed1/31/index.html) When a classroom is flipped, the instructor’s talent, energy, and focus is on facilitating meaningful interaction that leads to deeper learning, rather than on simply delivering the right information.

In a HyFlex course, the instructor won’t have to take the time to develop all those informational resources that students need in a flipped classroom. That work should be largely completed already. Informational resources should be readily available and when “used as directed,” can prepare students for a more powerful interactive experience in the classroom session – whether live in-person, live online, or asynchronous online.

Of course, this means that the HyFlex instructor is newly challenged to make sure all of her students are engaged in interactive, generative learning activities no matter which participation mode they choose. That’s another significant challenge, and I’ll address that in my next post.

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Relationship-Driven – Customer-centric Principle Four

Posted on March 15, 2012 by admin

4. Relationship-Driven – “With Me, Along the Way: I have an ongoing relationship with the company; there is a clear focus on relationship-building versus transaction-processing, they manage for the long term value in our relationship.”

HyFlex courses implement this principle when the instructor creates opportunities for all students in the course to collaborate and communicate in meaningful ways as they work to achieve learning outcomes. Is this desire/intent any different in a HyFlex course than any other course (fully online or classroom-based)? Of course not. But there is a big difference between having all students online or all students in class each session and having students participating in different modes, sometimes changing modes on a frequent basis. The consistency of interpersonal interactions we are used to when everyone is participating in the same mode is not an experience that all share in a HyFlex course.

Some students participate in the classroom all the time – they have a considerable amount of consistency of interaction, though their fellow “interactors” may not always be the same. In a similar way, students who participate online (either synchronously or asynchronously) all the time also have a considerable amount of consistency of interaction, though their fellow “interactors” may not always be the same either. This can lead to students feeling disconnected from their peers, from the instructor, and from the class/program/institution.

We know that feelings of disconnection (weak feelings of connection) are a contributing factor to low student persistence in online learning; students who do not feel well-connected drop out of classes and programs/institutions. So in a HyFlex class, the instructor should develop ways to encourage connection among students, between students and instructor, and between the students and the larger program/institution.

Since there are typically some students participating in each mode, re-using material generated by students in one mode with students in the other mode(s) is one effective way to increase connection. Recording class sessions, requiring in-class students to generate forum posts (even in class) for online students to interact with later, and developing a class culture that values and supports peer review of coursework among students in all participation modes all help. Encouraging and supporting student participation “churn” (flexing their participation choice options) may also lead to more connections among all students.

Opening all online forums for participation by all students without regard to their participation choice and providing daily forum digests sent to all students is another effective way to facilitate connection. Some in-class students who may not be required to participate in the topical forum discussion (typically required of online students) may be attracted into the discussion as they see forum posts happening throughout the week (and sent to them by the LMS in a daily digest).

Bottom line – just as establishing a relationship with a customer is important to keep that customer with a company, establishing and maintaining interpersonal connections among students and instructors as they work together to achieve learning outcomes is important to the success of any course – including a HyFlex course. HyFlex instructors should develop specific strategies to connect students who may be participating in varied modes, separated by time, place, and even activity. The challenge may be difficult, but it is not impossible.

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Delight the Customer – Customer-centric Principle Three

Posted on March 8, 2012 by admin

3. Delight the Customer – “Anticipates My Needs: My interactions with the company are excellent; they are solution-focused versus product-centric.”

HyFlex courses implement this principle when the focus of faculty and student effort is on achieving important learning outcomes, not on the simple completion of detailed activities themselves. When the focus on an activity such as an online discussion is primarily on completing the activity (instructor – “I’ve got to make sure they post three times” or student – “I’ve got to make sure my post is 100-200 words”) rather than on the desired outcome (Demonstrate understanding of [discussion topic here] through interactive discussion with peers), then the students’ needs may not be met.

This could be implemented through providing a range of alternative methods to reach the outcome. Could students be allowed to participate in an online discussion in alternate ways such as text, audio, or video? Could students be assigned activities that clearly restate learning outcomes and connect the activity to outcome(s), focusing on the purpose of the activity rather than on the “checklist” of to-do’s?

An instructor could manage this by treating each student as an individual, and allowing a customized path through course content that meets specific and individual student needs. Though this is certainly possibly and is often practiced to some degree in small classes and graduate programs, it can quickly become overwhelming for the instructor. A better approach may be to provide a limited variety of acceptable alternatives ways to achieve (and demonstrate) learning outcomes. Keep in mind that we are looking for equivalence in outcome, not in process or activity.

HyFlex courses provide a natural meta-environment for alternative ways to achieve outcomes, but the instructor should still consider ways to keep the focus of activity on meeting real and valued needs – the student learning outcomes.

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Ease and Convenience – Customer-centric Principle Two

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin

2. Ease and Convenience – “What I Want, When and Where I Want It: I experience no hassles in my interactions; the company representative strives to meet me where I am at.”

HyFlex courses implement this principle when they offer a range of participation options that meet the felt and expressed needs of the student/learner. Many students want to attend classes in a traditional classroom setting because they value the interaction, social presence, and immediacy of feedback both to and from the instructor and peers. Many students also want to attend a live class but may not be able to be there in person, yet can connect remotely to watch and perhaps participate audibly in the class. Offering a web conference attendance option can meet this need or desire. And other students want an experience that they more fully control, especially regarding the time of “consumption.” These students need an asynchronous participation option that provides a meaningful learning opportunity as well.

There is one aspect to this principle that may not be appropriate for most educational settings, however. Giving the student free choice in deciding “what I want” is not likely to work in many situations. Instructors design the educational experience so that students encounter information and experience activities carefully selected to help them learn. If students are completely free to pick and choose among options, they may choose an easy and convenient path that does not lead them to a satisfactory outcome. (They may not learn all that is intended or meet the prescribed learning objectives.) HyFlex options must be thoughtfully designed so that the students’ choices do not afford a deficient participation path.

If you design your HyFlex course with the three participation options described above (in-class, online synchronous, and online asynchronous), you are much more likely to implement appropriate elements of customer-centric principle two – ease and convenience.

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Personalize – Customer-centric Principle One

Posted on December 5, 2011 by admin

1. Personalize – “Addresses My Unique Needs: Products and interactions with the company are tailored for me and my situation.”

HyFlex courses may be designed to meet the unique (and personal) needs of learners, especially as they relate to completing course requirements and participating in class activities. If one of the main reasons you have chosen the HyFlex design is to allow students the freedom to choose how they participate, then you are probably implementing a “customer-centric” principle, even if you don’t want to call your students “customers.”

You may have chosen the HyFlex design for other reasons that have nothing (or very little) to do with providing a personalized experience for students. For example, you might choose HyFlex to provide scheduling flexibility, allowing students to enroll in two course that meet F2F at the same time but provide students with the freedom to complete the class as an online student. In this case, you may find that an unintended consequence of implementing HyFlex design is that students do get a chance to customize their participation and in doing so create a personalized experience for themselves.

As I engage with faculty and administrators around HyFlex implementation, I’ve found that almost every situation ends up providing a personalized learning experience (or at least the opportunity for personalization) for students.

So I think we can safely add “addresses unique student participation needs” to the growing value-added list!

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Do Customer-centric Principles Apply to HyFlex?

Posted on November 1, 2011 by admin

Recently I came across these principles of a “customer-centric” organization. They try to implement these principles in all they do, so they can better serve the needs of their customers (and sell more product, I assume). It spurred me to think about these principles in the HyFlex context, since much of the value returned by the HyFlex design approach is targeted at meeting students needs and desires. I believe that most academics would agree that students are one of our primary customers, even though there are many other customer segments in higher education.

Here they are:
1. Personalize – “Addresses My Unique Needs: Products and interactions with the company are tailored for me and my situation.”
2. Ease and Convenience – “What I Want, When and Where I Want It: I experience no hassles in my interactions; the company representative strives to meet me where I am at.”
3. Delight the Customer – “Anticipates My Needs: My interactions with the company are excellent; they are solution-focused versus product-centric.”
4. Relationship-Driven – “With Me, Along the Way: I have an ongoing relationship with the company; there is a clear focus on relationship-building versus transaction-processing, they manage for the long term value in our relationship.

Do these principles translate to HyFlex course design? I think they all do, at least in some important ways, though the specific translation and ultimate implementation of each principle varies by many context factors (instructor, student, content, etc.).

In the next several posts I’ll address each “customer-centric” principle and explain how I think a HyFlex course design can implement that principle and explain where I see advantages and disadvantages in doing so.

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Setting Participation Expectations

Posted on October 13, 2011 by admin

Since the primary distinguishing factor among HyFlex participation options is the way students interact while learning, it makes sense to frequently clarify expectations as needed to ensure that all participants know what to expect and can make realistic choices about participation mode. 

Certainly the participation and communication protocols and expectations should be explained before students enroll in a course or at least at the very beginning of the course. Many HyFlex courses are listed as traditional courses in the course catalog so students are likely to know what the in-class expectations are before signing up for a class. It is unlikely that they will understand the online flexibility options, however, unless they have taken a HyFlex course before (and un some cases it also depends on the instructor’s specific implementation of HyFlex).

Once a class begins, some students will need very specific guidance about how and when to interact online with content, the instructor, and with other students. Instructors should have a detailed explanation of protocols and expectations ready to distribute and available in multiple places as appropriate for their situation. For example, most formal classes will use a syllabus and participation expectations should be included in that document. Most (all, probably) HyFlex classes will use a course website, and the participation expectations might be highlighted on the main page of the website in some way. Weekly agendas and discussion forum prompts are also excellent places to include specific participation expectations for that week, topic, or activity.

I’ve also found it useful to periodically remind all students in a class of the overall participation protocols and expectations during a course. An instructor can observe participation patterns and may sense that participation is deficient in some important way. If this happens, it may be time for a targeted or general reminder about what is required. I’ve found many students are receptive to those reminders and change their participation practice accordingly. 

Regrettably, some students will not change their practice (even if they “appreciate” the value they are missing). This is a problem common to every course I’ve experienced, unfortunately. In this way, the HyFlex experience is the same as any other course experience; dependent on the volition of students to participate actively.

Here’s the bottom line: Communicate participation expectations clearly, frequently, and in multiple ways that fit the specifics of your instructional situation.

…not exactly a big “Eureka” moment for seasoned instructors, but it is a very powerful principle to apply

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Shifting Expectations

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

Akin to the changing messages to various adoption groups (see previous posts in the HyFlex World), the expected returns (expectations) may change over time as faculty, students and administers develop some experience using HyFlex courses. This is a natural process, and shouldn’t be resisted… but it does inject more change which reveal new areas of [potential] conflict, and requires more effort during implementation and the evaluation of impact.

One area of expectation change is focused on technology support for various delivery modes. As newer (and better?) technologies become available or existing technologies evolve over time, old functions may be enhanced and new functions may be available. For example, let’s say your Learning Management System (LMS) adds a survey function. As faculty and students begin using the survey function and find value in completing surveys, the training for newer faculty will likely change to include the use of LMS surveys. Faculty who have been using the LMS to support instruction delivery without the survey may feel pressure (coming from within themselves or their programs or from the outside) to begin using surveys also. After all, shouldn’t we all be using “best practices” as early as possible? (This is an interesting question, but not the main topic of this post.) Redesigning class activities to include surveys, whether delivered in-class or online, and that means change, and change requires additional effort. Effort uses resources, and therefore encumbers cost. Is the returned value with the additional cost? That’s the key question a designer should answer.

Another area of expectation change is focused on the student digital experience. Even over the past five years that we’ve been using HyFlex, we’ve seen remarkable shifts in the “learning techscape.” Pervasive mobile communications technologies, ubiquitous use of video and multimedia, and the prosumer (producer-consumer) aspects of social media being used in instruction more and more are examples of technology developments that lead to changing expectations. Whether initiated by student requests (“Hey, how come we aren’t using FB or Twitter for this course?”) or faculty interest (“I just discovered Glogster and we’re going to start using it the rest of the semester!”), adding new technologies makes everyone involved change their practice, and change requires additional effort. Effort uses resources, and therefore encumbers cost. Is the returned value with the additional cost? That’s the key question a designer should answer.

Even administrators inject change through shifting expectations. Let’s consider the situation of “scale creep.” For example, a traditional classroom-based course that is limited to 35 students because only 35 students can fit in the classroom could be expanded to accommodate a larger number of students, if the pedagogy (instructional approach) allows, if a HyFlex delivery approach was used. (Note: If the course is designed such that one faculty could not manage the increased workload of reading papers or grading exams, etc., then expanding the number of students would NOT be a good idea, even with HyFlex.) If the course is successful with the additional number of students (let’s say 50, for example), an administration under extreme budgetary duress might decide to “bump up” the course enrollment by 10 percent, to 55 students. Doesn’t that sound reasonable? It may be reasonable, or it may not… that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. What I’m trying to say now is that a change in scale, even a relatively small change of five students, injects change – to both the faculty and student experience. As I said earlier, change requires additional effort. Effort uses resources, and therefore encumbers cost. Is the returned value with the additional cost? That’s the key question a designer should answer.

I think it is safe to say that in every healthy organization, change happens over time. HyFlex designers should be prepared to adapt their approach to accommodate, or even leverage, the changes happening around them. After all, if you are a HyFlex designer, you are a change agent yourself – so since you are “doing change” to others, you should be willing to “accept change” in return. Improving our practice demands it, in fact.

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Effective Practices: Overlapping Discussions

Posted on September 22, 2011 by admin

One method of combining f2f and online students that I have found effective is to overlap the two sets of students in a topical discussion. Often, I will use small discussion groups in class to focus on various aspects of a concept or principle we are studying. Those groups will usually create some form of summary to report back to the larger group in a debriefing discussion that I facilitate. Since we have access to our LMS in class, the student groups are expected to post their summaries (text, PPT, web links,etc.) to a threaded discussion forum in preparation for the whole class discussion.

When online students are part of our synchronous class, they join in the live small group discussions, either together with other synchronous online students (using Blackboard’s Collaborate tool) or with one or more f2f students using a local computer workstation to connect. Online students who complete their class activites later that week are required to join in the topical discussion that was started in class. I’ve found that some f2f students are drawn back into the discussion forum later in the week, in response to the participation of their online colleagues, even though they aren’t required to extend their participation beyond the formal class session.

This method provides a richer online discussion for asynchronous online students, since they can join in discussions already started, and their f2f colleagues may be more likely to respond to posts connecting to their previous work (in class). More interaction in the discussion forum throughout the week helps all students stay more closely connected to the class (content and people), because they “see” interaction happening through the regular system messages they receive. Finally, another benefit to the f2f students is that their discussions in class create meaningful artifacts that summarize their thinking and provide an opportunity for ongoing reflection about course content as discussion extends beyond the end of the class session.

Overall I find this approach very effective and easy to facilitate. The biggest challenge is integrating live online students into the small group discussions, but even that becomes quick and efficient with a little practice and experience (both for the instructor and both sides of the student connection).

Try it yourself! Let me know how it works for you.

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Good Enough?

Posted on September 13, 2011 by admin

In the early days of HyFlex, “good enough” was good enough. It seems the bar has been raised with my own students and even in my own expectations, which is, I believe, a good and natural thing.

What used to be good enough? Basically, providing a functional way for both online students and F2F students to meet learning objectives was all that I needed to provide. Most students were so grateful for a way to complete course requirements without having to be on campus for every class meeting that they were willing to take on the responsibility for engaging with the content and others as much as they needed to learn. If I could provide good content (text, readings, other expert resources), application activities they could access and complete, and some form of interaction with peers and the instructor, that was “good enough.”

I have one class of 20 graduate students studying the field and practice of Distance Education with a focus on Online Learning. We are using a HyFlex course format (of course) and they are providing plenty of feedback, both in person and indirectly through their own weekly reflection posts. Many of these students have already completed one or more HyFlex courses and now they have the chance to study and explore the issues around online teaching and learning, including a variety of hybrid approaches. Essentially they are telling me that my “good enough” isn’t really good enough anymore. They want better technical quality, more online interaction, better integration of online and F2F experiences, and more meaningful online activities. Good for them! They are getting the message of the course and starting to think like ID professionals. And for me? Perhaps they are providing the challenge I need to push my own implementation of HyFlex to the next level.

I’ll write more about specific improvements I’ve implemented as the semester progresses.

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