An approach to improving flexibility for your students
HyFlex is an instructional method where the course is designed in such a way that learners have a choice in how they engage with the curriculum. Typically, learners have the choice to attend class in-person or online, and some instructors opt to record the live sessions, though this choice is up to them. Many HyFlex approaches also allow learners to choose an asynchronous method of participation as a third option. The choice of what method a student uses to participate can also change from week to week or even class to class. This requires an intentional and thoughtful design as the instructor must work to ensure that the experience is equivalent for learners across all teaching modalities. It can be difficult to interact meaningfully with both online and face-to-face students, but we are happy to work with you to develop and practice strategies for your live classes as well as your overall course design. You can contact us at hyflex@uwindsor.ca for HyFlex specific questions.
You can learn more about what technology is available in the HyFlex classrooms.
Considering your assessment
HyFlex courses may have assessments such as a quiz, exam, or in-class essay during scheduled class time, but such assessment must be available to all learners remotely and not require them to come to campus (i.e. all assessment should be facilitated and submitted online). All assessment must be in the same format for both on-campus and online students, for example if the course has an exam, it should be delivered online for all students.
Tips for starting out
- Make sure you know how to use the HyFlex classroom technology; we offer workshops (called orientation to flexible delivery classrooms) every term or contact us if you have questions or don’t see one scheduled.
- Practice! Both the technology and pedagogical strategies. Ideally test it out with people. We can help so contact us.
- Plan carefully and consider how you will authentically engage the in-person and online audience and how they can engage with each other.
- Keep things simple for the first few classes to make sure you are comfortable with your process.
- Set clear and explicit expectations with your students about how you will communicate and interact with them
- If you have a TA, consider if it might be worth having them sit in the classroom to help orchestrate things. Of course, they will need training/planning too and again, we can help.
The pillars of HyFlex teaching
HyFlex is built on four fundamental values:
- Learner choice – Learners get to choose between learning modes and may change their preferred mode from one class to the next.
- Equivalency – The learning activities and assessment activities should be equivalent between each mode and allow all learners to achieve equivalent learning outcomes.
- Reusability – Instructors should strive to use artefacts from learning activities from each mode as learning objects for all of their students.
- Accessibility – Learning activities and assessment activities should be accessible to all learners in all learning modes.
You can learn more from Brian J. Beatty’s Hybrid Flexible Course Design: Implementing student-directed hybrid classes. Section 1.4 has information and worksheets to start designing a HyFlex course.