How do we define hybrid teaching?
Hybrid teaching is when the teaching session is taking place on campus with some students participating in person and some participating online.
Benefits of hybrid teaching
Use of Hybrid learning facilitates the engagement of students who are unable, or have reasons not to attend on-campus sessions. Bringing all students together at the same time means:
- students will all remain on track with their course;
- staff will not be required to run multiple sessions/provide additional support;
- there will be opportunities for wider interaction across the whole cohort, by integrating students who are unable to attend campus.
The guidance in this document assumes that hybrid teaching is the planned and pre-decided delivery mode for the sessions, in order to allow arrangements and delivery design in advance to ensure an equivalent experience for both student groups attending online and face-to-face.
Challenges of hybrid teaching
Delivery of hybrid learning does present challenges. It adds an additional layer of complexity to ensure that both online and on-campus students have an equivalent experience. It requires the educator to pay attention to the different—and potentially conflicting—needs of two groups of learners.
Where online students include international students the timing of such sessions also needs to be considered.
A Hybrid learning session will require the use of online technology in an on-campus classroom setting. If the session is not carefully planned, then the experience for the students will clearly be differentiated by these different learning environments.
Best practice in designing a hybrid session
The key principles of designing a hybrid session wouldn’t vary significantly from those of designing a face-to-face or online session. It should include a good balance of content delivery, active learning opportunities, and formative assessment opportunities.
Best practices include using techniques such as the Energy-Shift Lecture method (also known as “chunked” lectures), interspersed with active learning experiences, which help increase learners’ motivation, engagement, and interaction with the course content, with the instructor, and with each other.
What is fundamental is that the students in both groups (on-campus and online) have an equivalent experience.
To plan for this in advance, a simplified lesson plan could be devised as following:
Example Lesson Plan
| Lesson Topic | Add the topic of the session | |
| Session Objectives | Include the session objectives | |
| Class Interactions | Face to face students Include all the learning and formative assessment activities (see below table for inspiration) | Online Students Include all the learning and formative assessment activities (see below table for inspiration) Consider the support of a Teaching Assistant, if available to monitor the progress of students online. |
| Relevant resources for students | Include any relevant pre-readings, or material that you will be sharing during the session |
The active learning experiences chosen should either work for both groups of students, or an equivalent alternative can be identified for those that are present in the room versus those that are attending online.
Active Learning in hybrid sessions
Some activities examples are shown in the below table.
Table 2: Activities for hybrid teaching
| Activity | Instructions | On-campus students without IT access | On-campus students with IT access | Online students |
| Small group activities (think-pair-share, group discussions, group reflections etc.) | · Ask the students to consider their thoughts on topic X. · Define the time for the activity. · Once the time has passed, give opportunities to each group to share. | Provide flip-chart papers and markers, and students can work in smaller groups, alternatively students can use their notebooks | Depending on the tasks students can work on their devices, using collaborative platforms such as Miro, or google docs. | Students can work in their tables (Engageli) or Break out rooms (Zoom) and use online whiteboards, such as Miro or other collaborative documents, such as google docs. |
| Using online quizzing tools such as Mentimeter, Engageli Polls etc, for formative assessment or for icebreaking activities. | · Provide link to online quiz. · Ensure the questions are visible on the screen as well. | Students without IT access could either team up with other students, or answer on their notebooks. | Students can access the poll via their devices. | Students can access the poll via their devices. |
| Students’ choice | · Identify key themes you would like students to discuss e.g. topic A, topic B and topic C · Create tables with the specific theme that students can move to physically and/or virtually. | Students can move to specifically designated locations in the room that will indicate their selection. This can be supported by flipcharts stuck in the wall where students that have selected the said topic can note down their discussion. | n/a | Students can self-select tables (Engageli) or Break out rooms (Zoom). . This can be supported by online whiteboards or google docs, where students that have selected the said topic can note down their discussion. |
Engageli has compiled a set of learning activities that promote active, collaborative, engaging and flexible learning experiences for all learners, both in-person and online and could be adapted for hybrid sessions as well. If you’d like further inspiration, this list presents active learning ideas based on the class size and most of the activities can be adapted for online and hybrid learning too.
Preparing students for a hybrid session
Inform students as soon as possible if a session will be delivered in a hybrid mode and provide a clear rationale for this choice. It is advisable that students are aware of the structure of the session so that they can attend prepared, whether they have to join on campus or online. That includes informing the on-campus students to come with appropriate technology, if required (laptop/tablet) to be able to engage with activities and their online peers.
If you are using Engageli for your hybrid sessions, make sure that you prepare your students in advance. An AULA page template is s available to be embedded in your own AULA module space to prepare students with learning with Engageli.
Best practice in delivering a hybrid session
Key things to remember when delivering a hybrid session to ensure an equivalent experience for students both on-campus and online:
- Setting clear expectations by explaining how the session will be run and any other ground rules you may wish to set (e.g. cameras on/off).
- Always address both groups.
- Ensure that the video and any slide sharing is visible for students in both groups. – Test runs in your classroom may help with that if time allows.
- Ensure you have a back-up plan in case technology fails for the online students and make this plan clear to students. E.g. advice the students how to contact you, if audio or video is not clear for them.
- When providing instructions for active learning tasks, ensure that you provide clear instructions for both groups and how those are different. – Take this into account for your sessions timings.
- If possible, consider asking a student/TA on campus to volunteer to monitor the chat and alert you, while you are supporting the students in the classroom during the active learning tasks.
- Ensure that any comments/questions made from students on-campus are repeated so that the students online can follow as well, as microphones do not always pick the students voice in a large room.
- Allow opportunities for students online and on-campus to interact. E.g. when a student on campus asks a question, you can ask students online to respond, or add their answers to the chat.
- Regularly check for students understanding for both groups. – Take this into account for your session timings.
- Allocate time to receive questions from both groups. E.g. When you open for Q&A, you could say, I’ll first address any questions from students online and then I’ll address any questions for students on-campus.
