The Hybrid Model of Blended Learning

In today’s episode, we'll explore how you can use the best of face-to-face classroom instruction and online virtual learning by implementing the hybrid model of blended learning. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16 The topic of today's episode is the hybrid model of blended learning.

The hybrid model of blended learning got a little tarnished during the pandemic. Teaching times with very little, if any, training and guidance, teachers had to figure out how to teach students simultaneously in a face-to-face and remote location. Too often, this meant teaching their face-to-face students in a traditional lecture format, while remote students listened in and watched via a video conference stream.

While this got us by, it was far from best practice, and it left a bad impression on many teachers. Still, I want to revisit the hybrid model of blended learning, because when done correctly and with proper preparation, it can be highly effective. Let's start by revisiting a description of what the hybrid model is.

In a hybrid model of blended learning, students learn some lessons during face-to-face classroom instruction and other lessons virtually away from the physical classroom. As with the other blended learning models, students should have some control over the pace, place, path, and time of their learning, while the teacher leverages the best aspects of both in-person and remote digital learning strategies.

To make it work, we need to structure it differently than the scenario I opened the episode with. Effective hybrid teaching does not involve teaching remote and face-to-face students simultaneously during the same live lesson. It involves a rotation of remote and face-to-face learning experiences. This might include all students being face-to-face one day and then remote the next, or it might mean part of the class is face-to-face while the other part is remote.

However, when a class is split like this, the students who are engaged in face-to-face learning are engaged in rich collaborative learning experiences in the classroom, while the remote students engage in a different lesson that leverages the advantages of remote learning outside of the physical classroom.

Although hybrid learning is part of the blended learning family, it is significantly different from the other rotation models: whole group, station rotation, flipped, and playlist. While these other models can easily be implemented in a traditional school setting with minimal disruptions, the hybrid model requires some systemic adaptations. For the hybrid model to work as intended, students must be given more flexibility and freedom to be out of the classroom at times, and teachers need permission to schedule some class sessions as remote learning days or to meet with only part of their class roster on any given day.

While these disruptions can be challenging, they can also lead to exciting and transformative innovation. You'll need to work with your school administration to see what will work in your situation. There's no single right way to implement hybrid learning, and teachers continue to experiment with different ways to structure schedules all the time.

Let's take a look at five different ways that hybrid schedules might be structured. Number one is a continuous AB rotation. In this format, the class meets face-to-face every other day on a consistent AB schedule. During in-class days, students engage in lessons like they have always done. During remote days, students complete an online lesson. The model provides stability and consistency for both the students and the teacher. By alternating in this fashion, the number of in-person and remote days are balanced out over the course of the term, with approximately half being face-to-face and half being remote.

In some schools, students are allowed to leave the building during remote days, while in other schools, students must remain on campus. Typically, remote students required to remain on campus are allowed the option of going to flex spaces within the building, such as the media center or a commons area.

Number two is a consistent schedule, but not an AB schedule. If you want a consistent schedule, you're not necessarily bound to an AB rotation. You can choose any combination of in-class and remote days. Maybe you'd like every Monday and Friday to be face-to-face, so you can bookend your week with in-person instruction, or maybe you want to start each week face-to-face and then give students remote work on Thursday or Friday. In this approach, the choice is yours. Simply decide what combination of days works best for you and your students and repeat that schedule each week. The advantage of this approach is that you can design it to fit your instructional needs, while still providing consistency and predictability for your students.

Number three is a flexible AB schedule. This is a powerful approach because it matches the learning environment to the learning need. Instead of arbitrarily assigning days as in-class or remote and fitting lessons into that structure, the flexible approach allows you to customize a schedule each week that intentionally aligns your lessons to the mode in which they will work best.

Perhaps you want students in class every day to start the term so you can establish routines and build community. This method allows you to do that. If students are researching or working on a project that can be largely done independently, then maybe you schedule a series of remote days and have students come in during those days for individual conferences and check-ins. In fact, each week could be different depending on your needs.

This approach is more responsive to your instructional needs, and it's often more effective, as long as your school schedule can accommodate this level of flexibility. At the same time, because the schedule may be less consistent, it's important that you have a clear and consistent way to communicate the weekly schedule to your students and family, so they know where to show up and on which days.

Number four is a split group schedule. In this approach, students are split into A and B groups that meet face-to-face every other day. This method allows you to cut your class size in half, with the A group meeting on half the days and the B group meeting on the other half. With fewer students in class at one time, you can provide more personalized instruction to your students and give them more voice and opportunity to participate. When the need arises, you can still call all of your students together at once for a combined face-to-face lesson.

In a twist of this approach, you can divide your class even further. For instance, you could meet with all of your students on Monday for an introduction and to kick off the week. Then, on Tuesday through Friday, you could meet with one-fourth of your students each day. This would create even smaller class sizes and more personalized attention. You could design groups based on what will work best with your curriculum and instructional needs.

Number five: a two-teacher schedule. Another exciting adaptation of the hybrid model is to have two teachers offering the same hybrid class during the same class period each day. Essentially, instead of having my students and your students, you have our students. This allows you to create a custom group of students each day, scheduling them by academic need, rather than the random AB groupings. Both teachers could start each week with an initial core lesson for their original rosters of students.

Then on the other days, students can be divided up into two groups, with half the students meeting in person and half studying remotely. Based on the opening lesson of the week, you can decide which students are ready to move on and which students need more help. Together, you and your hybrid teacher partner can divide up the in-person students based on those needs and conduct two differentiated lessons at the same time, each in your own classroom. You can even send students back and forth during the class period as needed. It's very flexible and responsive.

So instead of an arbitrary grouping of students in the classroom, you are intentionally assigning students to lessons based on academic need. It is more complicated to manage, but it opens up exciting possibilities for differentiation and personalization of learning. Of course, there are other ways to schedule a hybrid lesson, but these are the most popular approaches.

While the schedule is important in providing structure, the key to success in hybrid learning, however, is how you use the time and how you maximize the advantages that the hybrid approach can provide you.

Let's look at some consideration for what makes remote days most effective. Number one: Set expectations. To make a hybrid system work, students need to be productive when they're not in your classroom. Because of this, it's important to set up students for success during the remote time. This means reminding them that remote learning days are not days off. In fact, consider referencing remote work as classwork instead of homework. Some students see homework as optional or unimportant. Be sure your students understand that the work they are assigned on remote days is a learning day, just like any other in-class day. You might even want to practice remote learning days in class.

Basically, that would mean simulating a remote learning day with students while they're still in your classroom. This allows you to set expectations and have students give a test drive to the remote learning experience before doing it on their own. You can even use this as a way to have students prove that they're ready to be remote learners. Students generally want this remote learning flexibility, so you can use this practice time to challenge your students to prove you're right, that they are responsible and ready and can handle the independence of remote learning.

Paul Beckermann 12:59 Number two: Design meaningful learning. If students think remote learning days are days off without meaningful learning activities, they will quickly disengage and see remote learning days as nonessential or even non-school days.

Ask yourself, what type of work they can do meaningfully on a remote basis. Will they engage in a flipped video? Will they be researching? Maybe they're working on a project. Perhaps they're engaging with a custom AI chatbot that you've created with a tool like School AI. Whatever it is, the remote learning must be essential and meaningful to reaching your learning outcomes.

Number three: Require students to earn remote learning days. Part of this might be requiring that in-class practice day, but it can be done in other ways as well. A teacher could require students who are not achieving a minimum level of performance to come to class during their remote days.

This provides an incentive to students to complete their work, and it also allows you to support students who are falling behind.

Number four: Leverage remote days to meet with students. One of the advantages of having students learn remotely is that it gives the teacher time to meet with students in small groups or individually. These remote days offer an excellent opportunity to facilitate interventions and support students at a much more individualized level. The following are a few ways that teachers have effectively used this asynchronous, remote learning time to meet with students.

One would be to schedule progress checks. Conduct progress check-ins with students on a rotating basis. This could be a general check-in, or it could be aligned with ongoing project work. You could even make a check-in one of the required steps in a process or a playlist before students can move on with further work on a project.

One-on-one writing conferences are another popular application of this approach.

Another option is to meet with student teams. If students are working in groups, they may be allowed to meet in flex areas during the remote days, but you can also call them into your open classroom for status checks. You could create a schedule so that all teams must check in over a specified time period.

Another option is to conduct individual assessments. With this strategy, you call in students one at a time to conduct individual performance-based assessments. This also gives you the chance to check in individually with each student and offer personalized feedback.

And finally, you can use this approach to reduce class size and create small group experiences. By rotating in groups of students on remote days, you can better facilitate engaging activities and experiences with fewer students.

This might be a lab experience where you have limited materials, or it might be an in-class debate where a smaller group of students encourages more participation from all the students involved.

Just as you want to make the most of your remote days, you'll also want to leverage your precious in-class days. Ask yourself what learning experiences are best done face-to-face. While some lessons are easily flipped to remote days, especially basic knowledge-level content, some learning benefits more from your in-person guidance. While the following list is not intended to be comprehensive, it can help guide you in deciding how to best use your in-class learning days.

Here are a few ideas. Number one: Teach the technology. By teaching the technology skills in class, you'll be empowering your students to be more successful during remote days. This is a great scaffolding technique for tech skills.

Students learn it in class and apply it or practice it at home. During the next in-class day, you can answer questions, troubleshoot, and set students up for even more success the next day.

Number two: Build relationships. You can definitely facilitate relationship building in an online environment, but it may be more easily done face-to-face. Use your in-class days, especially early on, to develop a class community so that students learn to trust you and each other. This foundation can help you stay connected, even during remote days.

Number three: Guide core lessons. While all academic standards are important, some are essential to future learning. They're the foundations upon which the next lessons will build.

Oftentimes, hybrid teachers will teach these skills and concepts in person so they can more quickly assess if students are missing this key baseline information. Once the foundation has been established, students may be more able to build on it independently during remote days.

Number four: Facilitate collaboration. Most students are social, and they come to school specifically to interact with their friends and classmates. Collaboration is also an essential academic and life skill. Therefore, try to build in some form of collaboration during each face-to-face day. This is much easier to do in person than it is online.

Number five: Conduct labs and experiential learning. You can have students do this remotely, but some students may not have access to materials or quality learning spaces outside of your classroom. Therefore, in-class time is ideal for labs and experiential learning. The in-class environment also allows you to have students work in pairs and teams to enrich that learning.

And number six: Provide opportunities for performances and group projects. Again, group projects can be facilitated remotely, especially if students can gather in flexible learning spaces within the school, and performances can be recorded and shared virtually.

However, these highly interactive learning experiences can benefit from face-to-face learning environments. If the groundwork is laid here, students can divide and conquer group tasks during that independent remote learning day.

In general, hybrid learning is a powerful and flexible way to get the most from both face-to-face and remote learning experiences. Even if pandemic teaching has left us with some negative connotations for hybrid learning, I'd encourage everyone to give it another look. When done well, it can be transformational.

To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources,

Paul Beckermann 15:32 Visit avidopenaccess.org for more information and details about blended learning. Explore the article collection, "Explore Blended Learning Strategies." And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.