Description
HyFlex courses are offered online and face-to-face at the same time. Students are given the freedom to elect either modality, and often given the option to switch back and forth as needed. This kind of flexibility can be particularly helpful during times of crisis. We suggest using HiFlex (“highly flexible”) rather than HyFlex (“hybrid flexible”) so that you are leading with a pedagogical framework rather than a more rigid modality requirement. Use modality as another tool to meet the needs of the situation, your content, and your students.
Learn
Techniques and Activities to help you explore this practice.
In, Out, Over
For each topic you want to cover, ask yourself how you will deliver the course to your in-class students, how your will deliver the course to your out-of-class (online) students, and how you will take advantage of the overlap between these two groups.
Online Can be Sync or Async
In order to maximize the flexibility of the HiFlex modality, see if you can give your online students the choice of engaging synchronously (by Zooming in with your f2f students, for example) or asynchronously (by watching recordings and completing work anytime). This actually means you have to in engage in three design processes: f2f, online sync, and online async.
Combine with Modular Design
Some parts of your course may work much better in a f2f format, and others may actually work better online. For others, either might be great. If you identify a certain module that works better in a f2f environment, for example, you can run that module when the crisis situation permits. In this way, your course schedule may suggest (or require) online or f2f participation at some points if the context allows. This is not traditional HyFlex as much as it is highly flexible. But remember that traditional HyFlex reminds us to always offer online options for students who need them, so even if you create a f2f module in your HiFlex architecture, keep a HyFlex pathway so certain students can still have access to what they need.
Use Backwards Design
Start by thinking of a learning outcome for your particular content. From there, design activities in each modality (f2f, online sync, online async) that target the outcome. Think about how the instructions and support will be delivered across the different modalities and clearly communicated to students.
Technology Considerations
While technology in HiFlex courses can be hugely helpful as a tool for providing access for those students who can’t be physically present, we need to be careful not to overburden ourselves and our students with the online learning environment we design. A few tips to guide your technology planning around HiFlex:
- Choose tools that can be used by both f2f and online students.
- Encourage the use of communication tools by your f2f students for activities and conversations — don’t “isolate” your online students from the larger course community.
- Consider building out a robust course Web site (or shell in your LMS) that all students will use to access materials, share ideas, and connect with one another. Building a site like this can also help you wrap your head around the overall organization and structure of your course.
- Work closely with your IT and academic technology support staff and colleagues; they can offer valuable advice about which tools to consider and how to support your students use of them.
Design a HiFlex Unit
- Analyze and confirm or modify expected student learning outcomes. What are your student learning outcomes? Can these outcomes be met effectively in all provided student participation modes or do they need modification?
- Plan student learning activities (content and interaction). For each learning outcome, ask:
- What activities are required in each mode?
- What additional resources are required in each mode?
- How will activities and resources be facilitated and/or provided to students in each mode?
- What overlap is there between the modes that can provide additional learning benefits?
- Assess learning outcomes. For each learning outcome, ask:
- What – exactly – will be assessed?
- How will this assessment be conducted for students in each participation mode?
- What additional issues associated with participation mode (timing, sharing, etc.) may have to be solved or at least considered for this context?
- Use this worksheet to help you with these steps!
Explore
Online reading and resources to help dive deeper into this practice.
- Martha Burtis from the CoLab created four models to help you structure HiFlex learning.
- Brian Beatty’s clear and concise book, Hybrid-Flexible Course Design (from which the planning worksheet in the activity above is adapted), is the place to start your learning.
- Brian Beatty also wrote this post-COVID reflection, “Can HyFlex Options Support Students in the Midst of Uncertainty?”
- Here is a 20-minute podcast conversation about the HyFlex model, and a related blog post with a bunch of very useful hyperlinks about pros and cons, data from HyFlex experiments, etc.
- 7 Things You Should Know About the HyFlex Model (from 2010)
- Faculty in Australia Reflect on a HyFlex Course
- Jenni Hayman, Chair of Teaching & Learning at Cambrian College in Ontario, talks about their HyFlex courses
- The Teaching in Higher Ed podcast talks with David Rhoads about HyFlex
Related Slipper-Camp Resources
Check out these PSU-specific resources generated by this spring's Slipper Camp.
Engage
A larger community of teachers and learners interested in this practice.
Discuss on Twitter
If you are active on Twitter, we encourage you to share your thought and ideas using the #ACEFramework hashtag and the #HiFlex hashtag to talk about this practice, in particular.
Join a Meeting
If you are interested in talking to people about the Adaptability value (for which HiFlex is an ACE-informed practice), we invite you to our hosted Zoom chats. Chats are scheduled this summer on the following dates:
- Thursday, June 18 from 1:00PM-2:00PM (EDT): Overview of the ACE Framework
- Thursday, June 25 from 1:00PM-2:00PM (EDT): Adaptability Practices
Submit Your Ideas
If you find yourself working this summer on a project or approach that uses HiFlex, we invite you to share what you’ve found or created, via the Submit Something button below. If you choose to publicly share your submission, it will immediately become available on this page in the Revisit section. (For particularly compelling submissions, we may also add this to the Explore section of this page.)
Hypothesize with Us
The online annotation tool, Hypothesis, is built into this Web site. Feel free to annotate this (or any page in the ACE Framework) with your own thoughts, critiques, questions, or ideas. You can easily get started with a Hypothesis account (which is free) and learn more about how to use the tool.
Join Our Team
Plymouth State University community members are invited to join our Teams site for the ACE Framework. Feel free to use our discussion channel to ask questions, give suggestions, and point to new resources.
Revisit
A space for user-submitted ideas, resources, and links related to this practice.
Flexible Deadlines and HyFlex
- Submitted by: John Lennon
- Submitted on: July 20, 2020
- In looking at my online course, it is set up primarily for asynchronous learning – mostly. Chapter based essay questions have fixed deadlines (forgiven sometimes). Forum discussions have a window of 2-3 days for each student to make 2 contributions to a group assignment (usually determining the correct answer for a case study). If I teach a face/face class and have a small number of students learning asynchronously (and hopefully with an internet connection), I could accomplish a HyFlex design and flexible deadlines by setting up a ‘parallel syllabus’ made of modules that have no forums or group discussions, but instead have a larger set of chapter-based questions and outside readings (basically more work on one type of assignment to replace the group work), with soft deadlines and the stipulation that X number of modules must be complete by time Y. The final project would also be different. I can even (with some uncertainty) envision a student choosing to skip 1 or 2 modules.
An idea for lab classes with a project component
- Submitted by: Jessica Morgan
- Submitted on: July 16, 2020
- Usually the project part of the class comes at the end of the class in labs for a multitude of reasons, the main one being that students don’t have the experience to go off on their own with a lab based project until closer to the end. Since we don’t know if we will be able to have f2f classes for a long period of time, my idea is to front load the project. Students can usually follow directions even if they have no idea why they are doing what they are doing. The first lab over two weeks could be a “preparation lab”. It will give them the skills they need to do the projects. The second and hopefully 3rd time they get into lab they will work on the project. The students will log their results in a file on Teams so that it can be shared with their project group. This can then be used as an artifact in the lecture portion of the class as it proceeds to show them how the data can be analyzed with different topics that we cover. I think this might actually given more depth to the project.
