Hybrid Course Design: Exploring the Many Ways “Face-To-Face” and “Online” Can Be Blended and What That Means for Our Students
Thursday, April 16 from 3-4pm ET
Jude Miller
Research on course design for hybrid writing courses indicates that the structure of hybrid writing courses can look radically different across institutions. Indeed, aside from possessing the two vaguely unifying features of being courses that blend face-to-face and online learning, hybrid writing classes can entail virtually any imaginable permutation of those two elements.
In theory, hybrid classes provide students the freedoms of self-directed, self-paced learning that’s associated with online classes, while also holding on to the elements that many instructors find valuable about face-to-face classes. However, my experience suggests that how, exactly, the face-to-face and online components of a class are combined can have a very significant impact on the curriculum itself, and thereby the students in the course. What’s more, while certain elements of hybrid classes can easily serve institutional or administrative needs (like maximizing class space by moving courses partially online), other aspects of hybrid course design more directly pertain to students’ needs (like allowing for a schedule of face-to-face meetings that makes sense for the curriculum). And while these various stakeholders’ needs can sometimes overlap, it’s not a given that they always do. Simply put, there are both perils and promises of hybrid writing courses.
This webinar will discuss the circumstances that led to the creation of my program’s first hybrid writing class, in addition to the structure of this hybrid writing course and the pedagogical and institutional rationale for that structure, ending with a discussion of how the course continues to transform to meet shifting needs by overcoming certain challenges while facing new ones.
Participants will:
Thursday, April 16 from 3-4pm ET
Jude Miller
Research on course design for hybrid writing courses indicates that the structure of hybrid writing courses can look radically different across institutions. Indeed, aside from possessing the two vaguely unifying features of being courses that blend face-to-face and online learning, hybrid writing classes can entail virtually any imaginable permutation of those two elements.
In theory, hybrid classes provide students the freedoms of self-directed, self-paced learning that’s associated with online classes, while also holding on to the elements that many instructors find valuable about face-to-face classes. However, my experience suggests that how, exactly, the face-to-face and online components of a class are combined can have a very significant impact on the curriculum itself, and thereby the students in the course. What’s more, while certain elements of hybrid classes can easily serve institutional or administrative needs (like maximizing class space by moving courses partially online), other aspects of hybrid course design more directly pertain to students’ needs (like allowing for a schedule of face-to-face meetings that makes sense for the curriculum). And while these various stakeholders’ needs can sometimes overlap, it’s not a given that they always do. Simply put, there are both perils and promises of hybrid writing courses.
This webinar will discuss the circumstances that led to the creation of my program’s first hybrid writing class, in addition to the structure of this hybrid writing course and the pedagogical and institutional rationale for that structure, ending with a discussion of how the course continues to transform to meet shifting needs by overcoming certain challenges while facing new ones.
Participants will:
- Discuss what hybrid courses look like at your institutions.
- Outline ways that the unique features of hybrid courses at each of our institutions effectively (and maybe sometimes not so effectively) serve students in our respective programs.
- Generate and exchange ideas about what works and what doesn’t regarding hybrid course design.