Hybrid teaching: What is it? How do we do it?

My main interest in teaching with technology came from my previous experiences as a primary school language teacher. I noticed that technology can motivate students. Once you bring an iPad or computer into the classroom, the learners are automatically excited by that, so you have that level of engagement and interest because it's something from their real world outside of school. Technology also allows teachers to design and implement activities which they simply couldn’t do without.

How did you go from using technology with young learners to using technology more widely for teacher education?

When COVID-19 happened, it shifted my interest to looking at technology much more broadly, not just looking at young learners but also at secondary school and university language learners as well. Technology wasn’t an add-on anymore. It was a mediator of everything at every level of education in every education setting in every country around the world.

To some extent, you were probably in quite a fortunate position in that you'd already adopted technology use before COVID-19 happen. For many teachers, this might not have been the case. Based on your observation and experience, how has the transition to using technology been for many teachers?

I think it was a dramatic shock because it happened so quickly. In the past, we've had school closures in Hong Kong because of swine flu or other diseases. In those situations, there was no technological alternatives, so teachers kind of adopted a traditional approach of sending homework home, collecting it back, marking and sending it back. Now that the technology was available and governments were saying that they want teachers to use it, teachers weren’t necessarily ready, so I think that was challenging for most.

In your recent thematic review, you talked about the emergence of hybrid teaching. Could you please tell us a little bit more about hybrid teaching and how it’s different from current forms of online and blended teaching?

For online teaching, everything is mediated through technology. All teaching is either in real time, that is, synchronous, usually conducted through a video conferencing software, such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, or asynchronous, where the teacher uploads materials and tasks to a learning management system for students to engage with and complete in their own time. Then, of course, blended teaching is when we put some materials or tasks online for students to interact with, and we also have in-person lessons. A blend of the physical and virtual.

With hybrid or hyflex, we have students in the classroom with us physically in-person and we also have students who are joining us virtually synchronously through video conferencing software simultaneously. It gives a lot of flexibility to the student, which is very useful at this time when some students might be in quarantine, some might be in another country and some may be just fearful of coming to campus. They can join virtually. It also gives flexibility to those students who can come to the physical classroom and join in person. For the teacher, rather than running two separate courses, an online and in-person course, we can run just the one hybrid course.

To give us a clearer idea of what a hybrid lesson is like, could you give us an example of a course that you ran in a hybrid mode?

Sure, in the last academic year, I was teaching an undergraduate course for English language pre-service teachers. The course was a 12-session course on classroom management and communication, which was a really interesting one to do in a hybrid mode. Classroom management and communication are very different in the physical and virtual classrooms. There were about 32 students in the class. I found that the majority wanted to join virtually because we still had quite a few confirmed COVID-19 cases in the community at that time. At the same time, about 7–10 would come in-person.

I adopted a kind of hybrid flipped or virtual flipped classroom. First, I uploaded a video that I made to our learning management system. The video was relatively basic, a kind of annotated PowerPoint, something nice and easy, about 20–30 minutes long with a few small tasks and questions to get the students to think. I did this to make sure that students would come to the hybrid lesson ready with some ideas to share, having reflected on the content and their own experiences of that content.

Why is it important that they come prepared to share?

In in-person lessons, we can use activities like think–pair–share to give students confidence to share their ideas with the class, but because it’s difficult to do this online, the students lack confidence, so interaction can be a bit stunted. I found that if students come prepared to the session with some idea of the content, then they are more willing to share straight away because they've already got some ideas. I’d found this “flipping” very effective for online teaching, so I have adopted that for hybrid teaching.

What happens in the synchronous part of the lesson for students who are physically in the classroom and for those who are online?

In the hybrid session, I’ll start with a discussion activity with some prompting questions provided based on the content of the flipped video. I’ll have the students go into breakout rooms if they're virtual and into physical groups if they're not virtual, but they also go onto the video conferencing software. We use Zoom.

That’s very interesting! Why do the students in the classroom also have to log into Zoom?

If they are also in Zoom, it means that when the students attending virtually are sharing their ideas, then, those in class can also hear them, and similarly, when the students in class answer, those on Zoom can also hear what they are saying. Of course, it’s possible for the teacher to pass a microphone around the classroom, but that affects the dialogic interactive environment. It becomes very teacher-centred when you, the teacher, are moving around with the microphone. Instead, I get those in class to turn on the Zoom microphone so that they can respond easily and those attending virtually can hear the response.

What do you do after the group discussions?

We usually have a bit of input from me, which is based on what they come up with from the initial discussion, and then I have another main task. Because of the issue with interaction, I often get them to create or work on a shared document, like Google Docs or Google Slides, where they can co-construct something in groups.

What are some benefits of getting them to co-construct their response in a shared document?

There are huge benefits. The main one is that we can discreetly monitor the groups. In a classroom, we can move around and listen to groups and make sure the groups are on task. That’s difficult to do in hybrid and virtual teaching because if we go into the breakout room, it can interrupt the group. Using shared documents, you can actually see them constructing their documents and you know which groups are having difficulty. You also know when they're finishing up on their task. Essentially, it can help you do that discreet monitoring, which is something that’s very difficult to do in hybrid and virtual teaching.

What do you do after they have finished the main task?

After the main task, I’ll invite students to share their co-constructed document, and that becomes a kind of artefact to stimulate discussion. The technology allows students to create something clear, instant and visible.

Let’s talk a bit more about the technology. What kind of technology does the teacher need to have for a hybrid lesson?

With the technology, obviously I want it to be as “technology-light” as possible, because if there is too much technology involved, it will distract me from the teaching. We only have the cognitive ability to manage so many tasks at once. I primarily have Zoom on. The hardest thing to manage is the muting and unmuting to make sure there's no feedback. If a student in the classroom is talking on the microphone, then you have to mute your microphone, otherwise you will get feedback.

I also use the same kind of platforms regularly, like Google Docs will be used regularly throughout the course. I don’t want to keep introducing lots of new digital tools or platforms because it takes time to teach students how to use new technology. Even with the same technology, if students don't have the most updated version, it may take time for them to do the updates.

From what you said, the students in class have their laptops or tablets in front of them and they are logged into Zoom. Do they wear headphones and microphones all the time?

No, the students who join the class in-person can hear me, and they can hear each other. It is the interaction between the virtual and in-person students that is the challenge. To overcome this, during whole class oral discussions, I will connect the classroom computer to the sound system and ask students who are joining virtually to unmute their mic and share orally. This means everyone in the class can hear them. So that students joining virtually can hear when in-person students share, I ask the student talking to unmute their mic on their laptop or tablet. This shows the challenges of coordinating a hybrid class. Developing clear and consistent nomination strategies and practices is important. For virtual students, this could mean asking them to use a response icon on the video conferencing software, such as the “raise hand” icon to indicate they have something to contribute. The chat function in Zoom can also be used for instantaneous written interaction between the in-person and virtual groups.

You’ve mentioned some challenges, like muting and unmuting and having the latest updates. That’s common to online teaching, but what are some additional pedagogical challenges a teacher may face when teaching a hybrid lesson?

One of the challenges is that because we're so used to in-person teaching, we can often forget the students who are joining virtually. We are so focused on those in the classroom because we're getting what we need as teachers from those students – we’re getting their feedback, we're getting the interaction – so we can end up focusing on them. One key challenge is remembering that there are students attending the lesson virtually and catering for them as well.

Giving them options of ways to get your attention is important, for example, having the Zoom chat available so students who are joining virtually can type something up, and when you check your computer, you can see that someone needs support or they have a question. Students who are attending virtually will rarely turn on the microphone to ask a question because they don’t know where you are unless you’re in front of the computer.

It’s good to hear that you can do hybrid teaching with minimal technology. In an ideal world, is it necessary for a room to be equipped in any particular way for hybrid teaching? Is there a design of a room that would make hybrid teaching more natural?

That’s a good question. What some universities in Hong Kong are doing is putting cameras at the back of the classroom. If you’re lecturing, then that might work, but if you’re trying to interact with the class, you probably need to have the students on screen. Having two monitors would be useful, so you could have one monitor with your materials, for example, your PowerPoint or your documents, and the other with the faces of the students. It’s important to maximise the screen space for the virtual students, so when you’re not using PowerPoint, or if you're engaging in discussion, it’s good to close down the PowerPoint or to minimise the PowerPoint so that you have more visibility of the students.

It sounds like there are so many things to do. The teacher has to be an octopus!

Yes, but luckily the students are very understanding because most of them realise that hybrid teaching is really tricky and they’re very understanding when you forget to do something.

Could you talk about what you did beforehand to equip yourself for hybrid teaching?

One of the things with teaching some students who are joining your course virtually is that you don’t get a sense of who they are. To overcome this, before the course, I gave them a Google Form to complete so I could get to know them a bit more and I could share a bit more about myself before they came to class. In this way, we could build up a bit of a social presence ahead of the session. That’s something I would normally do in the first session of an in-person class, but I actually did it as a pre-course task. Then, in the first session, I shared what I knew about them anonymously, for example, “I know one of you loves cooking and one of you likes Tae-kwon-do”, that kind of thing. I felt this helped with creating a class identity and building a positive hybrid learning environment.

I also checked out the classroom to see what the space looked like and how I could use it. I made sure to re-familiarise myself with the video-conferencing software because Zoom has regular updates.

What about the students? Did you get them to do anything beforehand?

I made sure that the students knew how to get into my lesson, whether virtually or in-person. I messaged them ahead of time and gave them the link very clearly. I used the same link for the whole course, so they didn’t have to have a different session link for each session. I also sent them a slide about the challenges of hybrid learning. I always think it's good to prepare the students, so then they feel more aware of what to expect. I also talked about things like screen fatigue, motivation and loneliness when studying virtually. I talked about these so they wouldn’t think it's unusual, but they could also become conscious of themselves if they're having any of these feelings. I then had another slide with things that we could do to overcome these difficulties, like staying in contact. Lastly, I talked about how to learn online, like turning on our video cameras so we can see each other and won’t feel like we're talking to the computer. I wanted to introduce all of this at the beginning, so they would be conscious of my expectations and so that they would benefit as learners.

Finally, what advice might you have for teachers and teacher trainers who will have to embark on hybrid teaching in the near future?

The first thing is to be flexible. If institutions or teachers come up with something that is very rigid, that can become a little bit problematic. It’s important to provide flexibility to teachers and to adapt our approaches if something is not working. Nobody wants to spend 12 sessions or more doing something that's not working, so I think being flexible is really important.

Second, constant communication is also really important. We need to find different channels to connect students with us and one another. This could be through the learning management system or instant messaging platforms. Furthermore, we should collect anonymous feedback from students regularly so we can make sure we are catering for their needs, no matter how they join our class.

Third, I highly recommend using the flipped classroom approach. The main reasons are mentioned above, but it is also comforting to know that if students joining virtually have technical or internet issues, they’ve already got the lecture, and they're not missing the input from the teacher. Knowing students have access to the materials they need helps us to have peace of mind. They can arrange an alternative time to see us if they need additional support.

Fourth, it’s important to have synchronous sessions and not just materials and tasks provided asynchronously. The synchronous sessions are a core part of teaching and learning. It is through interacting with teacher and classmates that students develop their ideas and really connect with the content. It’s also where teachers can formatively assess their students’ understanding.

Thank you, Ben, for sharing your experience with us and giving us some useful tips. We look forward to hearing more from you about technology and hybrid teaching in your future publications.