HyFlex Teaching: One Class, Three Modalities

This section provides a series of steps to take to make sure your course is ready for the HyFlex modality:

1. Consider how norms will change

Review each of the following for your class and consider incorporating specific instructions in your syllabi as appropriate. Review Columbia’s Enhanced Health and Safety Policy and SPS Communication regarding reopening. Be sure to consult with your Academic Director for additional program-specific guidelines:

• Course modality
• Class meeting schedule 
• Participation expectations as related to modality
• Attendance expectations as related to modality
• Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) expectations
• Maintaining Community Safety Best Practices 
• Netiquette i.e. norms for respectful online communication and engagement

2. Create opportunities for connection and community building

In a face-to-face class, students have opportunities to spend time with each other and with the instructor informally, which can create a sense of community. There are many ways in which you can foster a sense of community for all students:  

• Rather than exclusively presenting information through in-class lectures, create short videos or readings for students to complete before the class session. During class you can give a brief summary or review and use the rest of the time to address questions and have discussions about the material. 
• Use your Associate to monitor the chat so that you can take questions from online students during class time. 
• Use Discussion forums to support conversation between students in different modalities.
• Create a water-cooler discussion forum to support informal conversations between students. 

You can find a sample class session in the section below. It demonstrates a few examples of activities to promote student engagement and participation, with instructions on how to adapt them for the three different modalities. Note that the session includes some presentation of content but provides multiple opportunities for students to engage with the material.

3. Make adjustments to student activities or assignments

At SPS, instructors teaching Hyflex courses will need to account for three modalities for student activities: 1) Face-to-face; 2) Live-streamed, synchronous; 3) Asynchronous only. 

When creating student activities or assignments for HyFlex, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind: 

1. Activities in HyFlex will take longer than they do in-person. To accommodate for this extra time, you may wish to reduce the amount of class time spent giving lectures. Use tools like Panopto or Screencast-o-matic to record mini-lectures that students can watch in preparation for the class session. 
2. When introducing and explaining an activity to your students, be sure to give clear and explicit instructions for how to complete the activity in all three modalities. Make sure all students have access to any resources or documents they need in order to complete the activity, and clearly explain the deliverables for the activity. 

Many of the activities or assignments you use in a traditional in-person class can be modified for the HyFlex modality. There are many options for modifying activities that you may wish to consider, including:

• Use Google Docs, Zoom chat, Discussion Boards in Canvas, and other tools to help students collaborate during synchronous sessions.
• When asking students to work in groups, be intentional about how you form groups. Group face-to-face students with each other and group online students with each other to enable ease of communication (and decrease mic interference in the classroom). Consider grouping students by time zone where feasible. 
• Rather than having students submit assignments so only you can see them, ask them to post their work on Discussion Boards and ask students comment on each others’ work
• Use online polling extensively (via Canvas, Zoom Polls or Poll Everywhere) to provide engagement activities for all students.  This is an excellent resource on how to promote deep learning using multiple choice questions.

This document contains more information and ideas about how different activities can be adapted for each modality. 

4. Adjust assessments to fit the new modality

Whenever possible, try to replace high-stakes assessments (e.g., midterms, final exams, final projects) with assessments that are lower stakes (e.g., regular quizzes or projects completed in stages throughout the semester). This helps reduce test anxiety and encourages academic integrity, and also allows you and your students to track progress and to course-correct during the semester as needed. 

When revising assessments, keep in mind that the assessment should be equitable for students regardless of modality. For example, you may wish to have a closed-book exam, but administering a closed-book exam for students taking the class asynchronously may not be possible. Instead, consider making your assessments open-book for everyone. 

5. Consider equity across modalities

As you are developing your course for HyFlex, be sure to consider whether your course is equitable for students in all modalities. Do all students have opportunities to: 

• Ask questions about the course material
• Receive feedback from the instructor(s) 
• Participate in activities and discussions
• Engage with other students in the class
• Demonstrate their learning on the course objectives
• Access course material 
• Attend office hours

6. Get help or training

The School of Professional Studies has a number of resources and support available to help you prepare for and administer your course. 

Participate in pedagogical workshops or sign-up for Canvas or Zoom training or practice sessions here.

Get help with course logistics and technical support here.

Get help building class session plans, brainstorm class activities, or get advice on how to implement your class. Sign up for a consultation with a member of the Faculty Assessment and Development, Online Curriculum and Instruction, or Instructional Design teams here.