Hybrid

Hybrid, or often referred to as ‘blended’ instruction, the focus of the course is a mix between the classroom and Learning Management System. 

A benefit of hybrid / blended learning is that faculty can truly identify what activities and interactions are crucial to classroom time from self-directed activities students can do online. Hybrid instruction allows faculty to use class time to assess students' learning through activities, interactive group work, or laboratory skills. There are 

 Flipped Classrooms

Another term often used with hybrid instruction is the concept of a flipped classroom. In a flipped classroom, “students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home while engaging in concepts in the classroom with the guidance of a mentor” (Wikipedia Contributors, 2021).

Instructional Materials & Learning Activities

• Store syllabi, handouts, files, links, etc. in Blackboard
• Store multimedia in Blackboard
• Links to Open Educational Resources [OER] 
• Links to publisher content
• Links to lab materials

Engagement

• Create community in Blackboard
• Create discussions in Blackboard
• Expand discussions from in-person to online in Blackboard
• Design Journals or Blogs in Blackboard
• Use web conferencing for communications [i.e. office hours]

Assessments

• Create assignments in Blackboard for students to submit
• Create, deploy, and grade tests, quizzes, surveys and quiz pools in Blackboard

Managerial

• Create announcements in Blackboard
• Grade all student deliverables in Blackboard
• Offer students feedback in Blackboard
• Manage attendance in Blackboard
• Run an accessibility report and check accessibility of Blackboard content

Overall

• Create a weekly calendar to share with students as to what content you will cover in which week. Note holidays, changes in schedule etc.

Tool Usage in Blackboard for Hybrid Courses

Assignment

The assignment tool in Blackboard helps facilitate management of submissions, including dates, times, especially when multiple submissions are expected. The Assignment Tool’s interactive Grade feature allows directly to comment and provide inline feedback directly on the submission. Once review and grading is complete, faculty submit the assignment back to the student for review. 

Test

Faculty teaching hybrid courses may wish to initiate pop quizzes prior to the class, where faculty can then lead discussion around class submissions. However, posting a weekly assessment to determine if learning outcomes have been met is a terrific use of the tool. Faculty depending on instructional preference may wish to have midterms and final exams completed in Blackboard if the window of physical class time is insufficient. 

 Other Tools

Tools like the Blog or Journal can help facilitate both in-class and online group projects and group work.  The online annotation tool Hypothesis can be used to bridge the gap between online practice or initial annotation with an in-depth class discussion. For lecture classes, using the assignment tool to collect review and manage assignment submissions is both a fantastic time management and organizational tool.