Hybrid Teaching

Hybrid teaching is tough. Here are some resources with suggestions to help you manage classes with in-person and online students.

Jennifer Gonzalez presents six ideas for how to teach a mix of face-to-face and online students: create student cohorts, limit the synchronous, chunk the time, build community intentionally, experiment with cameras and screens, and optimize discussions.

This article by Dr. Kevin Kelly provides a university perspective on adopting a HyFlex model. He links to an editable lesson plan template giving examples of how activity instructions in the same lesson plan can be subtly adapted for synchronous in-person, synchronous online, and even asynchronous online participants.

Emma Pass, an experienced hybrid teacher, shares her thoughts on how to survive this mode of teaching.

This book will be especially helpful for those teaching in a Google environment. Note that her district has a 1:1 tech ratio, which facilitates a hybrid teaching model.

Here is a quick summary of the top tips from these resources:

  • Set up routines & norms: these will help your students adjust to hybrid teaching and will help your class flow more smoothly. It's also important to make sure that students know what to do or where to look if they need support.

  • Use a chat jockey: ask an in-person student to monitor the video conference chat. That student can give you a signal when someone asks a question or raises their hand.

  • Break your lesson into chunks and use stations: whole-class instruction is sometimes difficult with a hybrid model. The stamina of your online students will also be different than that of your in-person students. Split your lesson into sections and have smaller groups of students "rotate" through activities (synchronous or asynchronous, online or offline). This gives you the opportunity to meet with the smaller groups or with individual students.

  • Get feedback: ask your students to share their thoughts on how things are going and what changes they suggest. Drop in (digitally) on someone else's class to get inspiration or ask a RECIT consultant to (digitally) join your class and help you focus on a specific goal.