The Teaching & Learning Center

Robin DeRosa gives an overview of HyFlex learning and how it may be relevant during the COVID19 teaching pivot.

This is part of a full curriculum that Plymouth State University (NH) is rolling out for Fall 2020. 

At SFSU, Dr. Beatty pioneered the development and evaluation of the HyFlex course design model for blended learning environments, implementing a “student-directed-hybrid” approach to better support student learning. In today’s episode, Brian and I will discuss the values and principles of the HyFlex course design model, along with its history and implementation in several contexts. Is the HyFlex model right for you? Brian will help us process the questions one needs to answer in order to determine if this is the right model for you and provide you with the resources to get started. 

Here, Brian Beatty provides some practical applications of the hyflex model, including how he handles group discussion and assessments. 

HyFlex is a course design model that presents the components of hybrid learning (which combines face-to-face with online learning) in a flexible course structure that gives students the option of attending sessions in the classroom, participating online, or doing both. Students can change their mode of attendance weekly or by topic, according to need or preference. In this “flexible hybrid” design, instructors provide course content for both participation modes and can tailor activities for each format. This is not a self-paced model, even though online sessions can be either synchronous or asynchronous. Students frequently take the same final assessment, regardless of the chosen path through the material. 

This quick overview is a good glance into the hyflex model. Note the emphasis on the "menu of learning options" both of learning activities and assessments. Student choice is inherent in the hyflex model and seems to extend beyond choice in modality. 

Throughout November 2020, Kevin Kelly provided an on-demand webinar to WCU faculty on getting started with hyflex instruction. The webinar discussed types of hyflex set-up, challenges to implementation, fostering student success, and pros and cons to the modality. Additionally, Kelly provided these templates to map out a hyflex lesson in 50 or 75 minute chunks. 

These templates can be downloaded, revised, and reused under a Creative Commons license. There's also robust conversation within the doc from educators hoping to implement hyflex models across the country. 

This volume provides readers with methods, case stories, and strategies related to Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) course design so that they may make decisions about using it themselves and even begin their own HyFlex course (re)design. More specifically, based on the needs identified for their course(s), readers will be able to a) determine if and how HyFlex course design could help them solve critical needs, b) take advantage of emerging opportunities to improve their education practice, enabling them to better serve more students, c) gain an awareness of the HyFlex design, d) find their own innovative HyFlex solution to their specific challenges, and e) begin the HyFlex implementation process using strategies similar to those used by instructors described in this book. The volume describes the fundamental principles of HyFlex design, explains a process for design and development, and discusses implementation factors that instructors have experienced in various higher education institutions. These factors include the drivers, the variations in implementation approaches and constraints, and the results (e.g., student scores, student satisfaction). A series of worksheets provides specific guidance that can be used by individuals or teams engaging in HyFlex design projects at their own institution. Case reports from institutions and faculty who have successfully implemented HyFlex-style courses provide a rich set of real-world stories to draw insights for a reader’s own design setting.

Beatty's foundational text establishes the four core principles of Hyflex design: Learner Choice, Equivalency, Reusability, and Accessibility. His examples however are all drawn from graduate level courses with fewer than twenty students per section. 

In select courses at institutions in Georgia and Minnesota, students toggle between face-to-face, synchronous online and asynchronous online -- the volume of each is up to them. Data suggest the approach has been successful.

Although this article originally details hyflex in the small class setting, the offering proved to be popular enough that it was soon expanded to larger lectures. Faculty were required to take a 9 hour training course prior to teaching in the blendflex modality. 

While the hybrid flexible approach – HyFlex for short – is just one possibility among several, of how we return to campus in Fall 2020, it really does offer a clear opportunity to begin working on fall courses now, without waiting for institutions to decide a) if locations will be open to students in fall 2020, b) how many students might be allowed to return to campus, c) how they would respond to a mid-term resurgence of COVID-19 cases, and so on. In organizational change scenarios, ambiguity is one of the biggest challenges for any community and one of the biggest potential impediments to progress and success. Being able to choose a path during a time of uncertainty provides more time for course planning, professional development, preparation for student support, and even technology adoption, as appropriate. 

Rightfully, people want to know more about the HyFlex model – how effective it has (or hasn’t) proven to be, how faculty would respond to the idea, how much work would be involved, to what extent students are successful when they choose different participation options, and much, much more. This post takes a closer look at HyFlex, both pros and cons.

In full transparency, this is the blog of an instructional technologist at San Francisco State University who worked in tandem with Brian Beatty. Kelly highlights the connection between hyflex and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and provides some concrete examples of how you would run class activities (like group discussions) in a hyflex model. Although grouped with seminars and small-classes, there is a section devoted to hyflex in the large lecture model. 

As the article title suggests, this study focuses on a hyflex implementation of a course with a high enrollment: A general-education Nutrition class taught at the University of California - Davis, enrolling 550 students per academic quarter and 2000 students per academic year as of 2014. Ordinarily, the in-person meetings were Tuesday/Thursday for 80 minutes each and primarily involved lectures with embedded low-stakes quizzing. There were also some outside projects like a food diary project and an extra-credit "Jeopardy"-like quiz game.

The size of the class played a central role in its redesign: Because enrollment was high and increasing at the time, UC-Davis was running out of space. It sets the UC-Davis course apart from the social policy course that we considered in the Malczyk study last time, where there were only 18 students involved, all of whom were specialized Social Work majors and minors. The primary pedagogy in the other course, too, was discussion rather than lecture, and the primary driver for hyflex was to provide flexibility in scheduling.

Some of the flexibility of the hyflex model is removed in this example, as, after a "sampling week" students were locked in to their choice of face-to-face or online learning. Access during the sample week was limited to a first-come, first-serve basis. Online students were then discouraged from coming to class in-person and in-person students did not have access to online video lectures. Also important to note that this course was supported by six teaching assistants, offering a total of twelve office hours per week-- which were open to all students.