Meeting Abstract
Hybrid courses promise to be a blend of the best aspects of online and face-to-face classes. These courses differ from fully-online classes in that students meet weekly, but more learning is shifted to self-directed online modules and reading assignments. What are the pitfalls of converting a traditional face-to-face course to a hybrid format? Are hybrids merely useful for institutional efficiency or is student learning enhanced with this meeting style?
I “hybridized” an evolution course to determine some best practices for design that would emphasize both biological knowledge and scientific thinking. Our time together in class was not used for lectures, because introduction of the primary course content was shifted to online modules that were completed before class. I used the modules to guide reading in the text, to introduce content with video slideshows, and to lead them in online data-acquisition simulations. I checked on their comprehension and interpretation of data with weekly online assignments. Because this class was designated as a reading-and-writing intensive course, students also wrote responses to their reading of the Origin of Species and recent peer-reviewed papers. Our face-to-face time was mainly spent in discussion of Darwin’s ideas and how they were (or weren’t) understood differently today.
Converting an existing course can have some drawbacks. Overbuilding the online modules can make them too time-consuming for the credit earned by a student. Like fully-online courses, the need for documentation requires a lot of up-front time to complete. Hybrid courses can have a larger enrollment than traditional ones, so there is more grading and administrative coordination. Student learning is not necessarily hindered by the hybrid format, but faculty need to be mindful about student engagement and connection to the course.
