Keeping your head while all around you are hybrid learning In what’s been two years of unprecedented challenges facing teachers, hybrid teaching and learning is the latest to tackle. But how do you keep your sanity being in two places at once? Kelly Kenyon finds out some of the secrets to a successful shift. In 2020, hybrid teaching and learning was a concept too crazy to even think about. Then a virus swept through the world, closed classrooms, and dumping us all into online learning. We did what we always do as teachers, we adapted, adjusted and upskilled to make sure the children in our classes still got the best education we could provide. Online learning became a new normal. Now, two years on, we are facing the next shift as we have students both at school and working from home.
What is hybrid learning?
Hybrid learning is where students can receive learning from a variety of sources, both online and offline. Regardless of how the learning happens, students should get an equal experience in both online and offline settings. There should be a feeling of familiarity across platforms and spaces; just like buying from a physical or online shop. Each provides a similar experience, with a call centre or online chat that you can contact for support. All are working in unison, understanding the needs of the customer and the products they supply. Just as we create systems within our physical classrooms, we need to create the systems that work for us within a hybrid setting. In his recently published guide, Getting Started with Hybrid Learning, NZ educationalist Derek Wenmoth breaks down the process into seven actions: • Learning Conditions Audit; • Establish Your ‘School’ Online; • Template Planning; • Design Learning; • Encourage Participation and Contribution; • Monitor Student Progress and Assessment; and • Professional Development.
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Making it online
To begin, unpack what conditions and structures are currently working successfully in your classroom. What are the fundamentals of your successful pedagogy as a teacher? Don’t throw out what you’re already doing that works well; a lot of this can be easily transferred online. Then look at the current home situation for your learners. Take stock of devices, Wi-Fi and the number of people sharing these. What forms of communication between you and the student or their wha-nau exist? What support does the student have at home? Ways to do this could be through sending out surveys to gather this information. Keep in mind that you must make it equitable, so if parents can’t fill them in online, ask them on a phone call or send a paper copy home. Remember that multichoice and tick boxes are going to help your response rate. If they have to write a lot, it will be hard to get them back.
Landing space
Now take stock of what you have to work with as a teacher, both the physical items and the knowledge of online and hybrid teaching you have. Who can you turn to for support? Then establish your ‘School’ online. Consider how your hybrid space is going to be represented online. What platform are you going to use? Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Seesaw,
Education Perfect, Edmodo, ClassDojo? Your class needs an online ‘landing space’, where students all go to orientate them to their learning. Whatever you decide, your online classroom should be consistent across the school to avoid confusion for students, wha-nau and the community.
