Spanning the Gap: Writing in HyFlex Classrooms

This semester began with civic unrest, requiring many instructors and students to pivot quickly to HyFlex teaching and learning environments. HyFlex—also referred to as “hybrid,” and the rather elaborate “synchronous learning in distributed environments (SLIDE)”—is when onsite and remote modes of participation occur simultaneously in a class. Even under the best of conditions, which we certainly did not experience, HyFlex teaching and learning requires careful preparation and facilitation by instructors, and it puts added demands on students in order to engage meaningfully with others and participate fully in class activities. There’s a lot to juggle. Fortunately, writing activities, supported by writing-based technologies available through the U of M, can help.

As the term HyFlex indicates, teaching and learning in two modalities simultaneously requires flexibility in course and assignment design and delivery. Brian Beatty, a leading educational figure in HyFlex teaching, posits four pillars for good HyFlex teaching and learning. Here are some ways you might consider using writing to enact Beatty’s HyFlex principles:

Principle 1: Learner Choice

Instructors provide meaningful alternative participation modes and enable students to choose between participation modes weekly or topically.

As students determine whether to participate onsite or remotely in a HyFlex class, writing activities such as one-minute papers, journaling, and exit tickets can help students articulate their learning intentions, identify potential benefits and challenges of each mode for the day or week, and reflect on class experiences.

It’s also helpful to ask students to write about their core personal values (e.g., family, creativity, helping others) and to identify how succeeding in the course aligns with those values. Values affirmation writing can be an effective way to reinforce student choice and cultivate academic belonging. Supporting belonging is particularly important in HyFlex spaces to ensure that physical remoteness does not leave students feeling disconnected.

Example: At the beginning of the week, a Youth Studies instructor gives students a three-minute writing prompt: How are you showing up to class this week? What do you think you can bring to the class discussion and interaction in whatever mode you choose? What support can others, onsite or remotely, provide for you? After students have written, the instructor invites students to share their responses, either by reading out loud or posting through the Zoom chat. The instructor repeats this writing activity at the start of each week. Students are not required to share their responses, but often choose to do so.

Read more about brief, informal, exploratory writing and values affirmation.

Principle 2: Equivalency

Instructors provide equivalent learning activities in all participation modes.

Writing affords many opportunities for online and onsite learners to engage at equivalent levels—classwide, in small groups, and in pairs. ChimeIn, a homegrown University of Minnesota student response tool, can support a wide range of writing-based response activities throughout a course lecture or presentation. Social annotation tools, such as Interactive Document, available in FeedbackFruits, and Box Note, support collaborative reading and notetaking activities on group-assigned texts and recordings. Google Docs allows pairs of students to give and receive feedback on their writing through comments and direct or suggested edits.

Example: In a course on sedimentology and stratigraphy, an Earth Science instructor uses ChimeIn to support students’ interaction with and review of course content. Students can participate in class or remotely through their phone, tablet, or computer by responding to questions posed by the instructor—some multiple choice, others involving heat mapping, image identification, and open response. The instructor generates a word cloud of replies to one open-response question—What is the effect on calcite precipitation/dissolution with increasing water pressure? Students use the word cloud and their classmates’ responses to facilitate their review of the unit.

Read more about getting started with ChimeIn. Read more about social annotation and Interactive Document in FeedbackFruits.

Principle 3: Reusability

Instructors utilize artifacts from learning activities in each participation mode as learning resources (“learning objects”) for all students.

HyFlex formats are most effective when the work done by students in one mode can be accessed and used by students in the other. Including writing in activities makes it easy to capture and share student work with the whole class. For instance, a slide deck where small groups each analyze different sections of a text, or a shared class Google Doc for notes, is easily utilized by students in both online and in-person modes.

By their very nature, HyFlex courses require more oversight and check-ins than courses offered in singular modalities. Oversight and check-ins can happen through shared collaborative writing, such as a community norms and agreements document, a student- and instructor-generated FAQ, or a glossary of terms, that also serve as reusable learning resources for students. Students can also respond to writing prompts that are reusable beyond the semester. Toward the end of the term—now is a really good time!—consider asking students to write a letter of advice to future students taking a HyFlex course. Doing so can validate the students’ growth over the semester while also reinforcing their identities as college students with available experience to share.

Example: As one of the final assignments in a HyFlex course in Healthcare Management, an instructor asks each student to participate in the building of a “Wisdom Wall.” The prompts students respond to are open-ended: How were you feeling at the beginning of the class? What do you know now that you wish you knew then? Students generate sticky notes with their responses and gather them in a classwide padlet that is shared with the next semester's students.

Read more about Wisdom Walls.

Principle 4: Accessibility

Instructors equip students with technology skills and enable full access to instructional resources and activities in all participation modes.

As Beatty acknowledges, accessibility in HyFlex courses remains a goal informed by Universal Design for Learning, but it is not often a fully realized goal. Once again, writing can help. Aligned with course expectations and learning objectives, students can participate in the writing of course accessible materials by reviewing and correcting auto-generated transcripts and captions from Zoom recordings; providing alternative text (“alt-text”) descriptions for graphs, figures, and charts; and designing Google documents with accessible headers and style guides.

Example: A core learning objective in an Art History course is for students to objectively  describe an object visually and accurately prior to interpretive analysis. The instructor assigns each student two tasks: (1) write a concise description for an image in an art gallery or museum space; (2) write and record a full audio description for vision-impaired audiences. Students in the HyFlex seminar can visit a physical museum space or attend an online exhibit to complete the assignment.

Read more about supporting 7 Core Accessibility Skills.

If you have found ways to use writing productively in your HyFlex courses this semester, or if you have lessons you would like to share, please use the comments below. Let’s build a Wisdom Wall from our experiences! If you are planning to teach a HyFlex course in the future, the WAC team is here to support your efforts.

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