With hybrid teaching, you can teach students in the classroom and at home simultaneously. Do you find this challenging as a teacher? And how to make optimal use of hybrid teaching? These four alternative approaches will get you started.
Hybrid teaching in a fully interactive form is quite demanding for a teacher. Besides the content and didactics of the lesson, you also need to keep an eye on the technology and the interaction with students, both in the lecture hall and online (often via chat). It is especially important to ensure that students who follow the lesson online feel heard and seen. That may not always be possible. In other cases, the technology may not function optimally, and you’ll have to make last minute decisions on how to organize your class.
In this didactic tip, we list four tips including alternative approaches.
Tip 1: prepare well
If you are going to teach in hybrid mode, the most important tip is to prepare well. Make sure to be in the room twenty to thirty minutes in advance to start up the computer and check if everything is ready (starting up Zoom is slow because everyone is streaming Zoom or MS Teams to the computer at the same time). Draw inspiration from your colleagues. Or watch the video at the bottom of this page.
Tip 2: make clear agreements about the interaction
When students connect online during the lecture, you can also choose to limit the online interaction or make clear agreements about this. It is better to create clarity than to raise high expectations (expectation management). Choose for example from (a combination of) the tips below:
- Indicate that you will not read the messages in the chat or turn off the chat as an option. The 'raise hand' button in Zoom or MS Teams is a good alternative.
- Ask a volunteer from the room to follow the chat and respond. Or even better: ask a student assistant to do this for you.
- Use Mentimeter to ask questions to all students at the same time. This way, the online students can participate without you having to divide your attention.
Tip 3: only make a recording
Integral recordings of lectures are not made or made available at VU Amsterdam lightly. This is because making recordings available automatically does not promote the development and well-being of students. Only if there are clear and convincing reasons to record lectures, can this be considered. The students who cannot come to campus can then watch the recording afterwards, as with regular weblectures. This way, you can focus all your attention on the students present in the room, making that part of the teaching as successful as possible. Hybrid equipment can be used to record the lecture. Stay close to the microphone so that your voice can be heard clearly on the recording.
Go to How do you deal with recordings of lectures for all guidelines.
Tip 4: use your own equipment
Are you not scheduled in a hybrid lecture hall, but would you still like to teach in hybrid mode? And are you somewhat tech-savvy? Use your mobile phone as a microphone, for example. Or connect a headset to your phone or laptop, if you have one. Log into your own online meeting with your mobile phone and your laptop. Use your phone’s microphone and laptop's camera, but mute your laptop's microphone to avoid looping of the sound.