HYFLEX CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY

TOOLS OF HYFLEX CLASSROOM

WHO CREATED HYFLEX AND WHY?

HyFlex was developed by Brian J.Beatty at San Francisco State University in 2005 to address the admission issues of students of Masters of Arts Program. It was aimed to reach students of various backgrounds and provide options in different participation platforms for the current students to attend the classes in curricula (Beatty, 2019).

It was suggested to convert MA Program entirely online, however following were the hurdles faced by Beatty and his colleagues in this process;

1. Lack of institutional infrastructure

2. Lack of experienced online teaching faculty

3. Lack of support from already enrolled regional students

The challenge to continue fully F2F program along with an opportunity to design it online seemed out of ken to achieve.

An investigation on blended and hybrid models was carried out by Beatty and his team to verify the existence of already designed model in the market. This research gave them lot of inputs but they quickly could realize that this model shall not be sufficient to deliver the same output as that of F2F classroom model.

Later Beatty and his team experimented the designed model with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous students and analyzed their results. He also focused on the valuable feedback of the students whom he called as “design partners” (Beatty, 2019).

Thus the concept of HyFlex was instituted where the learner can attend classes synchronously and asynchronously at their convenient times without forgoing the quality of the learning experience.

In Beatty’s HyFlex course, students can choose to participate in any mode:

1. Face-to-face, in-class, in-person (in a classroom on campus)

2. Synchronous online via video conferencing during the in-person class.

3. Asynchronous online in the learning management system (LMS)

WHAT IS HYFLEX?

A Hybrid-Flexible or HyFlex course is a learner centric design of lesson plan delivery that can combine physical class instruction, online synchronous video lectures, or asynchronous content delivery.

The “HyFlex” or hybrid flexible course design combines elements of a hybrid learning with a more flexible structure. This new instructional format gives students an opportunity to choose an option to attend class meetings in person, online, or a combination of both.

MEANING OF HYFLEX

Its a combination of hybrid learning and flexibility of students i.e student learning at their own pace

TOOLS FOR HYFLEX CLASSROOM

DEVICES - These are technical instruments required for successful completion of hyflex classes. These include

TEACHING TOOLS - These serves as teaching aids for the educators to make the class or session interactive and interesting. It can be further classified as -

a) Teaching learning aids - which includes followings tools -