Session moderator, Tammy Cummings, asked thought-provoking questions about specific strategies that each instructor utilized to identify and engage their students this past year using the Hyflex model. 

Dr. Teresa Shume addressed one Hyflex challenge of not knowing which students were at a distance and which were in class when dividing everyone into groups on Zoom. She managed this challenge by asking students in the classroom to put an X in front of their name on Zoom. This helped Dr. Shume quickly identify where students were located which further assisted her in creating small groups (preferring to mix Zoom and classroom students together for engagement). Dr. Shume also described a unique way to group students using playing cards. For details on playing card groupings visit minute marker 3:36 of the presentation.   

Dr. Kimberly Booth  described how she utilized TurningPoint WEB in her instruction for formative assessment by asking application-based clicker questions to promote engagement and encourage class discussion. This technique proved highly valuable in the Hyflex environment because it broke up the content so that students didn’t have to  listen to lecture content for long periods of time over Zoom. By asking application questions immediately after learning content, the students were provided a break that simultaneously assessed their knowledge. For concrete example of how Dr. Booth utilizes Turning Point Web in her large 300+ student class, visit minute marker 8:31 of the presentation.  

 Dr. Beena Ajmera described how she adapted her hands-on lab course to Hyflex while offering her students the option of being in-person or online. She utilized a Crestron webcam system so the online students could follow the in-person experiments as closely as possible. She also broke the class into groups of both in-person and online students and connected them to breakout rooms in Zoom so that the online students could participate in the decision making process of the experiments. Additionally, for the students who opted to be online for the full semester, she created a blanket assignment that required them to create a version of the experiment in the lab at home to capture the essence of what the experiment process was like in the lab. This blanket assignment ensured that the online students had a clear understanding of what the experimental lab entails as well as created a way to ensure that the students were responsible for their own learning. For a detailed description of what Dr. Ajmera’s lab looked like go to minute marker 12:47 of the presentation.

This post highlights the main points of the panel discussion. For a more detailed understanding and discussion, check out the full video on the OTL YouTube page. 

Mark your calendar for the 2022 Teaching and Learning Mini-Conference to be held May 24, 2022. We will see you there!

About the Author:

Holly DeVries is a graduate assistant in the Office of Teaching and Learning and is  pursuing her M.Ed. in clinical mental health counseling at NDSU. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead and has worked in the music industry on both East and West Coasts before returning to the Midwest. Holly is passionate about diversity and inclusion and is specifically interested in LGBTQ+ advocacy.