As the name might suggest, Faculty Instructional Technology Services (FITS) is tasked with providing technology support to instructors for the purposes of enhancing teaching and learning.  A great deal of the job entails the development and support of online, hybrid, and flipped classes.  We’ve been doing this for a while, but lately we’ve been hearing a new set of questions as the direction of higher education moves more and more online:

“I’m teaching a hybrid/flipped class, and I’ve put all my documents online, provided lecture videos, and I do all my papers and exams online as well.  But now I have all this extra face time in class…what do I do with it?”

Fear not. We’re here for that too.  It is true that the majority of learning materials can usually be offloaded to an online resource.  Students can come to class having seen the lecture material, perhaps turned in a homework assignment or taken a quiz, and maybe even participated in a discussion online.  This offloading of materials means students can take advantage of the ebb and flow in their personal schedules to complete the class work online, but they still need meaningful learning experiences when they are face to face.  Let’s examine some possible strategies that can be easily implemented to reclaim your class time.

Guest Speakers

When students have the ability to preview the lecture and possibly homework prior to the face-to-face class, there is an opportunity for the professor to take their newly acquired knowledge to the next level by allowing them to apply this knowledge, or at least ask deeper questions.  Guest speakers (live or presenting through an online medium — i.e., a video call) can provide students with real-world scenarios to test their knowledge.  You can lecture about a topic, but it is really helpful when a professional can validate the importance of the course work in relation to future career goals. Perhaps even better than a guest speaker, you have the opportunity to produce a class that offers:

Field Trips

If you don’t have a lot of material to go through in class, use the opportunity to take your students to see a career professional at their workplace. For example, classes in DePaul’s School of Hospitality Leadership often take trips to hotels, restaurants, and other service businesses to see what actually happens behind the scenes.  In this scenario students are  getting both a guest speaker and a first-hand look at possible career paths.  It’s one thing to talk to an accountant in class about income taxes and filing season, and another to see a professional at an accounting firm during tax season. Seeing the demands of a job can be quite a formative experience for students.

Group Work

In flipped classes, students complete the majority of coursework online.  One of the biggest stumbling blocks many technology-enhanced courses face is how to handle group work.  Despite our best intentions, it can be difficult to translate a meaningful group work experience to an online medium. Consider using face time in class for groups to work on projects that they will later hand in online.  This eliminates the problem of that pesky group member who never seems to have any availability outside class, and provides you with the opportunity to see groups in action and advise (or intervene) on the tough issues when necessary, rather than leaving it all online and hoping that the groups will sort themselves out.  This time is also well spent on group presentations to a live audience once the work is finished.

Simulations

Some exercises just can’t be done online, no matter how we try.  These are best left in the classroom, and with more available class time, these hands-on exercises can allow students to really practice their crafts. For example, in my former life as a music professor, I used to borrow a bag of basketballs from the P.E. department every time I taught a certain conducting exercise.  The basketballs were very useful in teaching students how to perform patterns and to properly “weigh” a conducting gesture. They help to provide physical feedback to the student on how hard they are pushing, where and when. If they don’t do it right, they will lose the ball or it will cease bouncing.  I tried this same exercise with an online class and it was a complete disaster; no amount of video demonstration and explanation could replace me being there and passing out basketballs to each student.  As an online practice exercise, it lacked the students’ ability to see what their classmates were doing and it did not give me a good mechanism to provide on-the-spot feedback about their performance. The greatest video in the world on blocking techniques for a theatre class would still do a poor job compared to actually standing on stage and seeing how these techniques play out physically. The experience of producing a radio broadcast at home using audio software just doesn’t offer the same the experience as actually being in the studio on-air.  Take advantage of the extra class time to show them how it’s really done!

As you look ahead to coming terms, take a minute to look over what you are planning to do in the course.  What could be done online? What could be modified to work online, and what just won’t work online? In a hybrid-formatted class, you really can have it all.  The perfect mix of online practice and live experiences that can really take your course to the next level.  It’s ok to “go analog” if you need to. Sometimes it’s for the best, and your students will thank you for the experience!