When designing course materials and planning learning activities, make sure you’re taking into account any accessibility needs your students may have.

• Use the Ally tool in UB Learns to make sure that materials are in an accessible format.
• Make sure all videos in your course, including videos you link to from other sources, have accurate captions. Be sure to enable auto-captioning in Panopto.
• Set Release Conditions and Special Access in UB Learns to offer additional time to students who need it when taking exams or quizzes online.

The first step to preparing to teach in a HyFlex class is to develop your course site as if you were teaching a fully online class. The Learning Management System Support website offers tutorials and training to help you start building your online course. 

Developing a comprehensive course site is an important part of teaching effectively using the HyFlex model. This will be the primary means you use to provide information and resources to your students and to communicate with them. 

Become familiar with the specific technology in your classroom

• Different rooms will have different levels of technology; from you having to supply your own laptop and webcam; to rooms that have full video, audio, and recording capabilities 
• Log in and set up your Zoom and Panopto accounts to provide for automatic recording and storing of your video.
• Attend one of the UBIT training sessions or look at the recorded videos that explain how the technology in your room works (Link to training website)
• If possible, do a test run before your first class in the classroom and use the specific technology you will be using to ensure you are comfortable with how everything works.

Prepare a technology back up plan and share that with your students so they know what your expectations are in case there are issues with the technology.

• Use this sample Planning for Technology Issues document as a guide.

Teaching to a classroom full of in-person students while connected simultaneously to other students, through video conferencing, is challenging! To be successful, you need to plan ahead:

• Start by thinking about the learning outcomes for your class and choose activities that will align with your outcomes. You will need to consider if the activities differ based on whether the students are present or connecting remotely and decide how you will ensure all your students can participate effectively.
  • This Comparison of Seated, Remote, and Online Courses can help you identify the differences in each modality.
  • Plan and choose activities in a way that will allow you to reach multiple audiences in your class.
  • Vanderbilt University has a good blog post that describes activities you can use to promote Active Learning in Hybrid and Physically Distanced Classrooms
• Plan and identify the timing for each learning activity and how to engage both your remote and in-class students.
  • View an Example of HyFlex sessions for 50 and 75-minute Class Sessions to get an idea of how to outline your class activities to target both remote and in-class students.
• If you are just planning on lecturing or presenting large amounts of materials, consider recording these and making them available ahead of time through your course site. This “flipped classroom” style can save class time for more interactive activities while enabling more time to respond to questions about the content.
• If you are planning on using small group activities, consider how you will have the students work in these groups together when some students are in the classroom and others are online.
• If you typically use the chalk/whiteboard during your class, make sure your camera captures it clearly for the remote audience, or explore using a document camera or another device with a stylus to capture writing and formulas
• If you typically do in-class quizzes or tests consider using the assessment tools in Blackboard/UB Learns.
• Ensure your online component meets accessibility requirements.

Communication

Good communication is critically important when teaching HyFlex, this includes:

• Posting information in your syllabus about attendance options and requirements.
• Providing easily printed, concise schedules with important due dates and deliverables to help keep your students on track.
• Posting materials and messaging that you typically would hand out in class to your course site.
• Timely posting links to your session recordings in the course site.

Conduct a Test Run

Again, if possible run a test session prior to the first class so you are familiar with the technology and how it works in your specific classroom. If you don’t pre-test, you risk eating up the entire first class just working through technology issues.

Preparation

Get to class early and try to have all of the technology up and running at least five minutes before the class is scheduled to start.

• If you are using multiple devices during the class, or you have students connecting to the videoconference while in the room, make sure that there is only one active microphone and one active set of speakers (not including headphones) to prevent feedback.
• Remind students that they must “mute” after asking questions.

Student Questions

When taking student questions;

• Make sure to repeat in-class questions to enable remote students to hear them.
• Even if your classroom is equipped with audience microphones, it’s a good practice to repeat seated questions until both seated and remote students understand how the technology functions.
• Likewise, check to make sure seated students can hear remote student questions/comments and repeat as necessary.

Chat Moderation

Have a TA, or designate a student in the room who has a laptop, to monitor chats for questions as you are conducting the class

Recording Sessions

When recording your sessions and making them available to students:

• Inform students that the sessions will be recorded and allow them the option to turn off their cameras if connecting remotely, or to select seats  in the classroom which will not typically be captured on camera.
• Use Panopto to store your videos, Zoom recordings are only available for 100 days, and may disappear before the end of the semester.
• If you are recording and planning to use your sessions in future semesters don’t reference specific dates, instead refer students to the course site where those deadlines are posted and updated each semester.

When conducting discussions in a HyFlex format you need to plan your discussion activities to engage both your present students and those connecting remotely.

• For Hyflex Discussions, you may need to do a combination of Asynchronous and Synchronous formats. This consideration is necessary in order to facilitate successful conversations.
• Depending upon your room technology you may need to repeat comments from the present students so that the remote students can hear them.
• Likewise, you want to make sure that present students can hear the comments from students connecting remotely.
• It may be helpful to designate an in-room student, with a laptop, to monitor the chat feature and have them read any comments to students in the room who may not be seeing the chat.
• Remind remote students that they should “mute” after contributing to the discussion, to help eliminate background noise.