In the hybrid model of blended learning, students learn some lessons during face-to-face classroom instruction and other lessons virtually away from the physical classroom. The teacher leverages the best aspects of both in-person and remote digital learning strategies to maximize learning. As with other blended learning models, students should have some control over the pace, place, path, and time of their learning.
While it was a common practice during the pandemic, effective hybrid teaching does not involve teaching remote and face-to-face students simultaneously during the same live lesson. Instead, it involves a rotation of remote and face-to-face learning experiences. This might mean that all students are face-to-face one day and then remote the next, or it might mean that part of the class is face-to-face while the other students are learning remotely.
Although hybrid learning is part of the blended learning family, it is significantly different from the other rotation models of whole-group rotation, station rotation, flipped learning, and playlists. While the other models can easily be implemented in a traditional school setting with minimal disruptions, the hybrid model requires systemic adaptations for the model to work as intended.
Students must be given more flexibility and freedom to be out of the classroom at times, and teachers need permission to schedule some class sessions as remote learning days and to meet with only part of their class roster on any given day. While these disruptions can be challenging, they can also lead to exciting and transformative innovation.
Hybrid Schedules
There’s no single right way to implement hybrid learning, and teachers continue to experiment with different ways to structure flexible schedules. Here are five of the most common ways that hybrid schedules are organized.
Continuous A/B Rotation
In this format, the whole class meets face-to-face every other day on a consistent A/B schedule. During in-class days, students engage in lessons similar to students in fully face-to-face classrooms. During remote days, students complete an online lesson outside of the traditional classroom.
By alternating in this fashion, the A/B structure provides stability and consistency for both the students and the teacher. While not required, the number of in-person and remote days are typically balanced out over the course of the term, with approximately half being face-to-face and the other half being remote.
In some schools, students are allowed to leave the building during remote days. In other schools, students must remain on campus. Typically, remote students who are required to remain on campus are allowed the option of going to flex spaces within the building, such as the media center or a commons area.
Consistent Schedule (But Not A/B)
If you want a consistent schedule, you’re not necessarily bound to an A/B rotation. You can choose any combination of in-class and remote days that fits your needs.
You might choose to make every Monday and Friday a face-to-face learning day, so you can bookend your week with in-person instruction. Alternatively, you could start each week face-to-face and then give students remote work on Thursday or Friday. The choice is yours. Simply decide what combination of days works best for you and your students and repeat that schedule each week.
The advantage of this approach is that you can design it to fit your instructional needs while still providing consistency and predictability for your students.
Flexible A/B Schedule
This is a powerful approach because the schedule is determined by matching the learning environment to the learning need instead of arbitrarily assigning days as in-class or remote and then fitting lessons into that structure.
To start a term, perhaps you want students in class every day so that you can establish routines and build community. This method allows you to do that. If students are researching or working on a project that can be largely done independently, then maybe you schedule a series of remote days and have students come in during those days for individual conferences and check-ins. In fact, each week could be different depending on your needs.
This approach is more responsive to your instructional needs, and it’s often more effective as long as your school schedule can accommodate this level of flexibility. However, because the schedule may be less consistent, it’s important that you have a clear and consistent way to communicate the weekly schedule to your students and family, so they know where to show up and on which days.
Split Group Schedule
In this approach, students are split into A and B groups, with each group meeting face-to-face every other day.
The split group method allows you to cut your class size in half, with the A group meeting on half the days and the B group meeting during the other half. With fewer students in class at one time, you can provide more personalized instruction to your students and give them more voice and opportunity to participate. When the need arises, you can still call all of your students together at once for a combined face-to-face lesson.
In a twist of this approach, you can divide your class even further. For instance, you could meet with all of your students on Monday for an introduction to kick off the week. Then, on Tuesday through Friday, you could meet with a quarter of your students each day. This would create even smaller class sizes and more personalized attention. You could design groups based on what will work best with your curriculum and instructional needs.
A Two-Teacher Schedule
Another adaptation of the hybrid model is to have two teachers offering the same hybrid class during the same class period each day. Essentially, instead of having “my students” and “your students,” the two teachers have “our students.” This allows the teachers involved to create a custom group of students each day, scheduling them by academic need, rather than the random A/B groupings.
Both teachers could start each week with an initial core lesson for their original rosters of students. On the other days, students can be divided up into two groups, with half the students meeting in person and half studying remotely based on the opening lesson of the week. You can decide which students are ready to move on and which students need more help.
Together, you and your hybrid teaching partner can divide up the in-person students based on those needs and conduct two differentiated lessons at the same time, each in your own classroom. You can even send students back and forth during the class period as needed. It’s very flexible and responsive. Instead of an arbitrary grouping of students in the classroom, you are intentionally assigning students to lessons based on academic need. It is more complicated to manage than other formats of hybrid learning, but it opens up exciting possibilities for differentiation and personalization.
Best Practices
While the schedule is important in providing structure, the real key to success in hybrid learning is how you use the time and how you maximize the advantages of both face-to-face and remote formats.
Remote Learning Days
Several considerations and best practices can help to maximize the effectiveness of your remote learning days.
1. Set expectations.
To make a hybrid system work, students need to be productive when they’re not in your classroom. Because of this, it’s important to set students up for success during the remote time by providing clear expectations.
Part of this means reminding them that remote learning days are not days off. In fact, consider referencing remote work as classwork instead of homework. Some students see homework as optional or unimportant. Ensure your students understand that the work they are assigned on remote days is a learning day, just like any other in-class day.
You might also want to practice remote learning days in class. Typically, that would mean simulating a remote learning day with students while they’re still physically in your classroom. This allows you to set expectations and have students give a test drive to the remote learning experience with you in the room before they are released to do it on their own.
You might use this as a way to have students prove that they’re ready to be remote learners. Students generally want this remote learning flexibility, so you can use this practice time to challenge your students to “prove you’re right” that they are responsible and ready to handle the independence of remote learning.
2. Design meaningful learning.
If students think that remote learning days are days without meaningful learning activities, they will quickly disengage and see remote learning days as nonessential or even non-school days. Ask yourself what type of work they can meaningfully do on a remote basis. Will they engage in a flip video? Will they be researching? Maybe they’re working on a project. Perhaps they’re engaging with a custom AI chatbot that you’ve created with a tool like SchoolAI. Whatever you design, remote learning must be essential and meaningful to reaching your learning outcomes.
3. Require students to earn remote learning days.
In addition to proving readiness through in-class practice, you can hold students accountable in other ways as well. For students who are not achieving a minimum level of performance, you could require that they come to the classroom during their remote days. This provides an incentive for students to complete their work, and it also allows you to support students who are falling behind.
4. Leverage remote days to meet with students.
One of the most significant advantages of having students learn remotely is that it gives the teacher time to meet with students in small groups or individually. These remote days offer an excellent opportunity to facilitate interventions and support students at a much more individualized level. There are multiple ways to use this asynchronous. remote learning time to meet with students.
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- Schedule progress checks. Conduct progress check-ins with students on a rotating basis. This could be a general check-in, or it could be aligned with ongoing project work. You could even make a check-in one of the required steps in a process or on a playlist before students can move on with further work on a project. One-on-one writing conferences are another popular application of this approach.
- Meet with student teams. If students are working in groups, they may be allowed to meet in flex areas during the remote days, but you can also call them into your open classroom for status checks. You could create a schedule so that all teams must check in over a specified time period.
- Conduct individual assessments. With this strategy, you call in students one at a time to conduct individual performance-based assessments. This also gives you the chance to check in individually with each student and offer personalized feedback.
- Reduce class size and create small group experiences. By rotating in groups of students on remote days, you can better facilitate engaging activities and experiences by having fewer students in the room. This may be a lab experience where you have limited materials, or it might be an in-class debate where a smaller group of students encourages more participation from all the students involved.
In-Class Learning Days
Just as you want to make the most of your remote days, you’ll also want to leverage your precious in-class time to maximize student growth and achievement. What learning experiences are best done face-to-face, and what can be flipped to remote days?
While the following list is not intended to be comprehensive, it can help guide you in deciding how to best use your in-class learning days.
1. Teach the technology.
By teaching the technology skills in class, you’ll be empowering your students to be more successful during remote days. This is a great scaffolding technique for tech skills. Students learn it in class and apply or practice it at home. During the next in-class day, you can answer questions, troubleshoot, and set students up for even more success the following day.
2. Build relationships.
While it’s possible to facilitate relationship building in an online environment, it tends to more easily be done face-to-face. As a result, it’s important to use your in-class days, especially early on, to develop a class community so that students learn to trust you and one another. This foundation can help you stay connected, even during remote days.
3. Guide core lessons.
While all academic standards are important, some form essential foundations to future learning. They’re the rock upon which the next lessons will build. Oftentimes, hybrid teachers will teach these core skills and concepts in person, so they can more quickly assess if students are missing this key baseline information. Once the foundation has been established, students are generally more able to build on that learning independently during remote days.
4. Facilitate collaboration.
Most students are social, and they often come to school specifically to interact with their friends and classmates. Collaboration is also an essential academic and life skill. Therefore, try to build in some form of collaboration during each face-to-face day. This is much easier to do in person than it is online.
5. Conduct labs and experiential learning.
You can have students do this remotely, but some students may not have access to materials or quality learning spaces outside of your classroom. Therefore, in-class time is ideal for facilitating labs and experiential learning. The in-class environment also allows you to have students work in pairs and teams to enrich that learning.
6. Provide opportunities for performances and group projects.
Group projects can be facilitated remotely, especially if students can gather in flexible learning spaces within the school, and performances can be recorded and shared virtually, with the reminder that it’s always important to ensure that local and district guidelines are followed. These highly interactive learning experiences are also perfect fits for face-to-face learning environments. If the groundwork is laid here, students can extend the work by dividing and conquering additional group tasks during the independent remote learning days.
In general, hybrid learning is a powerful and flexible way to get the most out of both face-to-face and remote learning experiences. When done well, it can be transformational.
AVID Connections
This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:
- Instruction
- Systems
- Rigorous Academic Preparedness
- Student Agency
- Instruction
- Insist on Rigor
- Break Down Barriers
- Align the Work
Extend Your Learning
- 5 Models for Making the Most Out of Hybrid Learning (Dr. John Spencer)
- Effective Instructional Models for a Hybrid Schedule (M-J Mercanti-Anthony via Edutopia)
- Hybrid School Schedules: More Flexibility; Big Logistical Challenges (Denisa R. Superville via Education Week)
- How to Plan for Hybrid Teaching and Learning (Common Sense Education)
- Blending Online and Offline Learning: Exploring Hybrid Schedules (Dr. Catlin Tucker)
- What Is Hybrid Learning? Here’s Everything You Need to Know (Owl Labs)