Design Flexible Lessons for Hybrid Learning

A playlist is a list of tasks that a student must complete. Ideally, students have some choice in which tasks they complete on their journey toward mastering the content. A choice board is one popular version of a playlist. In the playlist model, you can either provide a different playlist each day, or you can provide one for the entire week. In the case of a week-long playlist, students often receive it on Monday and are required to have all the work completed by Friday.

The playlist model is similar to the self-paced online model and can be used in similar ways. In-class time is once again leveraged for interpersonal connections, check-ins, and interventions. Playlists can contain group and partner options to encourage collaboration. Fully remote students can also complete collaborative tasks, but they will need to connect with classmates virtually.

This model is another variation of the self-paced online model. In the project-based approach, students are all working on a project whether at home or in school. This way, they are all completing the same lesson at the same time. However, you should take advantage of the in-class time to conduct formative check-ins with each student to see how they are progressing. You could also facilitate peer check-ins and group think time to take advantage of the peer-to-peer connections that can best happen in person. It’s a good idea to schedule virtual check-ins with your remote-only students, as well. You won’t want them to fall behind.

The project-based approach is very student-centered and offers considerable voice and choice. It also allows students to develop important skills, such as creativity and problem-solving. If you wish to increase the collaboration aspect of the project, assign each student a “study buddy” or “project partner.” They can connect remotely and support each other through the project.

While you will likely use all of these five design models at some point during your hybrid experience, the flip-flop model is especially helpful for working in those highly interactive, in-person experiences. This model is much like it sounds; you flip-flop the in-person and online lessons during each A/B cycle in the schedule. For example, on the first day, you might facilitate a Socratic Seminar, a lab, music rehearsal, or a class discussion with the face-to-face students while the remote learners conduct research on a related, but non-sequential topic. Then, the next day, you flip-flop the lessons. The first in-class group is now remote and completes the research assignment while the first remote group takes part in the face-to-face activity. While you will need to design two lessons at a time, this model allows you to take full advantage of the in-person classes while still only creating two lessons over a two-day span.

The biggest challenge with this model will come if you have full-time remote students. For those learners, you will need to modify the in-class lesson to work remotely. One idea is to allow remote students to attend the live class virtually. An in-class student could use their device as a portal for the remote students. For labs, you could have students record their experience, so the remote students can “look in” and be a part of the process (either live or through a recording). While this is not perfect and requires a little extra work on your part, it is often worth it to be able to offer these rich, interactive learning experiences. As with any instructional design, you will want to make the experiences as equitable as possible. In some cases, you may need to find a comparable activity that the remote-only students can complete online.

Many teachers implement station rotation in their classrooms. Traditionally, this would mean that during a class period, students would rotate between several learning stations. Most often, these stations could be completed in any order. In an English classroom, for instance, one station might be for grammar, one for peer editing, one for a mini-lesson with the teacher, and one for independent reading. This model has long been a popular strategy in elementary classrooms, and it has seen significant growth at all grade levels in recent years.

To maximize the advantages of face-to-face time, consider a station rotation model where students rotate to a new station each day rather than several times within the same day. This way, you can use the face-to-face days for collaboration and direct instruction while using the remote days for more independent tasks. In the English class described earlier, this might mean that the in-person days are for peer editing and the mini-lesson while the remote days are used for independent grammar lessons and reading assignments. If station rotation is blended with the flip-flop model, you could have students complete two independent stations remotely and two collaborative ones in-person.