The Hyflex Teaching Model

In response to the global pandemic, we have found ourselves faced with unprecedented challenges and a need to rapidly adapt our teaching delivery to accommodate students working remotely. Currently, we are aiming to return to a ‘business as usual’ model but in reality, there may be circumstances where some students are still unable to be present in person (PiP). Our international students are one particularly vulnerable group facing a continuous level of uncertainty regarding travel opportunities and restrictions. With this in mind, colleagues at INTO Newcastle University devised a delivery approach encompassing the Hyflex Model.

What is the Hyflex Model?

“The hybrid flexible, or HyFlex, course format is an instructional approach that combines face-to-face (F2F) and online learning. Each class session and learning activity is offered in-person, synchronously online, and asynchronously online” (EDUCAUSE, 2020). The main aim is that no student is disadvantaged, no matter which format they select. INTO Newcastle’s take on this approach was to connect PiP students with online peers through use of a camera, microphone, tripod and a hosting site such as Zoom or Teams. Asynchronous delivery is not a part of this approach. Session plans, pace of delivery and learning outcomes had to be adjusted because of the changed learning environment. A sample of FMS staff were able to experience this approach in real time at a training session delivered by INTO Newcastle’s Pre-Sessional Programme Manager, Darran Shaw. They gave the following reflections:

Overall

“While in no way perfect, this approach is something worth experimenting with”.

“The relatively cheap equipment was functional and would allow 3-way engagement”. 

Audio-related 

“I chose to join the ‘online’ part of the class via the Zoom meeting link on my phone. This was quick and easy to join, though we would possibly need to think about which accounts students have on their phones – whether they could join with their personal or university accounts. Once in the meeting I had minimal problems with sound or hearing the classroom participants. I can imagine this being difficult if the quality dropped though – even small cut-outs in the signal or sound pickup can make understanding difficult. This is even more of a concern for students joining who have poorer internet access, or who do not have English as a first language”. 

“To enhance the experience, I felt that the quality of the audio was the most important.  The levels of concentration required to filter out background noise and focus on the primary speaker is very tiring and difficult (this was already experienced with recorded lectures prior to COVID and even more diverse with academic recording or conducting zoom classes from their own PC over the last 18 months).  For those in the room, sound from all participants was equal and what we would expect, but it was not picked up equally by the microphone for those on-line.  Repositioning the single microphone was a trade-off to pick up more participants at the expense of reduced quality of the primary speaker. This could be enhanced by investment in a multiple microphone set up”.

“When the purpose of the teaching session is inter-participant communication, eg seminar, then we need to experiment more with all participants (PiP and remote) using zoom-like breakout rooms and headsets. In small classrooms/lecture theatres this is easier to control and can be achieved for lecture and seminar teaching”. 

Video

“Having a visual link to speakers and the PiP class gives an important feeling of participation and value.  I do not think the quality of the video is as important as the audio. Having said that, from the experience of this session a visual link to whoever is speaking makes it easier to focus on what is being said and allows non-verbal communication”.

“I feel it would also be good to have sight of the teacher and the class simultaneously. We spoke about this being important to pick up on cues when online participants can speak. We can see how easy it is to forget the online participants”.

Etiquette

“Appropriate etiquette is important and become vital for large class sizes. Emphasis should be placed on respect for other users, time management to attend equally (IT/bandwidth allowing) and professional level of engagement.  The latter should be specifically mentioned in Graduate Skills and academics should be allowed to comment on student engagement (recognising this is aspirational as it is almost impossible for one lecturer to monitor for large classes)”.

Top Tips for future Hyflex classes

  • There is a risk that an ‘us and them’ divide will form so it is recommended that staff look at mixing online participants and groupings in breakout rooms. PiP students could take turns signing in to Zoom/Teams calls.
  • A major requirement is sound. It would be worth investing in a few microphones to ensure the sound quality is equal between the participants in the room and the teaching lead. There would need to be potential wire issues and feedback issues sorted out. This is of fundamental importance due to the extra concentration and effort needed of online participants to hear what is said in the room. It is worth considering the use of a microphone that could be passed around easily.
  • Having multiple users logged on to zoom in the same physical space increases the chance for echo/feedback and therefore users need to experiment with the set up.
  • Whilst a hi-spec system, such as that available in the Boardroom is desirable, a low-cost camera recording the whole class will enhance feeling of participation, ‘time and place’ for learning.  The primary speaker can use a second camera (laptop or phone).  The two logged on as separate users.
  • Ground rules are needed: when to speak, recapping when unheard would be important, etiquette when joining a classroom remotely and being expected to participate fully as if present in person (but not in pyjamas or lying in bed).
  • Consider pre-planning task set up instructions. It may not always be obvious when students need to be looking at the shared screen, the speaker’s video input, or a gallery view of other online participants.
  • Be open-minded. Experiment with colleagues and test out the experience to determine what makes it easier for the teacher and the students. 

With thanks to the session leaders and participants: Darran Shaw, David Broadbent, Geoffrey Bosson, John Moss, Paul Hubbard, Luisa Wakeling, Eleanor Gordon

Resource: EDUCAUSE (2020) Available at: https://library.educause.edu/resources/2020/7/7-things-you-should-know-about-the-hyflex-course-model

360° Hidden Hotspots for Formative Assessment

A combination of 360° interactive images and interactive hotspot formative assessment tasks have been used to greatly enhance the Health and Safety lab training materials delivered in the School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences.

Within the school, there is a range of labs used in practical sessions. In previous years, preparatory Health and Safety Materials have been distributed on paper, or via PDF, however, one of the challenges of this mode of delivery is that some students do not necessarily engage with this material, resulting in some students not being well-prepared to work in these potentially hazardous environments.

These resources have now been moved to Canvas, and are available as general basic lab health and safety training in their own module. This module is targeted at Stage 1 Undergraduate students, though Stage 2 and 3 also have full access to the module for revision purposes. The module includes training on

  • Basic Health and Safety
  • Fire safety
  • General chemical, biological and physical hazards
  • General lab safety
  • Codes of practice

As well as module resources, there are also 360 lab tours that students can use to familiarise themselves with the lab environments, clicking through the images to ‘walk’ around the lab they might be using in the future.

A low-quality version to illustrate what students see when navigating the lab in 360.

The course concludes with quizzes and some ‘hidden hotspot’ tasks that students can use to test their own knowledge in hazard identification tasks. Interactive images like the one above have extra information inserted, which means that when students click on certain areas, information is displayed.

The interactive hotspots are created using the tool Theasys – 360 VR Online Virtual Tour Creator. One of the main advantages of using this tool is that the hotspot areas are hidden, meaning students have to explore the images in greater depth to discover the hazards. While there is a cursor change when a student hovers over the right spots, this is still much more hidden than in other tools, which highlight the hotspots with circles or other icons.

After the students have finished exploring the image, they can reveal all of the hotspots to find any they may have missed, allowing them to test their own knowledge. This could be enhanced even further by setting a Canvas quiz in the module or asking students to write a summary of the hazards found.

In addition to assessing students formatively, these 3D images and hotspot tasks provide a chance for students who may be anxious about the lab environment to explore these areas virtually first. This helps to minimise the risk of students being overwhelmed by the new space. Pairing the input with the virtual tours and, crucially, the chance to check knowledge builds confidence for all students, helping them feel well-prepared and knowledgeable about the lab environments before they even cross the threshold.

Resources

Previous blog post on 360 images

Theasys

Media Resources

As a result of a few enquiries about extra resources and uses of some media programmes in FMS, we have compiled a few options below. Newcastle University has its own broadcast library with an array of resources. The BBC Box of Broadcasts has many BBC TV broadcasts which educational institutions can use – maybe you’ve seen a documentary or interesting programme on your subject, search BOB for it. TED talks have a plethora of subjects, many of experts talking about issues in their own fields. MERLOT covers a range of subject, with Health Sciences being particularly relevant for FMS.

IPTV – Newcastle University Broadcast library

Newcastle’s IPTV gives you access to more than 8,000 movies and TV shows in dozens of languages, available both on and off campus.

https://iptv.ncl.ac.uk/ (Links to an external site.) (requires university login)

More resource options from the university are available on campus at https://www.ncl.ac.uk/language-resource-centre/resources-facilities/multimedia-resources/ (Links to an external site.) 

BOB – Box of Broadcasts

Have you seen a programme on television which you would like to recommend to your students or use in your teaching?

The BBC have a library of shows available in their Box of Broadcasts. You can search for your programme on there to see if it is available.

https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand (Links to an external site.) (You will need to login by selecting your institution and entering your university login)

These are only available for broadcast in the UK. 

TED Talks

Talks by experts and influential people on education, business, science, technology and creativity.

https://www.ted.com/talks (Links to an external site.) 

MERLOT

As their website says, “MERLOT is an international community of educators, learners, and researchers” across a multitude of subject areas including Health Sciences, Biology, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Business, Chemistry, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Computer Science, Criminal Justice, Engineering, English, Fire Safety, History, Information Technology, Instructional Design and Technology, Mathematics, Music, Physics, Professional Coaching, Psychology, Sociolog, Statistics, Teacher Education, Technical Allied Health, World Languages.

There is a variety of learning materials available including simulations, animations, case studies, presentations, tutorials, quizzes etc

https://www.merlot.org/merlot/ (Links to an external site.) 

The Health Sciences Portal can be found here https://www.merlot.org/merlot/HealthSciences.htm (Links to an external site.) 

H5P is here!!

Adding engaging and interactive content to your online course materials just got easier with H5P.  

This new online tool allows you to create custom learning resources such as branching scenarios, accordions, interactive images and videos, 360 degree virtual tours, simple formative quizzes, and so much more.   

Try it out:

Below is an example of a simple drag and drop exercise.

FMS TEL Conference 2021

The FMS TEL Team are delighted to announce their first conference, running in the week beginning 6th September 2021, from 8am-12noon BST / 3pm-7pm MYT each day. The programme commences on Monday morning with a welcome and keynote speech from Professor David Burn, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, and will conclude with an action-planning session on Friday. The whole conference will run online via Zoom, so you can dip in and out of the events that interest you the most.

Throughout the event there will be webinars and practical workshops hosted by the FMS TEL Team, as well as practice-based discussion sessions led by academic colleagues from FMS and NUMed. Sessions include practical software tips, digital skills, assessment, and teaching methods, among others.

You can see the full programme and book your place on the FMS TEL Conference page – new sessions are still being added! We can’t wait to see you all there!

FMS TEL Community in MLE

For some time we have had an FMS TEL Community within Canvas, where members of the FMS TEL team share guides and resources. However not all members in our faculty use Canvas so we decided to launch a second Community in our sister Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), the Medical Learning Environment (MLE).

We have added guides on:

As well as the recordings and resources from our most recent webinars:

Visit the MLE Community

Conversations for Learning – Kay McAlinden

This case study concerns the current module Psychosocial Issues in Cancer and Palliative care (ONC8006) as it is taught in 2020-21 academic year. This module is part of the Cancer and Palliative care programme and as such deals with emotionally challenging topics, including breaking bad news, loss, responding with empathy, screening for distress, anxiety and depression, families and carers, body image issues, survivorship, and interventions such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness. It is currently a small module with less than 20 students.

Next year it will be merging with another module, Handling Loss Grief and Bereavement (ONC 8010) and will become Psychosocial issues in Advanced Disease (ONC8030). Several elements of professional development, including a session run by Manchester University, and the FMS TEL Humanising the Online Experience webinar, helped to inspire and implement a few new ways of working which will be carried forward.

Choosing Priorities

Clear themes emerged from the sessions attended, showing what students want from their online courses. Prompt feedback from tutors is clearly valued, as well as ease of access and clear information about assignments. Students want to feel the tutor’s presence in their course and want to be able to give feedback afterwards.

Given that the online environment can be stark and unemotional, and people do not always want to discuss these topics – even in classrooms, teaching this content online was always going to be a challenge. It was important to try and model the communication skills, behaviours and support that students would be learning about, allowing this to stand as an example of good practice.

Zoom Tutorials

The stress and emotional load on students this year has been particularly high both personally and professionally given the impact of COVID on service delivery and home life.  Students often mentioned the difficulties of delivering bad news by phone and trying to support patients and families when there was minimal access to psychosocial services. This prompted the decision to offer Zoom appointments or phone calls to anyone who wanted them. These were offered rather than being compulsory, and not all students took up the offer. These were offered via Canvas announcements.

This year most chats only lasted 10-15 minutes but allowed students to consider how they would approach their essay. Spending this one-to-one time with students, even on the phone or via Zoom, has meant that getting to know them has been a lot easier, and students feel more supported. In some cases, a chat over email was enough, but sometimes it was much more time-effective just to call the student and have a quick chat, rather than spending time drafting and re-drafting a long or complex email.

Many of these chats took the form of one-to-one tutorials on assignments, explaining what was expected and how to do a good job of the assignment, as well as offering reassurance. Careful monitoring of the discussion boards has also allowed issues to be picked up and addressed.

Use of Discussion Boards

This module has always made good use of discussion boards. Participation in the discussion boards has been good, and regular and swift responses to students’ posts have helped further this. Questions such as ‘If you were diagnosed with cancer, who would be around to support you? What if they weren’t there?’ push students to think very deeply about their own personal situations, and to connect compassionately with what they are learning.

Some tasks had options which are less emotive, but most students chose to answer the most emotive task – naturally tutor feedback for this was very rich. This meant it was time-consuming, but also extremely valuable. Adding a simple ‘like’ or a quick remark would have been far too dispassionate for a module like this! Other students were also able to respond in a way that supported each other, thanking one another for their stories.

Further discussion board use included the choice for students to respond in their own private journal area rather than more publicly. This setup can help to engage students when topics are personal or reflective in nature.

Advice and Support from FMS TEL

The advice and support about what is possible, and how to implement things technically has been invaluable. This has allowed for modernisation, development and innovations in the methods used, as well as some experimentation within the module. When trying new things, make sure you set yourself up to succeed by starting small, and starting with what you’re comfortable with, adding more new elements as your confidence grows.

Feedback and Next Steps

This year the use of regular Canvas announcements has been a good way of keeping things on track. The participation in discussion boards and tutorials has been great, and students have said they feel supported. As the module will look very different next year, more adaptations will need to be made. For example, in future it might be useful to offer assignment guidance as a small group tutorial, especially if more students are taking the module. This way it can be scaled up and students can still feel supported.

Now it feels easier to interact with students online than it did at the beginning. Getting to know them as people beyond their studies has been very rewarding for everyone. Small things like being confident enough to use humour, or to share a funny cartoon about the subject, have become easier to judge as time has gone on. This can be tricky to judge if you can’t see faces or are worried about cultural faux pas, but once again, getting to know your class by building community really helps with this.

Resources

Newcastle University Digital Learning – Technology Guides

Enrol in the FMS TEL Canvas Community for access to materials and Canvas notifications of new resources and blog posts.

Humanising the Online Experience Webinar Materials (watch, listen or read)

Discussion Boards Webinar Materials (watch, listen or read) – including examples from this module

Discussion Boards Guides – how to implement different types of boards for different purposes in Canvas and Padlet (for MLE users)

Coming Soon: H5P

From August 2021 all colleagues will be able to create interactive content with H5P. No coding or software is required, all you need is a web browser.

Take a sneak peak at what content types are available on the H5P website (please do not create an account just yet) . Read more about the launch on the LTDS Blog.

If you would like to get early access to H5P, receive updates, or help our evaluation please Join the H5P Community.

eLearning Webinars (by eLearning Brothers)

eLearning Brothers regularly host online events for eLearning solutions, which some of the FMS TEL team attend. They own software such as Lectora and CenarioVR, and also provide some development services. They produce webinars on their own software and services, but also produce a number of more general webinars related to eLearning.

You may find inspiration in some of their webinars, which have included:

You can find upcoming events and recordings of previous events at the link below

https://www.elearningbrothers.com/elearning-resources/webinars-events (Links to an external site.)