Hybrid Web-Based Courses

The theoretical contexts for this discussion have been explored in previous papers, also available online: From Video-Conferencing to the Cybercafé: Membership, Performance and Online Learning was delivered at the Ed-Media / Ed-Telecom Conference in Freiburg, Germany in June 1998; and Protocols of Improvisation and Online Learning was delivered at the Leading Edge Training and Technology (LETT) Conference in Victoria, B.C. in 1997.

These earlier papers explore how online learning takes place in a distinct performance medium--certainly distinct from traditional classroom learning--and how it is important for instructors to reflect on the new expectations, demands, and social dynamics resulting from the new medium. Research on video-conferenced courses we delivered in 1996 and summarized in Enhancing Capacity with Video-Conferencing (Soules 1996), reveals that "student satisfaction and success are highly dependent on [a] sense of membership, or engagement by the learner in the educational process. Our research found, for example, that unlike the membership construct, the technology itself does not lead to high satisfaction rates: once the purpose of establishing clear and reliable communication has been met, further efforts to develop more sophisticated systems are not likely to result in more student satisfaction. Similarly, once basic student support services have been provided, more elaborate administrative functions do not significantly increase student satisfaction or success" [Dolan 1996; Soules 1998].

What we soon discovered in our attempts to create a feeling of membership, or conditions suitable to collaborative interdependencies, was the need to supplement classroom lectures and discussions with web-based learning resources. Students at the remote video-conferencing site felt they were missing something that those in the host classroom were experiencing, and asked that lecture notes and resources be available to them through other means. For this video-conferenced course, then, we evolved a hybrid mode which combined synchronous delivery technologies with supplementary, and sometimes redundant, web-based technologies to foster greater course participation and a feeling of involvement for an "ensemble" of learners.

Since 1996, I have delivered a number of courses which combine elements of face-to-face and online, web-based delivery techniques. In some cases, all course participants were expected to attend classroom discussions, and then accomplish certain online learning tasks in lab sessions. In other course configurations, there have been two sections of the same course: one section met in the classroom, the other was solely for online students studying from a distance. All course materials were provided on websites, and assignments for both sections were submitted electronically. In still another version of the hybrid online course, I accepted students who wanted to take completely online a course which had been scheduled as a traditional classroom session. Finally, I have delivered courses completely online, with no scheduled classroom meetings. In all of these instructional scenarios, the hybrid nature of delivery posed specific problems, and revealed important insights into the dynamics of online learning.

Something is Missing

These impressions that something is missing in the educational experience is most keenly felt by students who take a course completely online and know that there is a group of students who meet regularly in the classroom. If all the students are online, the feeling that something is missing is less common.

Strategies for Collaboration

1. One obvious strategy for promoting a learning synergy in hybrid courses is to ensure that the online learning resources available from the website are up-to-date and as engaging as possible. All course participants are thus assured that they have, at least, the same foundation of information to work from.

2. Similarly, it is important that instructions for assignments are clear, and do not require further in-class explanations to give fuller direction. For most of my online assignments, I specify the form and goals of the assignment in detail, give general parameters for the content, and allow course participants considerable latitude in their choice of approach to the content. (Hara and Kling report that students' distress with one web-based course was largely related to the ambiguity of the instructor's guidelines, descriptions, and expectations for assignments.)

3. I grade the assignments of online students first, and respond to all email queries as quickly as possible to demonstrate that someone is responsive to their needs.

4. After the earlier video-conferencing experience, I have used mainly asynchronous technologies for online courses--email and distribution lists, newsgroups, and websites. My use of newsgroups has evolved considerably, and become more structured. Where previously I asked students to participate in a newsgroup discussion over a period of time and graded them on their level of participation, now I assign short weekly assignments which are posted to the course newsgroup. Participants are thus encouraged to access the newsgroup regularly throughout the course, they can see one another's work, and they can respond to the work of others whenever they are moved to do so. These short assignments reflect on the course material, provide writing practice, and generate the kind of focused discussion that many of us wish would occur in newsgroups that we have participated in. These weekly assignments allow me to monitor who is actively participating in the learning of the course. Collectively, all course participants (including myself) are building a tangible dialogue about the course content.

5. Stephen Ehrmann, the Director of Flashlight Project for the American Association of Higher Education, suggests that effective learning is fostered when instructors hear and understand what students already believe about a certain subject; when their "preexisting theories" remain "invisible" to the instructor, these notions are often left untouched by instruction (1997). The implication of this seems far-reaching and recommends that instructors make every attempt to allow students to express their own understanding of a subject as a basis for further learning. Early assignments in a course might ask students to describe their views on a topic, and subsequent assignments can build on or respond to those beliefs. In online courses, newsgroup postings can explore these beliefs, and the resulting archive of responses becomes a profile of the current levels of understanding. Most importantly in the case of newsgroups, everyone in the learning cohort, not just the instructor, has access to the collective responses. Students are given more opportunity to learn from one another, and the instructor's role may shift towards facilitation and collaboration, and away from instruction.

6. Ehrmann also recommends the use of "worldware"--software which is suitable for learning, but which was not particularly designed for that purpose. Worldware includes word processors, computer-aided design programs, email, the internet, and graphics programs. Not only are worldware programs more widely available, "They are in instructional demand because students know they need to learn to use them and to think with them. Faculty already are familiar with them from their own work. Vendors have a large enough market to earn the money for continual upgrades and relatively good product support. New versions of worldware are usually compatible with old files. Thus faculty can gradually update and transform their courses, year after year, without last year's assignment becoming obsolete" (1997). Ehrmann further elaborates by suggesting that "to make visible improvements in learning outcomes using technology, use that technology to enable large scale changes in the methods and resources of learning. That usually requires hardware and software that faculty and students use repeatedly, with increasing sophistication and power." In my own hybrid courses, I require the following applications: email, newsreader, internet browser, text editor, word processor for attachments, and a graphics program. I am most enthusiastic about the internet as a publishing medium for student work, and thus concentrate on those applications which support students to display their writing, images, and sounds online.

7. Since most of the courses I deliver online emphasize writing skills, I ask participants to collaborate on the production of an electronic journal which includes the best writing from the course. Examples of these student-produced journals can be seen at the following URLs:
   • Abstrkt IDs: English 290 (Computer-Mediated Communications), Spring 2000.

   • zine2000: Media Studies 112 (Mass media and popular Culture II), Spring 2000.

   • Chaoscopy: English 290, Spring 1999.

   • hypeRculture: Media Studies 112, Spring 1999.

   • Vancouver Island 2009: Media Studies 113 (Emerging Digital Technologies), Spring 1999.

   • mTheory Vol. 2: Media Studies 212 (Canadian Media Theorists), Fall 1998.

   • chants/encounters: English 290, Spring 1998.

   • Spectra: Media Studies 112, Spring 1998.

   • WestCoast Cybercave: Media Studies 113, Fall 1997.

   • mTheory: Media Studies 212 , Spring 1997.

   • Fingerprints: English 290, Spring 1997.

   The production of an electronic journal promotes membership in the course through the collaborative activities involved, and it provides tangible evidence that all course participants can contribute equally to the learning experience. It is not altogether surprising that those who volunteer for the production and design of these journals are often online students who want to participate more fully. Finally, it is my subjective impression that student writing is more interesting and thoughtfully presented when the audience is broadened to include peers and, potentially, any one using the internet.

   Tangible Evidence

   Strategies for creating membership in hybrid online courses should acknowledge that we are operating in a unique performance medium with its own protocols for effective interaction. The relative abstraction of much online interaction--disembodied as it were--challenges expectations about what is being accomplished in a course, who is being heard, and what is visible. The use of structured newsgroup discussions related to course material, and the production of electronic journals of participants' writing offer tangible evidence of interaction and collaboration. Participants are able to build dynamic documents testifying to their participation, and thus their rightful membership in the course. They are able to make themselves visible, or heard, both to the instructor and to the other players who constitute the ensemble of the hybrid online course.

   References

   Bourdeau, J. & Wasson, B. (1998) Actor interdependence in collaborative telelearning. Ed-Media/Ed-Telecom 1998 Proceedings. Charlottesburg, VA: AACE.

   Dolan, N. (1996) Interactive television course delivery. Victoria, BC: NJ Dolan Consulting.

   Ehrmann, S. (1997). Asking the right question: What does research tell us about technology and higher learning? Annenberg/CPB: Learner.Org. www.learner.org/edtech/rscheval/rightquestion.htm. 2 February 2000.

   Hara, N. & Kling, R. (2000). Students' distress with a web-based distance education course. Center for Social Informatics Working Paper. www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/wp00-01.htm. 1 March 2000.

   Soules, M. (1998). From video-conferencing to the cybercafé: Membership, performance, and online learning. Ed-Media/Ed-Telecom 1998 Proceedings. Charlottesburg, VA: AACE.

   Soules, M. (1997). Protocols of improvisation and online communication. LETT '97 Conference Proceedings, 1997, Leading Edge Training and Technology, Victoria, BC.

   Soules, M. (1996). Enhancing capacity with video-conferencing. Nanaimo: Malaspina U-C.