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Innovation Center for Teaching & Learning

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For help with TLC professional development, course design, and creating course content, please contact Instructional Designer Tim Lockman at tlockman@kish.edu or schedule an appointment below. 

Flex Courses

Exploring hybrid-flexible teaching at Kishwaukee College

On This Page:

What is Flex?

Computer keyboard with a key marked "Flexible" Flex (a.k.a. HyFlex or Hybrid-Flexible) is a teaching approach that combines face-to-face, online synchronous, and online asynchronous modalities. It gives students the flexibility to attend class in the way that suits them best. Students may settle on one modality for the whole course or may switch between them according to need or learning preference (7 things you should know, 2020).

Dr. Brian Beatty of San Francisco State University began developing HyFlex in 2006 and remains an advocate for the approach. HyFlex gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Image Credit: Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0

Modified Flex: As of SP22, Kishwaukee College’s modified version of Flex includes synchronous learning only (face-to-face plus synchronous online). In the future, an asynchronous component may be included.

Flex at Kish
Flex Rooms (a.k.a. Zoom Rooms)

DTEN touchscreen TVKishwaukee College has two fully-equipped Flex classrooms: B1300 and B2307. Each room can host synchronous sessions with both on-site and remote students simultaneously.

Equipment and Tools
  • DTEN touchscreen TV with a 15-microphone array to pick up instructor and student voices
  • Multidirectional PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) camera with presets to show remote students different views of the room
  • Large-screen monitor to show on-site students different camera views
  • Control panel for running Zoom meetings and choosing camera presets
  • Full access to Zoom chat from TV or the instructor computer
  • Document camera is available
  • Schedule your Zoom sessions using Outlook
Tech Support

For assistance, please contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@kish.edu or (815) 825-9888.

Flex Training
Workshop for Instructors

Design Considerations
Advantages and Challenges with the HyFlex Model
  ADVANTAGES CHALLENGES
For Students
  • Increased ability to attend courses
  • Flexibility in scheduling
  • Additional and richer learning materials
  • Need good self-management skills to choose appropriate learning paths (online, F2F, etc.) that will work for them
  • Need the appropriate technical equipment, network connection, etc.
For Faculty
  • Teach more students with the same amount of time and materials
  • Develop both online and face-to-face teaching skills
  • Keep teaching in spite of emergencies and scheduling issues
  • Develop a course design and materials that will work using multiple delivery methods
  • Manage complex technical systems and multiple communication streams
  • Manage student participation and provide feedback in various formats

Summarized from Brian Beatty’s chapter on HyFlex costs and benefits:

Course Design and Pedagogy
Guiding Principles

Brian Beatty lists four “pillars” or universal principles that are meant to guide the use of HyFlex:

  • Learner Choice: Provide meaningful alternative participation modes and enable students to choose between participation modes daily, weekly, or topically.
  • Equivalency: Provide learning activities in all participation modes which lead to equivalent learning outcomes.
  • Reusability: Utilize artifacts from learning activities in each participation mode as “learning objects’ for all students.
  • Accessibility: Equip students with technology skills and equitable access to all participation modes.

For more details, please see Chapter 1.3 of Beatty’s freely available ebook Hybrid-Flexible course design: Implementing student-directed hybrid classes.

Design & Pedagogy Tips
Adapted from U. of Illinois-Springfield's HyFlex Pedagogy page
Course Element Advice
Lesson Planning Allow extra planning time to develop activities and materials that will work for both on-site and remote students. When planning activities, consider scenarios such as having only one or two students on-site and the rest remote on a given day. Also consider using digital tools like Office 365 and Microsoft Teams to help students collaborate synchronously from any location.
Communication Tell students how they should communicate with you during class and how to appropriately use communication channels such as microphones, chat, Zoom reactions, etc.
Facilitation When working with on-site students, be sure not to neglect those attending remotely. Consider including this in your lesson plan. For example, as you begin working with on-site students, prompt remote students to reflect on the lecture, do a 3-2-1 activity, etc. For group activities, make use of Zoom’s breakout room feature.
Feedback Poll your students about how the class is going. Ask them what is not working well for them and how it might be improved. Consider doing this after the first week or two and then maybe later in the course to follow up. You also can use Zoom polls during class time to assess and engage both on-site and remote students. 

Remember that as of SP22 Kishwaukee’s Flex model does not include asynchronous learning. With this in mind, please see these sites for more design and pedagogy tips:

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