War of the Hybrid Worlds 2024: Going Where We've Never Gone Before
The global pandemic thrust online teaching to the forefront. Online enrollments rose while campus enrollments declined. Is face-to-face teaching doomed? Will virtual campuses be the norm? Is there no middle ground?
Someone once said academic battles are so intense because the stakes are so small (Quote Investigator 2013). But where the battle between online and face-to-face teaching is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth. The stakes are enormous. Worldwide, online courses enroll hundreds of millions of students and generate billions of dollars in revenue (Statista 2024). By contrast, dozens of colleges have recently closed their doors due to low enrollment (Marcus 2024). Much has been written about the future of traditional campus-based learning and its death at the hands of online learning. It's an argument that goes back, well, to at least the early 2000s.
In the early 2000s, online teaching had emerged as a contentious alternative to lecture halls and face-to-face teaching. Some hailed it the great savior of higher education, while others hissed at its lack of quality and susceptibility to nefarious activity. In my 2001 Campus Technology article "Face to Face vs. Cyberspace: Finding the Middle Ground" (Chamberlin 2001), I argued that online and on-campus teaching can co-exist. By combining elements of both — the so-called hybrid approach — students would have greater access to courses and achieve greater success.
But the pandemic thrust online teaching to the forefront. As new-to-online instructors struggled to convert traditional campus classes into online ones, they realized there's more to online teaching than meets the eye. Lecturing over Zoom can be tedious, ineffective, and exhausting. As long-time online instructors know (I've been teaching online for more than two decades), creating an active and engaging online environment requires thoughtful consideration of how students learn best. The pandemic vindicated what we'd been saying for more than two decades. When done properly, online teaching can be just as effective as on-campus teaching. It can deliver rich and rewarding educational experiences to a more diverse audience of students, particularly those who may — because of work, family responsibilities, or health reasons — can't attend classes on campus. And students appreciate the convenience and flexibility of online classes.
So, whereas online teaching was met with skepticism two decades ago, the chorus has now swung to praise of the virtues of online teaching. Some argue that face-to-face teaching is old-fashioned, boring, and environmentally unfriendly. Why should students drive to campus, sit in a lecture hall, and listen to the homily of an outdated instructor? Must we still learn like it's 1999?
Then as now, there is a middle ground to consider. These past decades have witnessed the quiet rise of a panoply of hybrid alternatives:
- Web-Enhanced Courses: One of the initial forms of hybrid education, these courses utilize a website or course management system to supplement traditional classroom activities. They offer additional resources such as formative assessments and supplementary materials online to enhance the learning experience.
- Flipped Courses: This approach rethinks classroom time usage by having students watch lectures online (usually delivered asynchronously via videos) before class. Classroom time is then devoted to discussions, problem-solving, and applying what they've learned, contingent upon students preparing by watching the assigned materials in advance.
- Flexible (Flex) Courses: Flex courses reduce the requirement for physical presence by allowing students the choice to either attend live classes or view lectures online at their convenience. Assessments may still require physical attendance, providing a blend of traditional and digital learning environments.
- Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) Courses: Representing the zenith of flexible course delivery, HyFlex courses stream lectures live for both in-person and remote attendees. Students have the utmost flexibility, able to choose between attending sessions in person, participating online in real time, or viewing recorded sessions later. This model supports diverse student needs and schedules.
- Blended Learning: Integrating the strengths of both traditional face-to-face and online learning environments, blended learning involves a strategic combination of in-person and online interactions. This method enriches the learning process by using digital tools to complement and enhance the instructional elements traditionally delivered in the classroom.