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[finallyfullprof]

At my school, anything that takes up 25% or more of what would have been classroom time is considered hybrid. Just using online teaching as a supplement to class instruction or giving an occasional day off for online work is considered web-enhanced.

[whiteknight]

Things have not gone swimmingly with this course. 1/3 of the students in the course have already failed (at the 11-week mark) because of absences; the vast majority of those absences were from the online component. (Online instructors are required to assign an absence for online work that is not turned in.)

I've concluded that I'm not fond of this type of course. I use online components in my courses all of the time, but setting an entire class period aside weekly for an online component hasn't worked for me.

[magistra]

I'm worried about retention too, and I think a lot of this is tied into their not going on-line as often or as effectively as we'd like.  I'm starting to do a lot more quizzes and assignments and things.  I'm also doing an anonymous survey, to see what the students think.   It can't hurt to try this, White Knight.  Are you doing anything else to get them online? 

Also, I'm getting the stats from this class for the last few years.  I feel like they're dropping like flies, and I don't doubt that the hybrid model isn't helping, but then again I seem to remember that we lost quite a few last year, too.  A fair bit of this is normal attrition.

[whiteknight]

I'm worried about retention too, and I think a lot of this is tied into their not going on-line as often or as effectively as we'd like.  I'm starting to do a lot more quizzes and assignments and things.  I'm also doing an anonymous survey, to see what the students think.   It can't hurt to try this, White Knight.  Are you doing anything else to get them online? 

Also, I'm getting the stats from this class for the last few years.  I feel like they're dropping like flies, and I don't doubt that the hybrid model isn't helping, but then again I seem to remember that we lost quite a few last year, too.  A fair bit of this is normal attrition.

Part of the problem is that our online component is supposed to be the equivalent of a 50-minute class period. I've tried a variety of assignments to engage students: reaction papers to Youtube videos, questions about online (historical) comic books, critical analysis of historical advertisements, as well as traditional "go to this website, read the text, and answer this question"-type of assignments. Overwhelmingly, students don't even access the online instructions until the last two hours before the deadline, then churn out work that is horrifically spelled, written, and analyzed. These assignments apparently are requiring more of the students than most other hybrid courses; faculty and students alike have told me that no one else is requiring more than an online quiz or the reading of textbook chapters for an in-class quiz, which seems to defeat the purpose of having an online component.

Asking for more from the students than what I've listed above seems impossible. I'm frustrated with the whole thing.

[magistra]

I'm frustrated too -- I'm very worried not only about retention, but their ability to move on to the next course.  I didn't have enough assignments and it shows.  On the other hand, they don't come to class either, even though there are quizzes, and most didn't do the last graded assignment.

I think what frustrates me the most is that I'm killing myself trying to get up extra activities and helps so they can learn the material, when the real problem is that they're just not doing the work.

[whiteknight]

I think what frustrates me the most is that I'm killing myself trying to get up extra activities and helps so they can learn the material, when the real problem is that they're just not doing the work.

Exactly.

[magistra]

Well, now I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy.  I finally put up the midterm survey, and I was checking some responses.  For "what would you most like to keep" the answer was "the teachers".  Not exactly a scientific poll, but I'll take it!

[cs_prof]

Overwhelmingly, students don't even access the online instructions until the last two hours before the deadline, then churn out work that is horrifically spelled, written, and analyzed. These assignments apparently are requiring more of the students than most other hybrid courses; faculty and students alike have told me that no one else is requiring more than an online quiz or the reading of textbook chapters for an in-class quiz, which seems to defeat the purpose of having an online component.

I believe that this could be mitigated by offering assignments that require more than one iteration to complete, with intermediate deliverables reported each week. This would require students revisiting previous work done and improve. This should be better than doing unrelated assignments each week, all with poor quality.

[road_not_taken]

At my institution, our hybrid courses are typically 50/50, so we meet every other week with the students. One of the things that we try to stress is to train our faculty in how to teach good hybrids. For us it is all in the planning.  We talk a lot about appropriate replacement of "seat-time" with instructional online activities...to us, reading the chapter & answering the questions at the end don't count as a good activity on the part of the instructor.

I think that active learning in a hybrid course is the way to keep students interested. I find a lot of good activities at Merlot.org. They are organized by discipline. Some require payment but many good ones are free.

 

[cs_prof]

I think that active learning in a hybrid course is the way to keep students interested. I find a lot of good activities at Merlot.org. They are organized by discipline. Some require payment but many good ones are free.

Thank you for this reference.