1. Introduction to Hybrid Learning
UW Bothell Learning Technologies
Hi my name is Andreas Brockhaus, Director of Learning Technologies at UW Bothell. In this introduction to hybrid learning, I’ll go over defining hybrid learning, why there is significant and increasing interest in hybrid learning in higher education as well as some of the research on its effectiveness.

2. What is hybrid learning?
At UWB, 25-50% online, replacing in-class time
Examples
Meet once a week
Meet fewer hours
Requires no curriculum review
Be sure to list class as a hybrid in the course schedule
The face-to-face and online portions need to mesh to be effective
To start, let’s talk about what hybrid learning is. First, you may also hear it called blended learning at other institutions, but on our campus we use the term hybrid learning. Essentially, hybrid learning replaces in-class time with online time. At UWB, this means that 25-50% of a class is online, replacing in-class time. To give you a couple of examples, instead of meeting twice a week for a course, you may only meet once a week, making this a 50% hybrid course. Another popular hybrid model is to meet fewer hours. So instead of meeting 4 hours on a Friday, your class meets 3 hours, and the rest of the work is online. This would be a 25% hybrid course.
At UW Bothell, creating a hybrid course requires no curriculum review or special permissions. Because there is no special code in the UW registration system to designate a hybrid course, faculty always need to let their department course scheduler know when they’re teaching a hybrid course so that it can be listed in the time schedule. If more than 50% of a course is online, then it’s a distance learning course and requires curriculum review.
One of the essential things for creating a successful hybrid course is to make sure the f2f and online portions of a course mesh well, where each informs the other. The online portion can’t simply be an add-on.

3. Why hybrid learning? Students
Multiple learning modalities and more active learning
Convenience/flexibility
Faculty
Best of both worlds
Enhanced student engagement and outcomes
Administration
More efficient campus/classroom space use
Better student access
Nationally, there’s a lot of interest in hybrid learning.
A primary reason why there’s this increasing interest is that it can work well for students, faculty and administration. For students, it provides multiple ways of interacting with the material and can often lead to more active engagement. It can also be quite convenient, but still maintains the direct faculty and campus contact that an online course might not do.
For faculty, hybrid learning can be the best of both worlds where they can adapt new teaching with technology methodologies while still retaining the valued face-to-face interaction with students. Faculty also find that hybrid courses can lead to enhanced student engagement and outcomes.
For administration, things like efficient use of space, better student access and an enhanced university brand can also be appealing.

4. Dept. of Education: 2010 research on online learning effectiveness
Meta-analysis – 1132 articles
Hybrid learning had significantly better learning outcomes than F2F or online
F2F and online had similar outcomes
The preliminary research on hybrid learning has also shown its effectiveness, showing that hybrid learning can often be better than f2f or online. This study by the dept. of education in 2010 looked at over 1100 articles on online learning, and in that analysis saw that hybrid learning led to better learning outcomes.
evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

5. UCF research – hybrid success rates
The university of Central Florida has also done extensive testing on hybrid and online learning. They looked at hundreds of thousands of grades across a number of disciplines to see if different modes had an impact on improved grades. In this slide from a presentation they did, you can see that their hybrid courses, called mixed at their university, typically had better grades and success rates than did f2f or online.
In another recent study conducted at a Spanish university with a large sample it was found that hybrid learning had a positive effect on reducing dropout rates and in raising exam pass rates (López-Pérez, Pérez-López & Rodríguez-Ariza, 2011).
University of Central Florida

6. UWB student perceptions of hybrid
Increased to somewhat increased
No difference
Somewhat decreased to decreased
Quantity of interaction with other students
50%
28%
22%
Quantity of interaction with the instructor
33%
36%
31%
Quality of interaction with other students
53%
32%
15%
Quality of interaction with the instructor
41%
39%
20%
There’s also research that’s been done by the HCDI team on UWB student’s perceptions of hybrid courses. We’ve done 341 student surveys from classes taught by faculty who had taken the HCDI. In our surveys, we focused on supporting discourse because we think that it’s a key ingredient to the success of a hybrid course.
So we asked students to compare the quantity and quality of interactions with other students and the instructor. The quantity and quality of interactions between students went up, which makes sense because having significant portions of a class online can lead to more interactions in both the f2f and online environment. A number of students thought that the interaction with instructors decreased, but interestingly enough, many more thought that the quality of interactions with the instructor went up.

7. UWB students interest in hybrid courses
Strongly Agree
Agree
Not Sure
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Would you take another hybrid course in the future?
41%
33%
17% 6% 3%
Finally, we asked if students would take another hybrid course in the future. As you can see, students resoundingly said yes, with 74% agreeing to strongly agreeing that they’d take another hybrid course and only 9% disagreeing. We got comments like.
I really like the hybrid option, which there isn’t too much of with UWB. I think as working students we should offer more hybrid
Face to face meetings on Thursdays keep me well connected
Comments and data like this are a key reason why hybrid classes are so compelling and why it can be worth the effort to create effective hybrid courses.