Building and Maintaining a Hybrid Classroom Strategy
With new variants of Covid-19 continuing to emerge every few months, many communities are pivoting to accept a new normal rather than waiting for life to return to the way it was pre-Covid. Schools have been at the forefront of planning and adapting to a constantly changing situation, and have developed creative and innovative hybrid classroom strategies.
Schools that have resumed in-person learning are still using more tech devices in the classroom than they did pre-pandemic. It is becoming increasingly apparent that post-COVID learning will have to incorporate technology to support the hybrid classroom model.
The non-traditional student population that preferred hybrid education models was already expanding steadily before the pandemic, but grew exponentially as the realities of life under Covid sank in. K-12 school districts are investing significant time, energy, and resources into upgrading their technological capabilities to meet the demands of a hybrid school model.
The goal is to enable real-time hybrid learning without making the process of teaching unnecessarily complicated or burdensome for teachers. How can schools position themselves to react rapidly to this fast-changing learning environment? How can district-level administrators help educators and students get the technological tools they need to improve learning outcomes?
Collaboration Technologies in the Classroom
One criteria of a strong hybrid model is to make virtual experiences match the physical classroom experience as much as possible in quality and ease. Administrations can provide educators with high-performance software applications and collaboration tools to seamlessly continue instruction remotely.
A hybrid system tends to rely heavily on conferencing software like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Using these videoconferencing tools can help educators improve their lesson plans, increase student engagement, and improve personalized learning. Using tools like Zoom, teachers can more efficiently meet one-on-one with students on a timeline that isn’t rushed or interrupted by other students, and can encourage students to ask more questions and get concentrated support.
The open collaboration that these technologies are making possible is removing the traditional classroom walls that in some ways have been barriers to better learning outcomes. K-12 school districts that embrace hybrid classrooms will also benefit from other means of support through videoconferencing tools, like real-time transcriptions and translations.
Collaborative technologies like Zoom and Microsoft Teams have numerous benefits, including:
They’re easy to use and intuitive: It only takes a couple clicks to get a student into the classroom and ready to interact.
They’re platform independent: Students can join class sessions from an array of devices. Some districts manage to provide devices for students to take home. But for districts that are unable to provide in this way, students can use any device with an internet connection.
They’re scalable: These tools can accommodate dozens of students at a time in large lecture-like settings, smaller breakout sessions, and in one-on-one meetings.
They offer real-time interactions: Teachers and students can use polls, whiteboards, closed captioning, chats, and screensharing for more visual, interactive discussions.
Remote Equipment Needs and Limitations
Hybrid classroom models do depend on every student having a reliable device at home capable of running remote learning software. There have been issues across the country with students getting the devices they need, and with having enough bandwidth at home to attend classes online. Students with less capable devices and limited bandwidth are likely to have negative experiences when attending classes online. Others who have to share their devices with siblings may have difficulties keeping up.
A successful hybrid learning model proactively takes into account the hardware (reliable, secure laptops, routers, webcams) and software (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Suite) that students will need to successfully keep on track, and also understands the amenities that students will need at home—particularly WiFi or a hotspot. With this understanding, administrators can more efficiently procure and deploy equipment to their students, and can address issues and individual needs more quickly.
Strategies to Keep Students Engaged
Moving to online learning, it has been challenging for educators to keep students attentive over their computer screens. Learning from home means students have an array of potential distractions outside of the teacher’s control. Teachers must have innovative strategies that can help them keep students engaged throughout a lesson.
Students can find themselves stranded and lost without the usual social interactions of a regular school day and the in-person guidance that they receive from peers, counselors, coaches, and teachers. Digital platforms can add communication barriers as students find themselves struggling to know when to talk and how to read the subtle elements of interaction over the web, including a person's facial expressions and body language. In addition, attending hours of learning online five days a week often results in Zoom fatigue.
Some educators have adopted a small group strategy for online classes, giving students more autonomy over assignments and the freedom to research, experiment, and pursue their interests within a topic of study with a partner or small group of peers. This approach allows students to be more active with their curriculum instead of listening passively to a lecture.
Other educators are leveraging online forums to create back-and-forth dialogue where students can ask for clarification from the teacher or respond to their peers' comments. Some teachers have divided their lectures into sequences of 15 minutes or less to discuss a single topic. In-between the sequences, students take short breaks or get opportunities to ask questions for further clarification.
Vanguard Computers’ Hybrid Classroom Solutions
School districts hoping to improve the learning outcomes of their student population can leverage Vanguard Computers' hybrid classroom technology solutions to keep up with the changing landscape of remote and hybrid learning. We understand the budget, resource, and time limitations of your schools and staff, and will adapt a range of solutions to fit your needs and capabilities. Our solutions are designed with students’ online behaviors in mind for improved cybersecurity and data security.
Our affordable, change-ready infrastructure offers school districts lasting value; with our Asset Management Solutions, we offer a complete cloud-based system for getting the right tech tools into your students’ hands. From IT hardware configuration to rental and maintenance, we will support your teachers and students through every step of ordering, receiving, prepping, deploying, and recycling classroom IT hardware. Vanguard partners with HP to provide the latest Hybrid Classroom technology to K-12 schools, complete with HP Wolf Security systems to protect your students and your networks.
Contact us today and let us help you to build and maintain a hybrid classroom strategy to help your students and your teachers thrive.