The flexibility afforded to students by HyFlex courses has been evident this semester, but the style of teaching required has proven more difficult to maintain than anticipated. Moreover, that same flexibility has been the proverbial double-edged sword when it comes to student success.
HyFlex courses are hard to build, and even harder to teach. Designing effective online courses is hard work and differs significantly from in-person teaching. HyFlex courses essentially braid the two together. Moreover, the braiding is even more complicated because the online strand is further divided into synchronous and asynchronous paths. What seems clear is that institutions using the HyFlex model need to find more and different ways to support faculty members than before. Hire work-study students to wrangle Zoom? Improve the integration and workflow of these various tools? At the very least, we have to acknowledge the significant burden now on classroom instructors, a burden for which very few of us were prepared.
HyFlex’s origin story matters. HyFlex courses were initially developed for graduate students in an educational-technology program. we needed more in the way of introducing students to HyFlex — more clearly and specifically outlining how the courses work and how to navigate them most successfully.
HyFlex works better for some types of classes than others. It’s no coincidence that faculty members who are finding HyFlex a difficult fit are those whose classes are either completely or mostly discussion-based, perhaps even student-led.
We need to help students learn to become online learners.
Faculty members cannot hide from structural racism and economic inequality any more, because our students were never able to in the first place.
JSON is a semi-structured data format for encoding data and is a popular language for data sharing and interchange – as such it is considered a good alternative to XML. This materials in this course will cover all the core JSON syntax and data structures as well as:
– structured data as a concept
– core data structuring approaches
– the differences between XML and JSON
– when to use XML, when to use JSON
Robert Chavez holds a PhD in Classical Studies from Indiana University. From 1994-1999 he worked in the Library Electronic Text Resource Service at Indiana University Bloomington as an electronic text specialist. From 1999-2007 Robert worked at Tufts University at the Perseus Project and the Digital Collections and Archives as a programmer, digital humanist, and institutional repository program manager. He currently works for the New England Journal of Medicine as Content Applications Architect.
Course Structure
This is an online class that is taught asynchronously, meaning that participants do the work on their own time as their schedules allow. The class does not meet together at any particular times, although the instructor may set up optional synchronous chat sessions. Instruction includes readings and assignments in one-week segments. Class participation is in an online forum environment.
how gamification elements may be applied to a typical Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) class to support engagement, discuss the limitations of gamification in the classroom and finally provide a perspective on the future of gamification in education
Looking for different ways for students to share their knowledge. I’ve done Jamboard, Google Slides, Discussion posts, padlet…I just want something different and am not able to come up with any great ideas here. Anyone come up with anything else fun or interesting? This is for an asynchronous course.
ForceBot is a four year project to develop an exoskeleton for commercial and enterprise applications using HaptX’s microfluidic touch feedback technology to simulate virtual objects. The NSF grant will be distributed between each company to contribute individual components to ForceBot, and then the resulting IP will be used for commercial products.
Create opportunities online for students to connect with each other as part of the school day.
Keep lines of communication open and constructive between teachers and parents/guardians.
Focus on core skills at home.
There’s a distinction between online and using technology versus distance learning.
It’s going to become a lot more interactive, a lot more personal, and then teachers are going to be able to zero in a lot more on what the kids need.
A lot of teachers feel a lot of pressure to have these perfectly planned lesson plans that go exactly as intended when you get into the classroom. In this environment, it’s okay to not have the planning perfect. It’s okay if things get a little bit extemporaneous, a little improvisational in the classroom.
If I’m a teacher looking at the pie of time and energy that I have in a given week, I would try to minimize the energy that I have to put into things where I’m not interacting with students …
Teachers putting a lot of time and energy getting a setup like I have with a microphone and a pen tablet and all of that. That takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, and it’s energy that once again gets taken away from time that they could be interacting with students.