Towards hybrid education
Exploring Hybrid Math Active Learning Experiences
The goal of this 7 week-long project was to create a synchronous hybrid space where students can actively participate in a learning situation on equal terms. The project was in collaboration with Akademiska Hus.
May, 2021 | 7 weeks project | General product course | Umeå Institute of design
#Participatory design #Remote Participatory workshop
Teammates:
Romy Koppert, Cornelia Hulling
Collaboration partner: Niklas Lundström, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics.
◉ Context
Higher Education in Transformation
The current pandemic has officially announced a new type of higher education as many students have enrolled in a so-called "Zoom University". Because people were unable to physically attend in the classroom, the synchronous hybrid class has been widely used in higher education in a short period of time.
While some students are complaining about the lack of motivation and energy in online learning, the benefits are undeniable. What has a global crisis taught us about the future of higher education?
There is a need to develop new practices of synchronous hybrid learning in higher education.
The traditional teaching way in university
Our case: Mathematics learning
Hours filled with talking about x's and y's, multiplication and derivation and maybe even differentiation and integration. This is a moment that many of us always get struggled with.
When exploring synchronous hybrid education, we collaborated with a professor in mathematics at Umeå University (UMU), some students who are currently studying mathematics in different universities. Together we worked on understanding not only what math teaching is, but also what it could be.
The current mathematics teaching scenario from our collaboration partner
◉ Challenge
What would hybrid active learning mean for a mathematics class?
We focussed on attempting to implement elements of more active learning in a potential future teaching strategy for our collaboration partner.
◉ Outcome
Re-imaging teaching strategy
Our outcome could be described as a hypothetical re-imagination of our collaboration partner's teaching strategy.
1.Pre-recorded lecture, sub-lecture and group work
Firstly, Niklas would be pre-recording lectures just like he did during the pandemic. The on-site sessions would be sub-lecture sessions that combine lecture style teaching with group work.
The classroom would be divided into two sections, the front more focussed on active participation and the back more focussed on individual learning.
2. Sub-lecture
During the lecture-style parts of the sub-lecture, Niklas would communicate with the remote students through a digital communication channel like Zoom and his laptop with an additional camera for better capturing quality, similar as he uses now at home.
"Saying something just through the microphone immediately is rather nice, because then also I get the exact time when you get confused. "
---Mathematics Professor, Niklas
3. Group work
Then the remote students would be spread among the on-site groups to participate in the following section of the sub-lecture, the group work.
Each group would have their own board and by placing a laptop with camera at eye height students could verbally and visually communicate through a service like Zoom.
"…that you can write is more or less necessary in Mathematics I think."
---Niklas
The ability to write is 'more of less necessary for remote students', pen and paper is the most low-tech solution to this.
An alternative to using pen and paper is to use Zooms annotation function. In this way, both on-site and remote students will have equal access to the whiteboard so that they can participate in the group discussion on equal terms.
More about the resulting structures can be found in our guidebook Exploring Hybrid Math Education.
Sense-making: Towards hybrid education
Trying out new teaching strategies comes with many challenges, but as we experienced in our sessions together, if all parties try to make it work and put the effort in, the collaborative work will not suffer. With that said, we still have to rely on good social relations and motivation from all sides.
We created a guide that demonstrates how to consider the social and relational impacts of the conditions in hybrid learning environments. It presents practical insights from one exploration of hybrid teaching methods through the social and relational themes of: trust, support, inclusivity, and motivation.
Have a look of our guidebook Towards hybrid education.
◉ Behind the scenes
workshop sessions
◉ My role in team
In the project, all team members were highly collaborated with each other through online brainstorm, discussions, etc. Apart from that, I was mainly responsible for conducting participatory design workshop and made the final illustrations & animations.
◉What I have learned?
#Start making things as soon as possible
Physically trying things out makes you aware of all of the small details you have overlooked.
#Physical materiality in the remote workshop
It is nice to work with the whiteboards (physical materials) which helps the participants to be more actively thinking.
#Not design for people, design with people
We have been super efficient in this project and did not make to too many wrong turns, we think this is because we truly tried to avoid making any decisions 'for Niklas', every step of the way he was guiding us on where to go.