Hyflex Principles
Flex Principles
What is Flex?
Flex, sometimes referred to as hyflex and also called blended learning or simulcasting in K12, is a course designed for maximum flexibility. It is essentially an online course with an optional face-to-face component. Students can succeed in the class without setting foot in the classroom, but those options are available for students who need them, and the students who don’t are still held accountable for the same content.
On the spectrum from completely online to completely face-to-face, this class exists between online and hybrid and is designed to accommodate split classes, students’ unpredictable schedules, and semi-predictable disruptions in service (such as school closures due to weather or prolonged absences due to pandemic) while still providing the opportunity for face-to-face instruction using a flipped classroom model.
The Principles
There is a foundational text on the flex modality called "Hybrid-Flexible Course Design. Links to an external site."
While it is a useful text, it is also fairly lengthy, so I think it might be useful to focus on the four pillars of [hy]flex articulated by Brian Beatty:
- Learner Choice: Provide meaningful alternative participation modes and enable students to choose between participation modes daily, weekly, or topically.
- Equivalency: Provide learning activities in all participation modes which lead to equivalent learning outcomes.
- Reusability: Utilize artifacts from learning activities in each participation mode as “learning objects’ for all students.
- Accessibility: Equip students with technology skills and equitable access to all participation modes.