4.2 Hybrid learning environments
Use of social media like Facebook (Chu et al., 2019) and SnapChat
(Faulkner, 2018) have previously been shown to be effective online
collaboration spaces because many students are already familiar with the
platform for personal use and unlike many of the online education
platforms (like Moodle) these social media forms have apps for mobile
devices allowing them to engage/interact anywhere, anytime (Chen &
Chiou, 2014; Chu et al., 2019; Gleadow et al., 2015; Singh, 2017). The
recent advancement of collaborative platforms like Microsoft Teams (used
here) has included the development of accessible apps capturing this
anytime, anywhere flexibility that can be used for enhanced learning
environments using professional platforms (and university usernames).
Hybrid classes have been reported to have a stronger sense of community
than those in traditional classrooms (Chen & Chiou, 2014; Singh, 2017).
Once students see themselves as belonging to a group, they feel trust
and comfort in the community (Chen & Chiou, 2014), a possible
explanation for why our students responded within their own small teams
to comments/questions posted on the whole class Team. In our class, the
sense of belonging is likely to be enhanced be a ‘shared suffering’ from
lockdown, a sense that ‘we’re all in this together’. Similarly, using
video calls from their homes may have further strengthened the sense of
belonging. It has also been suggested that the convenience of hybrid
methods alone are enough to increase the ease of interactions (Chen &
Chiou, 2014).
Although some studies have found that learning is improved and higher
grades obtained in hybrid learning environments (Chen & Chiou, 2014;
McFarlin, 2008; Singh, 2017), it is very important to keep in mind that
context is important and that diversity across courses is important.
Kizilcec et al., (2020) found that scaling behavioural science
interventions across many learning contexts can dramatically reduce
their effectiveness. So while the video task presented here has been
demonstrated to work across first and third year students in two
countries, we are not suggesting these same strategies be applied to
multiple levels within a single degree program. It is still important
that students have training (via assessments) in more traditional tasks
like scientific writing, posters and PowerPoint presentations. We
predict that mixing these with non-traditional tasks and embedding the
tasks within online collaborative spaces like Microsoft Teams will have
the greatest benefit to the most students. To achieve this via resilient
and inclusive methods, horizon scanning is important (Gleadow et al.,
2015; McFarlin, 2008). No-one could have foreseen the COVID-19
disruptions, however using Microsoft Teams from the beginning of
semester, despite the challenges of being an early adopter, created a
resilient learning environment that withstood floods and pandemic.
Our findings that explicit training of team skills (including virtual
collaboration) enhances the student experience is also supported by
wider studies of communication skills (Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2016).
They also make the point that explicit interventions will only be
successful if sustainable (Mercer-Mapstone & Kuchel, 2016) which
depends on the academic acknowledging the importance of the skill to
student learning and the ease of implementation (Mercer-Mapstone &
Kuchel, 2016). The team training exercise here has been designed for
ease of implementation, centred on 4 team training sessions that take no
more than 30 minutes each
(https://www.arlab.co.uk/teaching-teams.html). Additional
scaffolding was provided via instructions on how to use Microsoft Teams
(Supplementary Material S2) and in-class time was allocated to
self-directed team assignment work (in the presence of the academic) so
any issues could be easily resolved. The unusual COVID-19 educational
circumstances have demonstrated that this scaffolding is adequate to
ensure students have the tools to succeed in a virtual team environment.