HyFlex Learning Manual

As the COVID-19 pandemic has made an impact on many of our lives, it has also changed the way that educators must organize and teach their classes. Now, more than ever, educators are expected to be flexible with students' ability to come to class due to quarantining or other reasons. Just as important, is the professor's ability to be in class to teach. Our team's goal was to create an instruction manual that did not teach professors how to do their job, rather create a deliverable to supplement their duty to create an accessible learning environment. ‍

We began our process by creating three sections of the manual: Before Class, During Class, and After Class. We believed that writing in chronological order would help professors to find certain tasks based on when they may be attempting to complete them. After our first draft of instructions, we went on to do usability testing with two faculty members with varying skill levels in using Microsoft Teams and facilitating a HyFlex classroom. With our findings, we were able to make changes to our instruction manual based on the professor's comments, concerns, and actions.

We asked two professors with varying experience with hyflex learning environments to read our instruction manual and complete two different tasks: Organize a breakout room and collaborate on a document. Participant #1 During the "Breakout Room" and "Collaborating on Documents" sections we asked the participants to read our instructions on each respective section between in-person and online students. Afterward, we asked them how they would go about performing this activity.

One "student" was at home via Microsoft Teams for this activity while another joined the Microsoft Teams meeting via laptop in the classroom. This allowed the instructor to create a breakout room with both students in a similar way a HyFlex classroom would be conducted. The notetaker wrote down how the professor described their method, taking note of comments, concerns and behaviors. Throughout the activity, we used the concurrent probing method to check the participant’s understanding and find out if they would go about the scenario differently than described.