Full HyFlex is a genuinely good idea. A student decides, week to week, whether to show up in person, join live online, or work through the session on their own schedule. And all three paths are built to reach the same learning outcome. Not one path designed carefully and two others improvised. Brian Beatty, who developed the model, was explicit on this point: every mode has to be designed (Beatty, 2019).
Done properly, with real resourcing behind it, it works. It also asks a lot of a room, a course, and an instructor, all at once. The most useful thing an institution can do is get specific about which version of modal flexibility it can support well right now, say so plainly, and deliver exactly that. That is not a smaller ambition. It is the version that survives an actual semester.
What the full version requires
A single section delivering on the whole promise needs, at minimum: audio covering the entire room, so remote students hear the discussion and not just the instructor; a camera that follows the teaching, whether that is a strong auto-tracking system or a person operating one; a monitor the instructor can see, showing who is online and what they are typing, so the remote students stay present rather than invisible; redundant capture, because in a modal course a failed recording erases an entire mode of attendance for that week; a course designed for three modes, with every activity and assessment built to work in the room, on the call, or on demand. The largest single piece of effort, done course by course; and real instructor capacity, whether that is release time, a co-instructor, or a student assistant handling chat and tech, because running two live audiences at once is genuine cognitive load.
Institutions with well-funded teaching centers and dedicated classroom-technology teams can put all of that together. Plenty are building toward it. In the meantime, the honest move, and the one that serves students, is to offer the flexibility your current rooms and courses can genuinely support.
Versions worth offering right now
Attend in person or join live online, chosen at the start of term. A decently equipped room can handle this without a full three-mode redesign. Students pick a mode and stick with it, which keeps the instructor’s planning manageable.
Attend in person or work asynchronously. This needs solid capture and a course built for self-pacing. A clear module structure, asynchronous discussion that stands on its own, assessments that do not require being physically present.
Week-to-week choice among three equivalent modes is the demanding version. Build toward it on purpose, in the rooms and courses that can carry it, rather than rolling it out everywhere at once.
Concentrate the capability instead of spreading it thin
Ten rooms genuinely built for modal teaching, with the audio, the course redesign, and the instructor support all in place, serve students far better than a webcam bolted into every room on campus. Find where modal flexibility matters most (usually large gateway courses, and programs serving working students and students at a distance) and build those properly first. Expand as capability and budget allow.
Two cheap upgrades that punch above their cost
The single most cost-effective addition to a modal room is a monitor showing the instructor who is online and what they are typing. It keeps remote students from fading into an abstraction. The next is a student assistant handling chat and technology so the instructor can teach. Both cost little next to the room itself, and both change the experience meaningfully on the online side.
Why the precision is worth it
When an institution offers exactly the flexibility it can support well, online students get what they were promised, faculty are asked to do something the room and course can deliver, and the enrollment data reflects reality instead of whatever logistics happened to allow. Being specific about what you do well is what keeps the larger ambition credible. And what gets it funded for the next stage.
Margot Hemsfeld is a classroom audiovisual specialist at Wrightmann Education Technologists. Part of the The Connected Classroom series.
References
- Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-Flexible Course Design: Implementing Student-Directed Hybrid Classes. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/hyflex
- EDUCAUSE. Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition (annual). https://www.educause.edu/horizon-report