Teaching on Hybrid Courses

Insights from Commercial Online ICT-Training

Nestori Syynimaa

Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

Gerenios Ltd, Tampere, Finland

Sovelto Plc, Helsinki, Finland

Keywords: Teaching Channel, Online Training, Online Learning.

Abstract: Information and communication technology (ICT) has evolved rapidly during the last decades. These

technological advancements have enabled new ways of teaching and learning, such as online courses, where

students attend training using their own computer equipment. Previous studies have shown that the student

satisfaction and learning outcomes do not differ between the classroom and online students. However, our

previous study conducted on hybrid courses, where part of the students was present in a classroom and part

are participating online, revealed some issues related to teaching methods and technical difficulties. In this

study, we researched how teachers of a commercial ICT-training organisation feel teaching on hybrid courses.

Results revealed that teacher doesn’t feel comfortable when teaching in hybrid courses. This is mainly because

it was difficult for teachers to pay attention equally to the classroom and online participants. Also, technical

difficulties occurring during the course are disturbing the teaching.

1 INTRODUCTION

During the last two decades, the information and

communication technology (ICT) has evolved

rapidly. This has provided new technical solutions for

attending and delivering courses online. Nowadays

virtually all laptops have a built-in microphone and

web camera, allowing students to participate in online

courses using a standard affordable equipment.

Online training has had a lot of interest during the

last few years. For instance, online training is cheaper

than traditional training (Jung, 2005) as there are no

travelling and accommodation costs involved.

The previous research conducted on online

teaching has concluded that there are no differences

in learning outcomes (Johnson et al., 2000) or student

satisfaction (Allen et al., 2002) between the

classroom and online participants. There has been a

critique of this type of studies (Merisotis and Phipps,

1999), as some studies are comparing two

independent samples, one for classroom and one for

online participants. This kind of research setup does

not capture the situation where you teach both

classroom and online participants at the same time.

In our previous paper (Syynimaa, 2017) we

studied the student satisfaction on hybrid courses

having both classroom and online participants. We

found no differences in student satisfaction between

the classroom and online students.

The aim of this paper is to study how teachers feel

teaching on hybrid courses.

1.1 Hybrid Course

Let’s first define some key concepts used in this

paper. There are various learning methods, which can

be categorised into four archetypes; traditional

learning, e-learning, participatory learning, and

facilitated learning community (Leppänen and

Syynimaa, 2015). Traditional learning takes place in

a classroom, where both students and teacher are co-

located in the same physical space. E-learning allows

students to learn regardless of time and place. E-

learning is “offline” training, where the teaching

material is produced beforehand, and the interaction

is asynchronous, mainly via email or discussion

forums.

We define online learning as a traditional learning

method, supported by technology. If there are both

classroom and online students, we call them hybrid

courses.

Syynimaa, N.

Teaching on Hybrid Courses.

DOI: 10.5220/0006701302530258

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2018), pages 253-258

ISBN: 978-989-758-291-2

253

Human Learning Interface (HLI) is the set of

“interaction mechanisms that humans expose to the

outside world, and that can be used to control,

stimulate and facilitate their learning processes”

(Koper, 2014, p. 1). In practice, HLIs are equal to our

senses, such as, seeing, hearing, and touching.

1.2 Challenges in Online Learning

Online learning limits the available senses to seeing

and hearing, so also the number available HLIs are

reduced to two. This affects both learners and

teachers. Learners may not be able to learn as

effectively due to a limited number of HLIs. For

teachers, the effect is even bigger. Due to a limited

number of available HLIs, the teacher is not able to

assess effectively whether the learning has occurred.

For instance, they cannot see learner’s gestures or

body language, which is an important communication

method for humans. Thus, teachers are not able to

adjust their teaching in the same way as they can do

in the classroom.

2 METHOD

The data used in this paper is collected from a leading

Finnish commercial ICT-trainer, TrainingCorp.

TrainingCorp provides ICT-training to Finnish

public and private sector organisations, and

individual consumers. Their training ranges from

end-user and ICT-specialist training to CxO level

management training. Training is provided in the

form of full-day instructor lead courses (ILT) lasting

from 1 to 4 days. Since 2015 TrainingCorp has

provided an online participation option, where

learners participate in courses using either Microsoft

Skype for Business (SfB) or Adobe Connect Pro

(ACP).

The data were collected using a web-based

questionnaire in May 2017. The questionnaire was

sent to TrainingCorp’s trainers having teaching

experience on hybrid courses. The questionnaire had

three parts: background information, teachers’

opinions on teaching on a different type of courses,

and open-ended questions regarding hybrid courses.

First, for demographic data, we asked teachers’ age,

the number of teaching years, and the teaching

substance area. Next, we asked teachers to rate how

comfortable they feel teaching in the classroom,

online, and hybrid courses, using a scale from 0 to 5.

In the last part, we asked the following open-ended

questions:

 Arrangements. Describe the arrangements of

the hybrid course(s). For instance, what

software and equipment were used.

 Teaching on Hybrid Courses. How do you

feel teaching on hybrid courses, when

compared to the pure classroom and/or online

training?

 Teaching Challenges of Hybrid Courses.

Have you felt teaching on hybrid courses

challenging? If so, please describe.

 Technical Challenges of Hybrid Courses.

Have you experienced any technical

challenges on hybrid courses? If so, please

describe.

 Developing Hybrid Courses. How would

you developed teaching methods and

technology on hybrid courses?

 Free Comments.

3 RESULTS

3.1 Teachers Background Information

Teachers’ ages and teaching years are presented in

Table 1. Teachers are very experienced having, on

average, 19 years of teaching experience. The age

distribution of the teachers ranges from 39 to 57

years, having a standard deviation of 6 years.

Teachers’ teaching experience is more dispersed,

ranging from 4 to 35 years with standard deviation of

10 years. This is partly explained by the fact that

many teachers have previously worked in the industry

before joining the TrainingCorp.

Table 1: Teachers’ age and teaching years.

Statistics (n=11)

Age

Teaching

years

Mean

Std. Deviation

5.9848

9.9709

Min

Med

Max

Table 2: Teachers' training substance areas.

Teaching area (n=12)

Knowledge workers

Technology (software)

Technology (infrastructure)

Management and leadership

Sales, marketing, and communications

Teachers are teaching courses according to their

substance area. Training areas and the number

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teachers are presented in Table 2. Some teachers are

teaching only one substance area, some two or more.

Teachers feel very comfortable when teaching

traditional classroom courses (see Table 3). However,

teaching online and hybrid courses divides opinions.

For online courses, the average was 3.6 with a

standard deviation of .9962. This indicates that some

teachers do feel very comfortable whereas some do

not. Similarly, for hybrid courses, the average was

only 3.1 with a slightly smaller standard deviation of

.7930. None of the teachers rated teaching on hybrid

courses as five, which clearly indicates that teaching

on hybrid courses is not comfortable.

Table 3: Teaching on different course types.

Statistics (n=12)

Class

Online

Hybrid

Mean

4.8

3.6

3.1

Std. Deviation

.3892

.9962

.7930

Min

Med

Max

Mode

3.2 Arrangements

As some of the students are present in the classroom,

and some online, hybrid courses require special

arrangements.

According to teachers, the classroom setup does

not differ much from the traditional classroom taught

course. The only difference is that there are a camera

and microphone located in the classroom so that

online participants can see and hear teaching. The

typical setup used in hybrid courses is illustrated in

Figure 1.

Table 4: Online teaching software.

Tool (n=10)

Adobe Connect Pro

Skype for Business

Both

Another difference when compared to traditional

classroom training is the software used to interact

with online students. The TrainingCorp offers two

solutions for both online and hybrid course training;

Adobe Connect Pro and Skype for Business. Teachers

are using either one of them, or both, as presented in

Table 4.

3.3 Teaching on Hybrid Courses

As mentioned earlier, teachers do not feel

comfortable teaching on hybrid courses. According to

teachers, teaching is more challenging than in purse

classroom or online training.

Figure 1: Typical hybrid course classroom setup.

Teacher

Screen

Students Students

360 camera

and microphone

Microphone

Teaching on Hybrid Courses

255

The most challenging is the need to pay attention

to both classroom and online students. As one of the

teachers stated, “it is difficult to pay attention to

students equally” (T2). Another teacher mentioned

that the teaching is adequately comfortable, but the

teaching requires a lot of extra effort. The teacher

would like to offer a learning experience with a deep

interactive communication, but the online

participants can utilise only chat or voice which rules

out the non-verbal communication.

Teaching technology is in a central part of online

and hybrid courses. Working technology is therefore

crucial to a successful course. One teacher stated that

“if there are no technical problems, [teaching] is Ok.

But if there are problems, the hassle will follow.”

(T7). When technical problems occur, teachers feel

that the classroom students need to tolerate the extra

interruptions and tuning. One teacher sees hybrid

courses as a “compromise where classroom students

don’t get the full learning experience due to online

participants” (T10).

3.4 Teaching Challenges of Hybrid

Courses

Teaching challenges are mainly related to two

separated student groups, each requiring a different

set of teaching methods. Even though teachers are

doing their best to pay attention to both classroom and

online students, “in reality the equality is not achieved

as the classroom group takes the major part of

[teacher’s] attention” (T1). This seems to be

connected to the lack of interaction with online

students: “online participant depends on audio

only…mimics etc. activity-based communication is

totally left out” (T4). Due to this, teachers are not able

to assess how online participants are learning, and

consequently, they are not able to react and change

their teaching accordingly. Sometimes teachers may

“have not a clue what online participants are doing:

are they following the teaching, are they bored or

what” (T2).

The lack of interaction between online students

forces teachers to use alternative teaching aids. For

instance, most of the teachers are accustomed to using

a flipboard. On hybrid courses, online participants are

not able to follow what is drawn to the flipboard

(Syynimaa, 2017). “Visualisation methods have to be

chosen in terms of online participants (a whiteboard,

a flipboard, and gestures won’t usually work)” (T2).

One major method teachers use while teaching is

exercises. Teachers feel that the most challenging

problem is the exercises done with computers.

Teachers are able to give advice and support for

classroom students easily, but for online students it is

difficult: “I have sometimes had to rely on

screenshots sent via email [to give advice to student]”

(T8). Another teacher feels that especially interactive

group exercises are the most challenging, as in the

classroom it is relatively easy to assign students to

groups and let them work with a flipboard. But with

online participants “it is not as natural, especially if

they are strangers to each other” (T3).

3.5 Technical Challenges of Hybrid

Courses

The technical challenges teachers have faced during

hybrid courses fell under three categories.

The biggest challenge is the connectivity issues.

The connectivity issues include network problems,

such as a slow or unreliable internet connection, and

firewall problems. These are very disturbing and

frustrating, because “teacher is not able to help with

[online participant’s] local connection problems”

(T3). When there are multiple online participants, the

troubleshooting of connectivity issues will take time

from the actual training.

Another major technical challenge is related to the

communication software used for teaching.

Sometimes students are dropped off from the teaching

session, or they lose audio or video. The teacher may

not notice this and online participant may miss part of

the training.

The third major issue is the software which the

course is about, such as Microsoft Office or Exchange

server. In the classroom, all required software is

installed beforehand by the teacher or support staff.

Online participants are responsible for installing the

required software, which is usually problematic. As

the one teacher stated, “online participants often have

technical challenges installing the learning

environment” (T1).

3.6 Developing Hybrid Courses

Development suggestions for hybrid courses are

focusing mainly on challenges mentioned in previous

sub-sections.

The most challenging for teachers was the lack of

interaction between online participants. Online

participants could use their web cameras to share their

pictures, so that “there would be a better connection

to that person” (T5). One teacher even suggested that

there should be one monitor per online participant on

the sidewalls, so that the “teacher, who has the eye

contact and interaction with the classroom students,

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could see the online participants in the same way”

(T5).

The teaching aids should support both student

groups on hybrid courses. Many teachers are using

flipboards to visualise taught concepts and “that

should be in the form which would suit both groups”

(T9). One teacher suggested using pads or laptops

with a touchscreen so that they could share their

drawings simultaneously to both groups. Another

teacher suggested using Smart Boards, which allows

using the whiteboard in the classroom and sharing it

with online participants.

Teachers had many suggestions to deal with

technical challenges. One teacher stated that “the best

solution would be to have separate courses. Another

teacher suggested that there should be an assistant for

online participants, who would provide technical

support, chat, following exercises, etc.” (T2). One

suggestion was that the equipment should be

standardised and preinstalled in every classroom so

that all the time-consuming hassle with equipment

could be avoided: “technology should be 100%

bulletproof” (T10). These suggestions indicate that

successful hybrid courses would need extra

investments when compared pure classroom or online

training.

Finally, one teacher suggested that time should be

reserved for handling different activation and

teaching methods for the different groups. In other

words, using the course developed for classroom or

online courses does not work as such in hybrid

courses. There should be less substance content and

more time reserved to deal with classroom and online

participant teaching differences.

4 DISCUSSION

Our earlier research and literature indicated that there

might be certain teaching challenges on hybrid

courses. First, teaching two different kinds of student

groups, namely classroom and online students, at the

same time was anticipated to be challenging. Second,

the technical challenges were anticipated to be a

challenge.

Our research provided support to earlier findings:

teaching classroom and online participants is, indeed,

challenging. Teachers felt that they were not able to

give enough attention to online participants because

their focus was in the classroom. Moreover, some

teachers felt that the classroom students were not

given an ideal learning experience because teaching

methods and techniques were limited due to online

participants.

The technical difficulties were found to be

challenging, but also disturbing. Dealing with

technical problems, sometimes occurring in the

middle of the training, took a focus off from the

training.

4.1 Limitations

Data for this research was collected from a

commercial ICT training organisation. As such, the

results may not be generalisable to other contexts.

However, teaching and technical challenges ought to

be universal in nature. The number of respondents

(n=12) does not allow to draw strong statistical

conclusions so the results should be treated as

indicative.

4.2 Contributions to Practice

The results revealed what kind of challenges teachers

face when teaching on hybrid courses. This helps

other teachers to prepare for teaching in similar

settings.

4.3 Contributions to Science

The study confirms findings of previous studies what

comes to teaching and technical challenges. Our

research gave insights on how experienced teachers

feel teaching on hybrid courses. These findings could

be used as a basis for developing new pedagogical

theories and practices to be used in hybrid courses.

4.4 Directions for Future Research

The findings pointed out some issues with used

teaching methods and aids. One interesting area for

the future research would be to develop teaching

methods and aids that would be suitable for hybrid

courses.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Author would like to express his gratitude to

TrainingCorp for providing access to data used in this

paper.

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Teaching on Hybrid Courses

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