OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

David Rosen: OK. Good. So welcome, everybody. This session is called Design and Implementation of HyFlex Models in Adult Foundational Education. It's a name that some of us are using to describe our field, not programs in our field. But it includes, as you might well expect, English for speakers of other languages or ASL. Includes basic literacy, adult basic education, adult secondary education, and all of the things that you're familiar with.

Under the title here, you will see a link to the HyFlex guide that we're going to be talking about today. And essentially, what we're going to try to do here, if you like the objectives, are to help participants increase their understanding of what adult foundational education HyFlex teaching and learning is and what its benefits might be to you as teachers, and administrators, and of course, to adult learners. Also, you should be able to learn from our presentation today what the guide includes. And finally, with this link, and I'll have the link again in the last slide, you will have access to the guide, so that you can use it on your own.

So if you haven't gone into the chat, and I hope people in the room can access the chat as well, please introduce yourself and answer this question. Tell us if you're new to the field, or if you've heard of HyFlex before but don't really know much about it, or you're thinking about starting a HyFlex class, or you actually have been teaching a HyFlex class, or perhaps something else.

OK. Destiny, you want to talk a little bit about this?

Destiny Simpson: Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Destiny Simpson, and I'm a consultant with the EdTech Center and worked with David and Jen to write the HyFlex guide. So one of the things we wanted to do was give you a one shop stop place to get all the resources that you need for today's presentation. So if you're in person, you can use your phone and open up your. Camera app scan the QR code that's on there. It'll take you to the website. If you are joining us online, you can see in the chat, I typed in a link that has a link to our Padlet.

But as we go throughout the presentation today, we're going to refer to the guides and videos, and there's some other resources that are on here. And don't worry about trying to keep track of all of those. If you access this Padlet, it'll have all the resources that you need.

David Rosen: And here's our agenda for today. We're going to give you a brief introduction, very brief. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the possible benefits and HyFlex resources that might be available to you. And also a little bit on technology and teaching strategies. And then finally, we hope we'll have a few minutes for questions and closing thoughts. Sorry, we got started late. I'm not quite sure why that is. We were ready. But anyway, we'll try to speed through and give you some time to ask some questions. Jen?

Jen Vanek: Yes. Hello, everyone. My name is Jen Vanek. I'm director of digital learning and research at the EdTech Center at World Ed and very happy to be here. Thanks so much for attending this session. So David, Destiny and I have been thinking about what HyFlex means for a couple of years now, actually even before the pandemic started.

So we did a little bit of investigating about where this interesting model for delivering instruction comes from. And we found this wonderful seminal work by Dr. Brian Beatty who's at University of California San Francisco, who started this with higher ed students as a way to make it possible to reach more students in the manner in which they needed to learn. And we just lost the slides, David.

David Rosen: Yep. I saw that. Yeah.

Jen Vanek: There. We're back. So when we say HyFlex, what we mean is-- you can go ahead and go to presenter mode. We mean hybrid, flexible. And the way Beatty first talked about this was entire courses that were built on a hybrid flexible model. So with hybrid we mean, combining both online and face to face teaching and learning activities. And with flexible, it means the students actually have agency to make decisions about how they're going to attend class like day by day often.

In some programs, they ask students to commit a little bit in advance. But essentially, they are allowed to choose when they come with the idea that there's equivalent instruction happening, whether or not they're online-- you can go to the next slide, David. Whether they're online. And online meaning either synchronous, like on a Zoom call, or online meaning asynchronous, like using Moodle or Canvas or something. Or whether or not they come in person.

So again, the three modes are in-person, synchronous online, like real time with the in-person classroom, or asynchronous online, where similar content is covered, but students have more control over their pace and timing when they do that work. Next slide, please.

So what we know is that while hardly any adult ed, not zero, but hardly any adult ed programs are thinking about HyFlex before the pandemic, the pandemic made it absolutely critical to provide flexible and technology-rich connection and engagement opportunities in order to maximize the breadth of the possible student body that could participate in learning.

And what's interesting is because so many programs acquired the technology and the capacity to use those technologies to deliver synchronous online instruction, many realized how important that was in mitigating barriers to in-person attendance. And we're looking at ways to continue sustainable delivery of a HyFlex model long after the pandemic. So at this point I'll pass it off to David, who's going to give you a little bit more info about Brian Beatty's key values.

David Rosen: Thanks, Jen. So there are four underlying principles or key values here. Learner choice equivalency, that is equivalency of mode. Reusability, that is reusability of specific learning objects or specific kinds of content. And accessibility. And we'll talk about each of those very briefly.

So learner choice. This is really a key principle here, which is that learners get to choose. And as Jen mentioned, on any given day in many of the HyFlex models and in the design of HyFlex by Beatty and his graduate students, learners get to choose whether they're going to be in person, online synchronously or asynchronously. And they can change from day to day. They may not. They may choose the mode that they're most interested in and occasionally choose a different mode. Or they may switch around quite a bit, depending on the needs in their lives.

So for example, it could be daily, weekly. It could be by topic. They might say, oh, I really have to be in person for this one. I can't do this remotely. Or it could be just this choose it by the semester, for example. All of these are possible.

So equivalency. Now this is a really important but very difficult principle to actually embody. And that is that it wouldn't matter which mode a learner chose on any given day. They would have the equivalent that would, in content and in approach methods, strategies, that would enable them to achieve the same learning objectives. Think about that. That's a tough one. But it's very important in the design.

Reusability. So you design an artifact, whatever it might be. It might be a tool. It might be a piece of content. It might be a video. It might be a document. Whatever it is, that could be reused in any of the modes. So it becomes a learning object. And so the importance of this from a teacher's perspective I think is that it increases the efficiency in designing your HyFlex model. You can reuse objects.

Here's a perfectly good example. In many implementations of HyFlex, the asynchronous model is simply a recording that was made of the simultaneous in-person and online class. And so then it can be entirely used by learners who are doing this asynchronously. But it could also be used by learners who were there in person or who were there online and heard and saw everything but who really want to go back and review certain parts. So it becomes a learning object.

And then finally, learners need to have access. We all know that, how important that is. High bandwidth access is really what we're talking about. And then beyond that, they need to have digital literacy skills to be able to use this. And that needs to be built into the design of a HyFlex model, so that you're sure the learners have those skills. So again, three modes, equivalent learning outcomes, regardless of which mode a learner chooses on any given day.

So Destiny. We're going to try, folks, to show you just a section of one of the videos that we have in the guide. And Destiny, do you want to talk about that?

Destiny Simpson: Yeah.

David Rosen: I'm going to stop sharing, and I'll enable you to share, I hope.

Destiny Simpson: OK, thanks. So one of the things we heard from teachers in the field that were new or teachers that were new to the field to HyFlex or had some experience with it, was that they really wanted to see what HyFlex looked like in the classroom. What does it look like in action?

So it's one thing to kind of imagine all three modes happening. But what does it actually look like? So we worked with a teacher in Arizona. Her name is Vi Hawes. And she's been teaching HyFlex for about I think a year at the time this video was filmed she teaches English language learners and she had about six or eight learners joining online and about I think 20 learners in person.

So this video, we're just going to show you some snippets of it, but the full video is available online on YouTube, and we have a whole playlist of HyFlex videos that I'll tell you about in a second. But just to give you a little bit of background. These are English language learners who are learning about the imperative form and also using sequencing words. So what you'll see is she's setting up an activity where first, she's giving directions to her in-person learners. And then she's going to give directions to her online learners. And I just wanted to show you what that looks like in an actual class. So I'm going to start.

David Rosen: Destiny, we're not hearing the sound.

Destiny Simpson: OK. Let me try this one.

Jen Vanek: One here.

David Rosen: There we go.

Vi Hawes: Spread the butter.

Destiny Simpson: Sorry about that.

Vi Hawes: And spread the jam. Wait. Here's the last one. Eat and enjoy. OK? Press down. OK? So make sure you write these words down, so you remember, OK?

Destiny Simpson: So her learners are online via Zoom, as well as her in-person learners. And now we're going to jump ahead to where she's giving directions for her learners about the in-person activity they're going to do to practice this skill.

Vi Hawes: You just look at the images, OK? Look at the pictures. First, you put the pictures in the correct order. And on a piece of paper, write down the instructions on how to make toast using these words. But also using the sequence words, OK? Like first, second, next, after that.

Destiny Simpson: And now, what I'm going to do is kind of jump ahead, so you can see how she starts giving directions to her online learners. So for her in-person learners, they had pieces of paper that they used as manipulatives to try to build a story and to practice the English language skills. But for her online learners, she set up a Jamboard for them to be able to use. So let me jump ahead so you can listen to how that works.

Vi Hawes: On how to make toast, OK? Online, I'm going to give you a link to the images. You guys will work together to complete the same activity. So everyone online, can you see these pictures?

Audience: Yes.

Vi Hawes: Good. OK. These pictures are not in the correct order, OK? What you need to do, you can click and drag the pictures in the correct number, OK? So you have number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, OK? So you guys work together and put the pictures in the correct order, OK?

Destiny Simpson: So that's just a little sneak peek of videos that we created, and I'll talk a little bit more about them later on in the presentation. So I'll turn it back over to Jen now.

Jen Vanek: Yeah. Could you just keep sharing, Destiny?

Destiny Simpson: Yes.

Jen Vanek: Thanks.

Destiny Simpson: A second here.

Jen Vanek: Great. Thank you. So we're going to spend just a few minutes. Oh, we lost it. There it is. We're going to talk just a few minutes about the benefits of HyFlex instruction. But before you hear from us what we've read and seen about the benefits of HyFlex construction, I think it would be useful for us to have a conversation, to hear from you what you think.

So let's just take a minute to reflect on this question. What do you see as potential benefits of HyFlex classes for your learners, your program, or yourself. So please just honestly take a minute and reflect on this question, and then I'll give you the next prompt.

Audience: Can we write the comments on the chat.

Jen Vanek: I would like you to-- Oh, actually, David, I want to if you could just reflect on this for one second, feel free to write it in the chat, but don't hit enter yet. And those of you sitting in the room, you can just reflect, and we'll call on you.

David Rosen: Also, Susanna Ramirez asks, can you give us a link to that YouTube video, please? And yes. It's in the guide. There's a whole section with five videos. Authentic videos of adult ed teachers in the classroom.

Jen Vanek: OK. So I hope you've reflected a tiny bit. Now if you could write in the chat what your benefit is. And then those of you in the room, I guess we'll just rely on Susanna or who--

Melina: Melina.

Jen Vanek: Oh. Melina's is going to convey information. OK. So what we're going to do now is called a waterfall chat. And the cool thing about a waterfall chat is that you've all written something in the box, in the chat box, but you're not busy reading each other's things. You're thinking and reflecting. And when I do the 3, 2, 1 countdown, you're going to all hit enter at the same time. So we'll have this waterfall of ideas. It's just a really nice technique to give you all times to actually reflect and not be distracted by what others are putting in the box. It really works well with learners.

So I'll go. Are you ready? Ready to hit enter? Hit enter. Go ahead. 3, 2, 1. So let's just take a peek at some of the online suggestions, benefits for students with children and no children. Students could not lose instructions for-- they don't. Yes. If they have barriers, things that come up. Inclusion for students with disabilities. A main benefit would be for the flexibility. Hopefully increase persistence and enrollment. They don't get behind. Benefits for students without transportation. And how about in the room? What other additional benefits, or what are some of the things that you were thinking about?

David Rosen: Melina, other people in the room were going to share?

Audience: Retention. Recruitment and retention.

Jen Vanek: Right. Programs just looking more attractive because they have the flexibility to come when they can, to attend in person when they can. Any other benefits?

David Rosen: A couple of comments in the chat. Absent students don't get behind. And it's a benefit for students who don't have transportation.

Jen Vanek: Exactly. Yeah. So let's go to the next slide. So Brian Beatty points out a number of benefits for HyFlex in his book. We interviewed I think it was like 30 teachers or program administrators to find out what they thought about HyFlex to inform the guide.

And some of the stuff that trickled to the top for reasons why people thought there were benefits to HyFlex were around attendance and reflection, just as you said. Course completion, meaning with that persistence and that flexibility. There's persistence, and they'll stay. Post testing. I think that assumes-- post testing is easier than if you're just a solely distance learner education student. It's often hard to get those 100% distance students to come back in for post testing.

And then believe it or not, learner gains are actually maximized when students have some sort of blended aspect to their instruction. Students who are able to leverage different modalities and activities in different modes tend to have learning gains that surpass those that are either 100% online or 100% in the classroom.

So while there are a number of challenges, we think that there are sufficient benefits that we're excited about it, and we're here to answer even more questions. So I will pass it on to Destiny now to talk about some of the evidence base for this work.

Destiny Simpson: So at this point, like Jen had mentioned, there hasn't been any independent research yet that's really looked at outcomes. Our guide includes outcomes that programs have reported. And I think as you read them, a lot of them are very compelling to consider HyFlex as an option for your learners.

But we do have found that we're still working on gathering data and looking to see what other people are doing in the field. But throughout the guide, I think you'll find, especially in the vignettes, there's evidence that programs have shared, where they've really seen an impact from this learning method.

So at this point, we want to share the resources that we have for you. So there's two new resources that are available that we've worked with adult educators across the country to develop. The first is the HyFlex guide. And so I'll put a link to that in the chat in just a second. We also created the video series. So there's five videos right now that show real teachers teaching in a HyFlex class or giving a tour of their classroom set-up and the technology they use. And so we're really excited to be able to share these with the field.

So the first resource that I want to talk a little bit about is the HyFlex guide. So this guide is available online through EdTech books. One of the great things about it being online is that you can download it, either in chapters or in sections, and share it with anyone. It's open source and available for you to view at any time. We developed this by interviewing 17 teachers and program administrators who are offering HyFlex across the country. And we actually Interviewed two programs from California. One's Garden Grove Adult Education Center, and the other was Santa Barbara Community College.

One of the things we really tried hard to do, especially since HyFlex is such an emerging topic in our field, is that we try to include as many examples that we could within the guide, as well as share vignettes, where we did kind of like a case summary of what programs are doing with our HyFlex program, what it looked like, what challenges they're seeing, how they address them, what benefits they've seen.

So this will give you an idea of the table of contents. We have a chapter dedicated to each of these bullet points here. We talk about program planning, instructional planning. What teaching actually looks like in a HyFlex class. How programs went about implementing and then scaling up their models. And then we talked a little bit about evaluation, which is still kind of an emerging area for HyFlex and adult foundational education. But we also spent some time looking at hardware and software that people use and have some guidance about that as well.

So I'm going to bring up the guide here, just so you can see it on the screen. One of the things that I wanted to point out are these vignettes. Each one of these kind of subchapters is a summary of what's happening at an adult basic ed program across the country.

So each has a description of the program learners. It talks about what recruitment and orientation looks like, how they went about planning, delivering instruction, technologies, tech support, what data they collected, benefits, challenges. I think there's a lot of great information that can help you think about how you might set up a HyFlex class or to take pieces, if you already do, pieces of what other people are doing and enhance what you're already doing.

So this is the guide that's available in the links in the chat. If you're in person, you can access the guide from the Padlet site, the QR code. And we put that up at the beginning of the session, but we'll also put that up at the end, so you can be sure to access that as well too. So let me go back to the PowerPoint here.

The other thing I wanted to point out, and if you're in person, please feel free to access the QR code, is our HyFlex video series. So we created five videos that feature Vi Hawes videos in four of them and Christine Drieling from Minnesota in the fifth one. In the first three, Vi is teaching the class. And you get to see how she interacts with her learners and whether they're online, or in person, or asynchronous. And in the last two videos, there are tours of how two programs have set up their HyFlex classrooms.

So it's a great way to get a better sense of how people are using technology and not only just the hardware and software, setting things up, but also what it looks like in actual teaching. So we're really excited about these videos, and I can put a link in the chat for the playlist in just a second then too. So we encourage you to watch these videos, give us feedback, and we hope that they're a resource as you're exploring HyFlex, training teachers, or looking to enhance your program.

So at this point, I'm going to turn it back over to Jen, and I'll add the links to the HyFlex videos.

Jen Vanek: Yes. This is just a quick kind of pulse check and check in with you to see how you're all feeling about HyFlex now that you've had an overview and a sense of some of the resources that are out there to help you get going. So for those of you, I noticed some of you, there are a couple of people who are just like going to start teaching HyFlex very soon. A little bit of prior experience.

For those of you who are new to this idea, what are you thinking now? I would we'd love to just hear some of your general observations here on whether or not-- you could actually start using the HyFlex model. Oh, I'm sorry. I just totally went off script. Would you be interested-- and if you are teaching in HyFlex now, if you'd be interested in having your class featured in a HyFlex video? So do let us know.

Also, are there additional video topics you'd be interested in seeing? So this is what we want to hear from you about. Let's see. Maybe go back to that previous slide to see the list of videos.

Audience: Can we put it in the chat the answers to the questions?

Jen Vanek: You could chat any time now. We're not going to do waterfall chat.

Audience: OK.

Jen Vanek: If you have ideas for other videos, that would be helpful. So you can see we've got engaging learners, setting up the technology, using online assessment in HyFlex. And then the classroom tours. What additional videos would be helpful for you?

Audience: I'd like to see something about getting the in-person students collaborating with the online students.

Jen Vanek: OK, interesting. So what activities or engagements make that possible? How asynchronous material is shared with owners. Absolutely. Yeah. Really good idea for a video. Video troubleshooting issues with sound. Other ideas?

Audience: I'm wondering about multi-level ESL classrooms.

Jen Vanek: Great. So a video focus focusing on differentiating instruction.

Audience: We have different stations and groups that you're working with or that are doing different things. Facilitating that with different levels online as well.

Jen Vanek: That's great.

Audience: Overcoming digital literacy challenges.

Jen Vanek: Digital literacy. OK. Supporting digital literacy challenges. Great.

Audience: Videos for the actual students to-- like onboarding videos for people because they need to have some kind of digital literacy too.

David Rosen: Good.

Jen Vanek: OK. And is anybody teaching HyFlex right now that would be interested in having your class featured in a video?

Audience: I'm can one. Let me see.

Jen Vanek: Yeah. Maybe if you're interested, maybe get it into the chat maybe your name and organization, and then we can try to reach out to you. Perhaps even your email. OK. I think we can move on to the next slide.

David Rosen: Actually, Destiny, if you can continue, that would be fine. Ken Ryan, by the way, asks, can the in-person learners be online in the classroom? And the answer is yes if you have the technology for them to do that. If they have access to the internet and if they have a device, absolutely. And there are some good examples of that. And maybe we should think about doing a video demonstrating that.

Jen Vanek: Yeah. The other consideration there is whether or not your program has the bandwidth to sustain that, to support that. I've heard that as an issue in some places.

David Rosen: Me too. So we want to talk about technology briefly. Again, there's a lot more in the guide itself. But Destiny, next slide, please. So here's the range of possibilities. From really basic necessary technology to high end technology. And you might wonder, well, what are we talking here? How much is this going to cost our program?

So at the basic end, I would say roughly $1,000. In other words, you can do HyFlex classes with $1,000. But at the high end, you might be talking $25,000. And that provides the kind of technology that makes it really seamless. And issues of sound disappear. You can count on having good sound whoever is speaking, teacher, the student, whatever. And some of the problems that people have observed with blended learning or with HyFlex classes really are addressed by the expensive technology at this point. It is available. Many community colleges now use it. And some school districts use it as well. And we do have examples of that in the guide. Next slide, please, Destiny.

So how do you know what technology to use? Well, if you're in the planning stage, and it seems like many of you who have responded are exactly in that stage, here are some of the things you need to consider. Why? Why do you want to use a HyFlex model? What's the purpose? What do you want to achieve by doing that?

You want to think about learners' capacity for remote internet access. If you're in a part of the country which has very little broadband access or none in some cases, it's not a good idea to do this. If you have an uneven amount of access but you have some new funding that might be available, perhaps the Digital Equity Act. That's about to fund a lot of programs in 2024. Maybe this is the time to do the planning for it, so that a HyFlex model really would work in 2024.

What existing classroom technology and what existing internet access? It's a really important question to ask as part of the planning. What's the class size? What are the number of learners that you might anticipate in each mode? And by the way, you can't know. It's basically the answer. And you can't know from let's say semester to semester. I've talked to teachers who one semesters said everybody was in person. That's what they wanted to do. And then the next semester, half of the people wanted to be online. And then in the next semester, most people wanted to be online. And it depends on the learners' needs and what the capacity is to meet those needs.

Learners' digital skills, big issue. And what to do about that if they don't have the digital skills needed to effectively use a HyFlex model. What's your budget? What's your technology budget? Or what could your budget be? And if so, what's the timeline in order to raise that kind of budget?

And then finally, and we advise everybody to think about this. If you're starting a new HyFlex program, pilot it first. Don't have all your classes doing it at once because there will be challenges, and you want to basically work those out before you scale it up. Next slide, please.

So in terms of technology, here's in general what people will need. There will need to be some kind of teacher computer. It could be a laptop. Doesn't have to be a. Desktop there needs to be a camera that shows the teacher ideally and/or the in-person learners. In other words, being able to show one or the other or simultaneously show them both.

You're going to need some kind of display hardware, a smartboard, for example, to show the in-person learner content. You're going to need microphones. You're going to need speakers. And I can't underestimate, you've already experienced this yourself, probably even so far in the symposium here, which is that sound is the key feature.

It often doesn't matter as much whether you can see what's going on, but you have to be able to hear what people are saying. And then finally, you need a good broadband internet connection. A reliable one and a powerful one. And then for remote learners, they need a device to log in, and they need a good broadband internet connection as well. Next slide, please.

So this is just a reminder of the five videos. Two of them focused on the technology, actual technology that teachers at Pima Community College and at the hub center in Saint Paul actually used. So if you're in the stage of, oh, we need to think seriously about what technology we need to get, and we want to see what other teachers do. There are two videos that will show you that. Next slide, please.

So we'd like to just say a little bit about an important strategy for thinking about HyFlex. Beatty recommends the place to start is by creating your asynchronous content first. And he suggests doing so by deciding-- actually, by using standards or objectives about what you want to teach as a backbone for shaping all of the instruction. And then designing the asynchronous online stuff first. Because if you can figure out how to deliver the standards or the content that you want to deliver asynchronously online, then it's easier to take that and replicate or create equitable learning opportunities that will be delivered synchronously. If you start with synchronously, it's harder to go the opposite direction.

And in fact, we do do some writing about this. Sarah Wheeler, who is the state director in New Hampshire, has actually been setting up HyFlex professional learning. And she has taken this approach, and we share some of her insights about starting with asynchronous first in the handbook.

Next slide. So the other thing that you want to consider are the types of technologies that are going to be useful for creating engaging learning opportunities for students. When we interviewed the teachers and the program directors for the guide, these are some of the technologies that popped up as being useful.

So nearly everyone had some sort of class website, learning management system, some sort of digital home base where all of the learners, whether or not they were in person, online synchronous or asynchronous could access content. Then they were using like collaboration opportunities, collaboration and engagement tools. Like I think that video showed Vi using a Jamboard. So Jamboard is a very popular tool for engaging students online.

Google Docs are awesome collaboration tools for co-constructing information or creating a series of HyperDocs in order to pace learners through a learning experience. And that kind of thing could definitely be repurposed as an online asynchronous learning opportunity. Short term and media, like quick learning opportunities, like Poll Everywhere, Mentimeter, Kahoot, or even quizzes. Or then using something like Pear Deck to support learners following along with presentations or instruction or even for formative assessment.

So I'm sure there are more. If there are other tools that you are using in your HyFlex instruction or even in your technology-rich in-person instruction, feel free to chat them, and we'd love to explore how they might be useful in a HyFlex model. Back to you, Destiny.

Destiny Simpson: We wanted to share an example of what this looks like from the teacher perspective. So this is an example that we took from the HyFlex guide just to kind of help, especially if you're new to HyFlex teaching, what does it look like from a teacher perspective. So here's an example of where a teacher is teaching a live class, but the teacher is making sure to point out directions for learners that may be in each of the modes.

So for example, the teacher says, if you're in the room, I want you to turn to a partner and share what you wrote. For the online learners, I'll assign you to a breakout room, and you can work with your partner there. And if you're watching the recording, so for those asynchronous learners, they're not forgotten. They're addressed in the video as well. Press for pause. Add your thoughts to the discussion forum. And then come back and press play, and we'll resume class together.

So it's just a slightly different way of thinking about and making sure that you're including all learners whenever you're giving directions for students. So we tried to include examples like this throughout the guide as much as we could, and we'd love to add more, either through videos or through updates to the guide as we go along.

So this is just some tips that we gathered from the field, just some very general tips that we found. But as David mentioned earlier, start small and with early adopters. Start with the teachers that are very interested in trying out technology that are kind of willing to help troubleshoot and work through the challenges of trying this new way of teaching. Take your time to identify the best technology.

We heard from several programs where if the technology that you're using isn't really great for your online learners, it really can make everything a lot more cumbersome for the teacher and the learners. So finding the right technology tools that provide good sound, good video, so that they're able to see what's really important.

This was universal with everyone we interviewed. Providing professional development and planning time for teachers is so important. It takes time to decide and plan how to provide a lesson to learners in all three modalities. And so teachers need training and how to do that, and they also need support and planning time to be able to do that.

Keep in mind that tech supports can be needed for both teachers and learners not only just at the beginning, but throughout class as it goes along. We found that learners and teachers got more comfortable as they started using their technology more. But it's important to have a plan for how tech support would be provided.

If possible, to pilot the technology you're buying beforehand. OTAN I'm pretty sure has a lending library of some technology you could try out and test. So be sure to touch base with some OTAN staff if you're interested in trying out a certain camera, or tool, or something like that. They may have access to you to be able to borrow something. Go visit another program that might be doing HyFlex. And OTAN would be a great resource for helping you to connect with a local program that could be a resource. And

As with trying anything new, it's always important to expect uncertainty and change. Know that's part of growing and learning for the teachers, as well as the learners. And to kind of set that expectation that that's going to happen, so that whenever you do hit a roadblock, it doesn't feel so bad. It's expected. It's part of the learning curve of taking on this new way of teaching, and that both learners and teachers have a growth mindset as they're adapting this.

Going back to the benefits and reasons why you might want to consider HyFlex. You all listed a long list of great reasons of why you'd want to consider offering HyFlex for your learners. And ultimately, it's for our learners. It provides them a way with their lives to support their learning, and it's another way to help learner reach their goals.

So I just wanted to put up the QR code again for the Padlet. I will put that in the chat again. So there's links to not only the HyFlex guide itself but also some other resources that may be of interest to you, as well as the video series as well. So I'll throw that in the chat right now real quick. And then, oops, sorry. I'll do that in just a second. And what I'll do is turn it over now back to Jen to wrap us up.

Jen Vanek: Yeah. So we're wondering how you're all feeling about this. And it seems like the annotation tool is set up here, is it? Can people annotate online? If you can, we would love it if you would just make a little X or indicate how you are feeling about HyFlex in this moment. And if you don't want to deal with the annotation tool, feel free to just place something in the chat.

David Rosen: Destiny, can you stop sharing? I have a different slide for our last slide.

Destiny Simpson: Sure.

Jen Vanek: So please do chat. Oh, I like Matthias. Yeah. Mixed emotions. Complex, mixed emotions. Well, I hope that after listening to the presentation, you're feeling more inclined to try it than less inclined than when you came into the room. We really have seen this generate lots of excitement around the country, and we've seen many programs who have devoted the resources needed to make their teachers successful.

I just want to add that this shift to HyFlex cannot be a burden borne solely on the instructor, that it really does need to be a programmatic investment. OK. Ryan has a question.

Ryan Burke: Yeah, sorry. I'm actually the director there at Sweetwater. Sorry, I'm home ill. But I'm really enjoying the session. We're trying to HyFlex as much as we can. I just wanted to say I sent a couple of questions to Destiny via the chat, and I wanted to see if she could-- she might not be checked in on the chat because she's moderating.

Jen Vanek: Oh. So there's a question. Does HyFlex work for beginning ESL classes?

Ryan Burke: No. I just sent specifically to Destiny because--

Jen Vanek: Oh, I see.

Ryan Burke: Programming. So if she could take a look, or maybe I can copy paste. But anyway, the presentation has been fantastic, and I really appreciate your work.

Destiny Simpson: Great. Yeah, Ryan, I think I sent you some direct messages. So we can connect or feel free to email me after the session.

Jen Vanek: And Susanna, did you have a question or an observation?

Susanna: I do. So this morning-- I mentioned this before. This morning, the keynote speaker, it was really hard to hear her. So every time she would turn, I think it was like to the right, her voice would go down. Her speaker was right on I guess her left side by her scarf. So I'm concerned about issues like that. I'm wondering if it's just because it was a bigger room, or do the teachers experience that kind of issues in the actual classroom?

David Rosen: So Susanna, the Owl, which I believe is what is used in the classrooms in this symposium, is not really designed for that. It's designed for small conference rooms. And the sound is really good in a small conference room. In a large, echoey classroom, having only one Owl is not particularly effective.

There is a way of chaining two Owls together. That could work. Or there's higher end technology. As I mentioned earlier, an Owl is about $1,000. And so you can do HyFlex classrooms, small ones, in non-equity spaces, you can do them well. But if you have a larger classroom, you probably want to invest in higher end technology with better sound.

Susanna: So for the keynote speaker, I guess moving forward or next for next year, maybe the two Owls would be better.

David Rosen: Possibly, or maybe a different arrangement altogether.

Susanna: OK. Thank you.

David Rosen: By the way, how much more time do we have? I'm not clear because we started late. Does anybody know?

Audience: The session ends in 2:00.

David Rosen: OK.

Jen Vanek: Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

David Rosen: Thanks, everybody, for coming. And please check out the guide, and you have our email addresses on this slide. You can note those. And we'll be glad to hear from you. I hope the symposium goes well for you.