Don’t get lost. Create a plan.

When developing any course, lesson plans act as a map to guide you through your content delivery with a clear sense of direction – with minimal detours. Effective lesson planning can also help you avoid pitfalls and maximize your delivery time.

While lesson planning has many benefits, it may also be time-consuming. Developing an effective lesson plan for any singular delivery mode can sometimes exceed the time spent delivering the actual lesson. This is why the creation of a HyFlex lesson plan with three delivery modes may seem like a daunting task.

Good news: many characteristics of effective lesson plans are the same in all modalities.

Yes, planning for all three delivery modes in HyFlex lesson plans will require extra time, but consider it an investment that will benefit both you and your students in the end.

In this unit, you will be introduced to various lesson planning templates and important information to include.

To assist you in the creation of your personalized HyFlex lesson plan template, explore the following list of common lesson plan components.

You will see a heading of the component along with a brief descriptor. Click on each heading for more detailed information, including why you would use this component, additional information, and a list of possible section headings within your template.

Work smarter, not harder

When considering how you will format your HyFlex lesson plan, build a template that encourages the same material and level of engagement across all modalities.

HyFlex was built on four fundamental principles: learner choice, equivalency, reusability, and accessibility. You examined these principles in Module 1, and will again in unit 2 of this module.

For now, focus on the ways HyFlex lesson plans are unique. As you read through the following points, notice how each point aligns with information relating back to Module 1 about what HyFlex is and is not.

Unique features of a HyFlex Lesson Plan

• Provides multiple ways to achieve the same learning outcomes and objectives across three participation modes.
• Addresses the unpredictability of who shows up where and when.
• Identifies similar experiences with content regardless of participation mode.
  • Aim for an equivalent workload across the participation modes as you plan the lesson. Consider using the Workload Estimator 2.0 from Wake Forest University to get a general idea of the timing involved in various assessment strategies.
• Identifies ways to administer consistent methods of assessment across all three delivery modes.
• Recognizes technology limitations/affordances for not only those on campus but all those online
• Identifies ways to build connections between in-person and remote sync/async participants.
• Establishes the timing of activities in order to best utilize the artifacts of the activities across all three participation modes.
  • E.g.: Asynchronous participants do not always have to be the last to submit.
• Considers the reusability of interactions with the various participation modes.
  • For example, posting recorded live sessions for all students to access for both learning and review is a great way to reuse content and build community.
• Accounts for the technology resources in the room.
  • If you do not know which technology is available in your teaching space, contact your IT or Teaching and Learning Centre to find out.
• Recognizes the licensing restrictions for software that you may be considering.
  • For example, Nearpod is limited by the number of institutional licenses. If you do not know which resource licenses are available in your institution, contact your IT or Teaching and Learning Centre to find out.
• Determines the limitations of any open-source or free versions of apps before identifying their use in the lesson plan.
• Considers accessibility issues for all three learning modes.
• Considers your own skills/preferences with technology.

Unit Summary

In this unit, you have explored the benefits of creating lesson plans for the HyFlex environment, templates to consider, and different components/headings that may be useful when planning your lessons for all three modalities. You have also explored various considerations to make the planning process less stressful and more engaging for students.

Deciding whether your lesson plan serves as a detailed road map or provides a general sense of direction is up to you. This will depend on your comfort level and experience with teaching in the HyFlex environment or teaching in general. You may decide to start with a detailed plan and then scale back once you have delivered a few HyFlex lessons.

Either way, thoughtful lesson planning can often reduce anxiety about teaching HyFlex and can contribute to an engaging and student-centred course.