Lesson 1 – Introduction to Modalities

At Algonquin College, flex courses have scheduled class time, while providing students the choice of attending class in-person on campus or attending online at the same time as those in-class. Therefore, the instructor is simultaneously teaching in-person and virtually. Instructors carefully plan the curriculum and in-class activities, including ways of engaging both groups of learners at the same time. There are specially equipped classrooms at Algonquin College that include the technology for multimodal delivery (e.g., cameras, video screens, and classroom speakers). For more information, visit Flex (Multimodal) Delivery.

In Hyflex courses, students have three choices for participating in the course: scheduled class in-person on campus, online (synchronously), or asynchronously online (self-directed).

Hybrid courses include a combination of synchronous in-person class time and asynchronous online learning. Typically, a course includes two hours of in-class time and one-hour of hybrid time each week. The hybrid course time is equally important to the teaching and learning of course content and should be treated as an extension of the in-class time. Similar to a fully online course, the hybrid time should include a variety of engaging content, including videos, audio, and interactive media. It can also include other activities within Brightspace such as discussion posts. One way to approach the hybrid course time is through the flipped classroom method covered later in this course.

These courses are taught fully in-person, in-class at one of Algonquin College’s campuses (Ottawa, Perth, or Pembroke). In-person courses may be further divided into theory, lab, or workshop, the latter two offering more hands-on activities and learning opportunities. Sometimes the theory portion is taught in large groups and the labs or workshops are in smaller groups, providing more opportunities for instructor feedback and peer engagement. Further, theory hours and lab hours are typically scheduled separately; therefore, the planning and development of course content should take this into account.

These courses are taught fully online through the Learning Management System (Brightspace). While most online courses are asynchronous, some are synchronous online.

Asynchronous online means learners engage with the course content on their own time. Course content can include a variety of readings, videos, audio, and interactive media such as H5P. Instructors provide frequent updates, feedback, and communication throughout the Learning Management System.

Synchronous online courses have online classes taught in real time by an instructor. Students meet together using a video conferencing tool (e.g. Microsoft Teams or Zoom).