The start of the new decade was anything but uneventful. New and integrated learning models emerged, fueled by a need for innovative educational tools. Colleges and universities, K-12 schools, government, and corporate enterprises have led the way in adopting new technology and teaching methodologies. While hybrid learning models aren’t new, it is no secret that the coronavirus pandemic, which ravaged the start of the decade, accelerated and expanded this type of learning.
Even as the pandemic wanes, different learning models – which may have been implemented rapidly as part of an ongoing public health emergency – remain popular among students in higher education. Synchronous, in-person learning isn’t for everyone, and institutions are evolving to adapt with this changing environment.
The words “hybrid” and “HyFlex” are often used to describe a course model in which students learn through a combination of face-to-face instruction and using a variety of online resources and technologies.
In general, hybrid teaching “facilitates learning that integrates synchronous in-person, synchronous online and asynchronous online experiences to accomplish specific learning objectives,” EdTech Magazine notes. These courses mix online and in-person activities, and while it’s more flexible than the traditional classroom model, HyFlex offers the most flexibility for students to choose how they learn.
HyFlex blends the words “hybrid” and “flexible,” giving students the opportunity to choose how they participate in the classroom. That could mean being in the classroom one week and not the next, for whatever reason. Course syllabuses and learning goals remain the same regardless of whether learners are in class physically or choose to learn virtually, but how content is delivered could change based on each student’s needs.
The hybrid learning model was developed in the mid-2000s, when higher education instructors wanted to create a way to increase the reach of their residential instructional technology programs, making them more accessible to students both in and outside of the region. At the time, hybrid models were geared more toward working adults whose schedules and family obligations often conflicted, which kept many adults from continuing or completing their education.
Over time, employing a HyFlex learning model became more of a necessity than simply something nice-to-have in supplemental learning. “Creating an instructional model that allows students to toggle back-and-forth between educationally comparable in-person and virtual formats depending on the circumstances at the moment has a lot of resonance …,” said Bonni Stachowiak, Dean of Teaching and Learning at Vanguard University in California.
Institutions are implementing HyFlex instructional models, lecture capture and other remote teaching solutions to meet today’s learning challenges. The approach will continue to serve an ongoing need, particularly as educational environments and modalities evolve.
There are a number of other learning models, including the more traditional and familiar models of in-person and online, as well as a blended model.
With in-person and online, students either physically go to a brick-and-mortar location or log in online for studies.
In-person learning allows face-to-face interaction and collaboration, but class sizes are limited, and everyone must be in the same place at the same time, as opposed to online learning, which is scalable, but can lack human interaction.
Blended learning, which is often confused with HyFlex, is simply a blend of in-person and online learning. “Blended learning uses online learning resources to supplement face-to-face instruction, while hybrid learning uses online resources to replace portions of students’ instruction that would otherwise be delivered face-to-face,” GovTech explains.
The key difference is that in a blended approach, instructors decide what elements work best in-person and what is best mastered online and then teach accordingly. That’s a contrast to the HyFlex model. “You want to be able to create a fully online version as well as a fully face-to-face version and find ways to kind of bring them together so it’s a single course experience that has multiple participation paths,” Dr. Brian Beatty describes in his book “Hybrid-Flexible Course Design.”
There are several factors to consider when launching your online and hybrid learning model:
From K-12 students, to those in higher education, government and corporations, each entity’s approach will vary slightly based on the student’s demographics and learning outcomes.
The subject’s density and complexity will help determine how to best teach it to learners remotely, whether that means using tools like lecture capture, live streaming, video conferencing, or other teaching methods.
Complete an inventory of tools you are already using to teach students, along with a fair assessment of whether it is working. This will help steer you toward a solution that best meets your organization’s needs.
How are you currently supporting each learner’s individual journey? Do you have not only an adequate amount, but the right supports to help each learner succeed? Additionally, are instructors able to easily use and get questions answered quickly? Instructions, resources, and available personnel all will ease the transition to a hybrid or HyFlex model.
Having the right recording tools and supports is meaningless if your coursework isn’t easily accessible. The ability to shift and replicate coursework online will be a key to deploying a successful HyFlex program. We will discuss the needs around accessibility for differently abled learners later in this guide.
Hardware, software, cloud infrastructure and the ability to move or enhance online services is paramount. Technology and staff to support the infrastructure also should be assessed. Video conferencing hardware and software, an LMS and course planning tools all will be essential. Privacy and security policies should be reviewed and updated for HyFlex learning.
What constitutes success and what measures do you need to track to ensure you’re meeting organizational and student learning goals? Do you have the right tools to measure your KPIs?
Every learning modality has advantages and its own unique challenges. Knowing what to expect and accounting for potential barriers up front will help pave a path to a successful implementation.
A key element in the HyFlex/hybrid learning model is lecture capture. By definition, lecture capture is simply recording and archiving lectures for student use during their course studies. It is comprised of both hardware and software working in synergy to meet the curriculum goals.
Lecture capture and flipped classroom tools offer a variety of solutions, whether your organization needs desktop software-based lecture capture, hardware appliance lecture capture, browser-based capture, or mobile lecture capture solutions to facilitate hybrid learning. You may want to consider an enterprise video solution like the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to ensure a comprehensive and complete video learning experience.
There are a variety of tools an institution can use to facilitate lecture capture:
To get the most out of your video solution, it is important to choose the right recording tools for the right environment. Ideally, your institution should select a program with a comprehensive set of capabilities, rather than piecemealing various components together. In the latter scenario, organizations will end up with a plethora of uncoordinated and unintegrated capture tools. This can create significant training challenges, particularly when various programs don’t work well together. Using a suite of tools that integrate with one another creates consistency and allows for easy training and adoption.
It’s been proven that using video to aid in instruction increases knowledge retention. Combining asynchronous and synchronous learning methods helps students not only learn, but it also helps learners retain knowledge. Engaging multimedia content, facilitating greater access to the course instructor and fellow classmates via online chat, and fewer scheduling conflicts all contribute to improved retention metrics and help enable hybrid learning, a Forbes education contributor noted.
Below are some points to help guide your evaluation of whether lecture capture and video recording are right for your institution.
Instructors can deploy lecture capture combined with collaborative projects and dynamic discussion opportunities to keep learners fully engaged, no matter how they attend class.
Instructors should have the freedom to build learning experiences using traditional or nontraditional methods based on their desired outcomes. While some material might lend itself to presentation in charts, graphs and other visual experiences, other subjects or topics are better absorbed through note taking, auditory or tactile experiences. Because the world is online, teachers can select, organize and present information in whatever way they feel best demonstrates the material, including through the use of lecture capture and video recording.
Lecture capture allows students to watch or rewatch lessons on their own schedule from anywhere. It is versatile, which allows students to maintain their schedule and stay on track in their coursework.
Measuring student engagement is essential to understanding what is going well and to determine areas of improvement. Ensure your learning system offers detailed reports and information about audience engagement, along with a comprehensive overview of viewing and usage behaviors. Instructors should be able to zero in on areas of concern, as well as track participation and user adoption using near real-time reporting. Today’s integrated tools have the capability to automatically identify actionable video insights to ensure students are getting the most out of each lecture.
It’s important for content to adhere to all accessibility guidelines. The learning model you choose for your organization should provide tools for accessibility, such as audio description, electronic braille, EPUB, audio (speech-to-text), high contrast, and tagged PDF files, so all learners can access content in a way that facilitates their learning, no matter their abilities.
Lecture capture and video conferencing each have a host of applicable uses both for small, faculty (or organization)-specific deployments or multi-campus, system-wide, or enterprise deployments.
Lecture Capture allows a presenter to record full or partial lectures by capturing audio, slides, and other course content using hardware and/or software. Because it is captured, it can be reused for multiple lectures or presentations, as well as referred back to at a later date. Learners are afforded the ability to review materials at their own paceand have a similar learning experience to those who may attend the lecture in person.
With the right tools, a lecture capture system supports flipped class micro lessons and multi-stream presentation capture. Instructors can present lectures across platforms, from video, to audio, slides, document cameras, smartboards, and other programs. Integration with an organization’s existing LMS allows content creators to seamlessly upload their recorded content directly within their respective LMSs.
Video conferencing is a live visual communication session between users, rather than simply an exchange of information from lecturer to student. Video conferencing enables group collaborations, allowing participants to see facial expressions and offering a more personal feeling to the educational experience. Through video conferencing, learners connect both with their peers and instructor to engage in discussions and/or study sessions.
With video conferencing, instructors can host small groups, lectures, and remote office hours. Tools like a real-time whiteboard enables participants to draw and annotate within a live video conference session, which is ideal for one-on-one office hours, small group collaborations, and large-scale conferences. Whether you are designing a 3D model, sharing slides, or editing a document, students can see what is being presented on the desktop and follow on-screen actions through their own screens.
Learn how Indiana State University is using lecture capture to enhance student learning.
| Lecture capture | Video Conferencing | |
| Types of Tools and Capabilities |
Software, Lecture Capture Appliance, In-Browser Capture Studio, Mobile and Tablet Capture, Classroom Capture and Recording |
Virtual Classrooms, Video Office Hours, Remote Interviews, Web Conferencing |
| Learning Type |
Asynchronous, flexible, learning on your schedule. |
Synchronous, real-time learning. |
| Delivery |
Content is self-guided, with flexible viewing options (including offline). |
Allows structured, controlled delivery of course content. |
| Discussion Mode |
Can be a single person, often the instructor, leading a discussion. |
Tends to include multiple parties. |
A successful HyFlex learning model requires a positive UX (user experience). It won’t matter how great the lecture, presentation or message is if students can’t or don’t want to tune in. That’s why lecture capture and video conferencing should offer a smooth experience such as high-definition streaming wherever learners choose to view the content. Today’s learners have enough to worry about without the frustration of inadequate bandwidth or a poorly functioning video that stalls or continually buffers, interrupting their course.
Streaming video in your LMS makes it simple for students to access video learning in a format they already know and use. Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) integration allows institutions to merge video learning into the current LMS seamlessly, whether you use Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, Brightspace, Sakai, Jenzebar or another LMS. With full LMS integration, instructors are more likely to embrace lecture capture and video learning options.
In addition to a seamless UX, a successful video solution will include/facilitate:
While some instructors may embrace hybrid learning, lecture capture, and video conferencing technology with enthusiasm, in other cases, the impetus to embrace new technology comes from the department or the institution. Creating a smart educational program can excite and motivate instructors, who will pass it on, empowering students to learn to their full potential.
Training instructors may require professional development, but it will be well worth it. Learning champions will emerge naturally and help others embrace the process.
Ensure educators understand the benefits of HyFlex Learning, along with selected tools like lecture capture and video conferencing.
Make sure instructors are supported and understand how to reach out for help.
Leverage the knowledge of those who innately understand technology and its benefits and encourage interaction with other instructors.
Review course materials. Determine what needs to be converted for online use. Evaluate whether materials can be used in conjunction with other media. Upload material to the LMS.
Nail down the details. How will lectures be delivered? How do instructors plan to assign and provide feedback for work?
Train instructors. From large concepts to small details, instructors should fully understand the LMS.
Create content and record lectures. With proper training, instructors will be creating reusable content in no time!
Evaluate the system and student learning outcomes. Ensure a depth of understanding of your learning system’s analytics tools.
Conduct an analysis by asking for product demonstrations and getting a sense of various stakeholders and their goals.
Ensure an understanding of the toolsets and products you want to connect (SSO products, captioning vendors, etc.) to guide your conversation and help you select the solution that best suits your organizational needs.
Analyze integration and measurement tools to meet both short-term and long-term goals.
What is lecture capture?
Lecture capture is the process of recording an instructional lecture for consumption after it is presented. More specifically, lecture capture enables learners to watch, skip and re-watch a video, just as other modern streaming video applications allow. Lecture capture tools can capture webcam video, digital whiteboards and computer screens used during a lecture.
What is hybrid learning?
Hybrid learning (sometimes referred to as “HyFlex,” a combination of the words “hybrid” and “flexible”) is a course model in which learners consume information through a combination of face-to-face instruction and using a variety of online resources and technologies. Students have the opportunity to choose between in-classroom and remote learning, as well as switching between the two based on their circumstances.
What is the difference between a hybrid and a blended learning model?
Blended learning, which is often confused with HyFlex, is a blend of in-person and online learning that uses online resources to supplement face-to-face instruction. A hybrid model uses online resources and delivery of instructional materials.
The key difference is that in a blended approach, instructors decide what elements work best in-person and what is best mastered online and then teach accordingly. In a hybrid model, instructors create both online and face-to-face materials and present a cohesive course experience with multiple participation paths (fully online, fully in-person, a mix of online and in-person).
How do you make lecture capture more effective?
To get the most out of lecture capture, instructors should ensure an effective setup with proper camera and microphone placement, as well as that their presentation has good contrast and use of color, high quality audio and video elements, and accessible content. It also is important to select a product that allows variable speed control for quicker content review.
Additionally, choose a product that provides optical character recognition (OCR) and automatic speech recognition (ACR). These technologies allow viewers to easily search through spoken words and on-screen text, as well as zero in on their selection in the lecture.
How is lecture capture different from video conferencing?
Lecture capture is typically focused on multiple presentation paths for a single viewer, as opposed to video conferencing, which involves multiple participants in a synchronous environment. Lecture capture offers a more robust video experience with deeper capabilities in relation to integration with video management. It is not reliant on a reliable internet connection, whereas video conferencing is.
If you are using video conferencing tools for recording, YuJa products provide enterprise connectors that allow you to import video native videos, auto-caption, and distribute it within your LMS.
How is lecture capture different from live streaming?
Lecture capture and live streaming are complementary tools that allow lectures to be simultaneously live streamed and recorded for posterity and future use.
How can I ensure lecture capture solutions integrate with my existing
technology?
It is imperative that your lecture capture solution meets
LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) standards. By
meeting these standards, your video capture solution will
integrate with other learning systems. SSO (Single Sign-On) integration
also makes it easy for students and teachers to use one username and
password to sign into all learning systems.
Where can I learn more about how institutions use lecture capture?
A great resource to learn more about lecture capture in today’s learning environment are relevant case studies, which highlight how colleges and universities, K-12 schools, government and corporate enterprises are harnessing the power of video to educate, collaborate and inspire.