Hybrid Courses

While looking for other examples of hybrid classes, I didn’t find many specific courses, but did see other schools acknowledging the use and benefits from these courses. Hybrid courses are not simply at UW but also can be found at a variety of schools, ranging from high schools, to business or medical schools. One high school, in Byron, Minnesota has hybrid courses available in math, English, FACS and social studies that are designed to both teach the students the course material and help them become more resourceful on the Internet. Although the school recognizes how this is beneficial for some courses, it notes how often in the math class students would rather learn in school than online to be able to communicate easily with students and the teachers on topics that they are not fully able to grasp.

Overall I think that the use of technology, and especially the Internet was beneficial for the course and should be incorporated into more classes. By being able to use the Internet to do some of the classwork, it not only allowed me to have a more flexible schedule by giving me more control of when to complete assignments or projects, but also allowed me to have a more hands on experience with the concepts discussed in lecture. The use of both the blog and wiki formats, and PowerPoint or other media sources throughout the FIG has taught me to be more resourceful throughout my research or simply just when surfing the web for myself. Although I do think that it was beneficial for this course, like the students of Byron High School, I think that for some courses it is hard to fully understand these concepts on my own and think that it is important to stick to mainly old fashioned teaching methods.

The use of the Internet for classwork is also a beneficial way to acknowledge students’ participation in the class that may not be recognized in a large lecture. Through the blog posts it has allowed both my TA to see what I have been grasping through the lectures and also allow me to compare what I have been getting out of the lessons to other students. Without the participation online I would not have learned about the experiences my fellow students have encountered or simply be able to learn more about them. Even by only reading the titles of posts, or a few sentences I was able to make more connections to others ideas from what I personally am thinking about through the posts.

As the Internet is becoming more influential in daily life it is important for students to be gaining knowledge about different uses and methods throughout their courses in school. By incorporating the Internet and other programs into a class, as done in LIS201 it will allow students to better grasps concepts by having personal learning experiences and be able to continue to use these products both in and out of school.