Abstract:

The way of how knowledge is transmitted has been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many universities around the globe have turned to pure online teaching. Macau, without any confirmed COVID-19 case locally for a long time, is different; while many of her overseas students are not allowed by the local government to enter the city. In light of this, the University of Macau has implemented hybrid teaching, which combines face-to-face classroom teaching and online teaching simultaneously, since the fall semester of 2020. Previous studies have identified two types of challenges when teachers implement hybrid teaching, namely, pedagogical and technological challenges. However, the challenges of applying hybrid teaching in the context of the latest pandemic are not known.

This study aims to investigate, from teachers’ point of view, the pedagogical and technological challenges of hybrid teaching. Teachers' recommendations on how to address the challenges were also reported. In addition, feedback from students was collected to enrich the findings. Qualitative approach was adopted in the study. Seven teachers who had used hybrid teaching and seven of their students at the university being researched were interviewed. Inductive manifest method was applied to generalise codes, nodes and themes that arise from the interview scripts.

The study echoes the pedagogical challenges reported in the previous studies. Teachers reported that they have difficulties in engaging both online and offline students at the same time while manipulating all technology. During the time of COVID-19 where most classes had to be carried in the “hybrid” way, the physical and mental load of the teachers was greatly increased. In addition, to ensure that the learning outcomes of online students were met, some teachers had to set aside extra time to repeat the concept separately for their online students.

Regarding technological challenges, teachers expressed that hybrid teaching was indeed a mix of two shows at the same time. Hybrid teaching required the right equipment and knowledge to manage it, such as a high-quality camera, conference microphone and professional technical support. Unfortunately, such needs were too overwhelming to be met in the period of the study. Thus the teachers and their teaching assistants had to deal with most of the technical challenges by themselves.

From the view of the students, the thing that put online students off was being ignored. Problems include the inability to listen to the instructors, not able to get responses from the instructor immediately, and even could not interact with their classmates who were wearing masks.

This study suggests that hybrid teaching requires a good structure and a good balance together. Teachers could adopt an active learning approach, rather than the traditional didactic teaching. They could ask questions or do small quizzes to ensure students’ learning outcomes have been met. Extra resources are needed in a hybrid teaching classroom, for example, a teaching assistant could help to manage in-class video camera(s) and to monitor the audio and visual quality and students’ feedback in virtual teaching platform. Universities should also provide technical support and training on hybrid teaching. Further study of a larger scale and on an effective teaching model of hybrid teaching is recommended.

Keywords:

Hybrid, blended learning, education.