Abstract:

This paper offers a comparative study of hybrid teaching learning sessions by outlining hybrid pilot teaching projects conducted at Lucerne School of Business from September – December 2022. In doing so, we focus on the advantages of a hybrid teaching model but also outline the gap between the vision of seamless ubiquitous collaboration and the current state of affairs.

Data was collected from evaluations, interviews, and reports to investigate student and faculty preferences in settings they actually experienced. The sample involved includes data from seven faculty members and 65 students in Bachelor and Master degree programs at Lucerne School of Business in Switzerland. Most of the students and faculty members involved had already experienced a hybrid setting in some form, typically Remote Live Participation (Beatty, 2019b). The feedback gathered was formulated as recommended changes to current policy measures and provided to the faculty focus group for review.

The findings suggest that full-fledged hybrid teaching is technically and logistically still too demanding to roll out for all faculty at our small- to medium-sized Business School (approximately 2,500 students).

Therefore, we make the following policy recommendations:
1. Plug-n-play: Offer hybrid kits for “augmented streaming” that should meet both student and faculty requirements;
2. Digital First: Plan hybrid sessions onsite but with digital documents and whiteboards to ease collaboration;
3. Active Learning: Limit input sessions to accommodate online students and create more opportunities for active student engagement.

Student feedback confirms that the convenience of hybrid teaching is often understood as both optimal teaching and learning settings in addition to logistical considerations such as commute and workload (Bailey, 2018). Faculty agree that hybrid will be an essential part of their teaching future. The authors hope that this study provides valuable empirical evidence for policy measures for a full rollout of hybrid teaching for all faculty and students, bringing smaller schools with limited resources one step closer to making this vision a reality.

Keywords:

Hybrid teaching, digital learning technologies, instructional design, higher education, teaching policy.