Hybrid Learning: What Parents Need to Know

That the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world is a huge understatement. It modified healthcare, shut down travel, closed down businesses, and forced millions to work from home. 

For the education sector, particularly in Indonesia, schools, parents, and students needed to adapt to tech-driven learning as fast as possible as early as March 2020. The journey since then isn’t easy, and we continue to face a lot of challenges. 

But the pandemic also allowed schools like us to maximize one of the growing education models: hybrid learning. 

What Is Hybrid Learning?  

Many experts have different ways of defining hybrid learning. For others, it is combining traditional classroom instruction or delivery with digital methods and tools, such as the Internet and online coursework, depending on the learning objective of every subject or topic. 

 For the National School Board Association’s chief information officer, Verjeana McCotter-Jacobs, this concept is about using online tools that help replace face-to-face classroom time to teach and learn. One thing is clear, though.

 Hybrid learning is NOT blended learning, technically speaking, even if a lot of people seem to confuse and use them interchangeably. To understand the differences further, read the following points:

 Blended learning combines both online and face-to-face instruction. In a hybrid learning model, the virtual aspect doesn’t supplement traditional educational delivery but instead serves as an alternative. Students, therefore, can go to their school or study online and still learn the same thing.

 Schools that offer hybrid learning may also create student portals, which contain all the materials the kids need to learn. These exclusive websites will also allow teachers and the school management to keep track of the child’s learning development even when they’re outside the premises.

 In certain situations, the teacher may be physically present in school and teach the students in the classroom, as well as broadcast the lesson in real-time for those at home. In blended learning, the students may be physically present, while the teacher sends additional materials online to supplement the lessons.

The Benefits of Hybrid Learning

 Hybrid learning demands extensive preparation for all involved: the school, kids, and parents, who may still need to assist their children in setting up their online portal or classroom. 

 That’s why our school has taken all efforts to train and orient our teachers not only on how to use the available tech tools but also on how to provide the same quality of education when they need to deliver their coursework online or regardless of the campus the students are enrolled in. 

 Despite the challenges, we see many potential benefits of hybrid learning:

 1. Flexibility

 We don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but several healthcare experts suggest that this may not be the only pandemic the world will see in our lifetime. This is on top of other possible scenarios or situations that may force the school system to go back to virtual learning again. 

 The hybrid learning model makes it so much easier to transition from traditional to online class learning. What we’d achieved for months at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 may be shortened to days the next time something similar or worse may happen. This is because our schools are prepared to teach onsite or offsite.  

2. Higher Level of Engagement

 We believe that the way kids want to learn these days is different from that of their parents and their teachers. Many of them belong to Generation Z and Generation Alpha—people deemed to be the real digital natives. They are born at a time when the Internet is in full swing, and they have easy access to everything, from social media to videos.

 In fact, some studies showed that the brain structure of the newest generations is completely different from that of the older ones, including the millennials. In particular, the area of the brain that regulates visual ability seems to be bigger. This means that they may respond better to visual cues, which the Internet or online learning can provide.

3. Equitable Access to Education

 Contrary to popular belief, hybrid learning isn’t for a select few. Instead, it is for everyone, including those who don’t have easy access to online learning. As mentioned, this model doesn’t do away with face-to-face classes. Rather, it provides another option, depending on which strategy can help the child learn more effectively and on the learning objective of the subject. 

 Either way, those who may not have Internet at home can still report to school and receive the same education as their online peers.

 As for our school, we decided to open our doors again for the students and teachers we definitely missed for months. But we also acknowledge that online learning is here to stay, and we’re ready to embrace hybrid learning anytime the government allows us. Mentari Intercultural School is fully prepared to welcome our students again with all health protocols in place.