Dr. Jackie Miller of the University of Michigan is exercising the innovative HyFlex+ teaching method using Echo360's active learning and live streaming platform for a statistics course that will engage more than 2,000 undergraduate students when fully deployed in 2016.
This team-taught, 200-level course is among the largest courses taught at the university with six high-enrollment lecture sections and more than sixty lab sections. The statistics curriculum provides students with an analytical framework with which to analyze data, models, and patterns they will encounter in several undergraduate majors and is supportive of degree programs ranging from nursing and medicine to the physical sciences and mathematics.
The HyFlex instructional model, pioneered at San Francisco State University, provides for student choice and flexibility among in-class or remote participation modes with an emphasis on equivalency of learning experience, reusable learning artifacts, and universal accessibility. Dr. Miller exercises several of Echo360's active learning features and takes advantage of synchronous live streaming of the course within the classroom, to the dorms and libraries of the university, and beyond campus when students prefer to participate remotely or are unable to attend in person. Text-message- and browser-based student response and collaboration are available to all students participating in the class or reviewing the recorded proceedings after class. Dr. Miller explains that the activity and polling features of Echo360 provide not only engaged learning, but a “backchannel” for real-time feedback to instructors while providing an identical learning experience for those physically in the class and those participating remotely. The HyFlex+ approach and the Echo360 platform make this all work with excellent results including positive student reviews for the teaching method and the Echo360 capture and learning platform.
Students access Echo360 directly from within the Canvas Learning management system courtesy of standards-based "LTI" integration. Dr. Miller’s statistics students feed into multiple courses of study at the University of Michigan where a variety of pedagogical methodologies are supported by the Echo360 platform. Echo360 is working with Dr. Miller to enhance support in the active learning platform for the 2,000+ statistics students who will participate in the HyFlex+ instructional model and the Echo360 platform, which will also support research on the HyFlex+ model as part of an EAGER grant awarded to Dr. Miller from the National Science Foundation.