New teaching modality terms: chrono-hybrids and spatio-hybrids?

The frenzied move this spring to remote and online and distance learning pushed the limits of how we characterize our courses. Teachers, administrators, and schools ran into a classic language problem: Our experiences became more nuanced than our words allowed, so we needed new words.

I’ve been exploring some new terminology to account for increasing ways teachers are using--and being asked to use--our teaching time and spaces: chrono-hybrid and spatio-hybrid.

A spatio-hybrid is a more specific term I am using for what has commonly been called a hybrid or blended course, one in which students meet onsite in a room one day a week (or so) and engage in a range of online work for the rest of the week.

A chrono-hybrid is a course that has scheduled synchronous videoconferencing some days and  asynchronous activities other days. Chrono-hybrid courses are different from remote courses in that a remote course implies that all classes will meet synchronously throughout the term. As an example of a chrono-hybrid, this spring, in my MWF course that was scheduled remotely, I conducted three chrono-hybrid weeks. Twice I replaced the Friday Zoom meeting with a two-post, two-deadline discussion conversation of a complex reading, and one Friday I assigned a robust, structured discussion board peer review. I designed this work to be equivalent to the work of that Friday hour--for both me and my students.

So, let’s tease this out with these new terms:

1. Onsite/face-to-face: We understand this.
2. Spatio-hybrid: This means you’re going to be in a room at some point with other people and you'll also be teaching some of your course online.
3. Remote: You're in a fully digital course with regular, scheduled synchronous meetings.
4. Chrono-hybrid: This is similar to remote in synchronous scheduling, but some of the work will instead be asynchronous.
5. Online/distance: Asynchronous with no scheduled synchronous meetings.
6. Low-residency: Some version of one of the options above (except #1) with a rare (once a month, perhaps) onsite meeting; this might be a version of #2, although campus low-res programs have generally not been called "hybrids."
   

Why introduce these terms? I had a good conversation to help me think this out with my friend Jason Snart of the College of DuPage, who is an expert on hybrid writing instruction; some of the material in this post is from emails I sent to him.

For one, it's clear we are going to see increasing examples of chrono-hybrid teaching, so we need to think about what that means, and I think applying a term to it will help a great deal.

Two, in our online writing instruction community we have come a long way in helping people understand that asynchronous modalities are effective and maybe preferable for writing instruction, and I see us losing some ground in the recent rush to remote, for many reasons: e.g., parents don’t think asynch is valuable, students think they must have a camera running for a class to be "real." If instructors understand the concept of a chrono-hybrid, they will be able to better develop asynchronous components of remote courses, using the kind of careful planning that should categorize online learning.

Also, we must account for teaching time in higher education. While there are flaws in the Carnegie Unit as a  model for the traditional onsite three/two-day-a-week set-up, it’s how things are for now. Accreditation bodies want to know that you’re filling the time—I’m stating that a little pejoratively, but teachers must show that their asynchronous lessons meet established time structures. These terms help do that, I believe.

Finally, over the past few months, working with teachers at many levels across the country, I have repeatedly run into issues resulting from conflating remote and chrono-hybrid. Faculty can easily get their minds around the idea they have to be in front of a camera several days a week on a schedule; quality, training, and preparation are separate issues, but the concept of how to spend the time is not. What I am referring to as a chrono-hybrid gives us a “classifiable” method of taking remote synchronous days and, and as I said above, developing quality asynchronous instruction instead.

Simply put, the terms spatio-hybrid and chrono-hybrid could help us communicate more precisely how we are using our time and our spaces to teach our digital courses.