 So this is now time for our second session of this one hour session and very much looking forward to this one. I think it's going to be quite interactive so I'm just sharing your slides now you should be able to see those. Thank you. Okay so without further ado let me hand over to Louis. Okay thank you very much for joining this session and thank you very much to Alt for accepting my proposal. So this is about a pre-covid trial or pilot that got cut short in March. We were trying out hybrid delivery of academic writing workshops and but in the long run it proved to be quite useful so I should be honest I am not a learning technologist and I'm definitely not an expert in hybrid delivery in any form. I'm an academic writing tutor who happens to be very enthusiastic about using technology however we can to support learning and we thought we'd have a go. I mean I'm lucky enough to be in the team who thought we'll have a go at this. So I work in a very small unit within the UCL Institute of Education so that's a faculty within University College London, the Academic Writing Centre and I've also got responsibility for our online digital provision although I don't have responsibility now for everything we do that's online. Okay so about this session sorry just trying to move my slide yep there we go so I'm going to tell you a little bit about the hybrid trial that we tried. Something about the context and rationale and as I say very much from a practitioner perspective so I'll tell you a bit about what we did and then I'll share with you some student feedback from both the face-to-face and online participants. When we get to the reflections and discussion hopefully there'll be time for a short breakout group discussion on this because I'm expecting the audience here to know quite a bit a lot about this and perhaps or quite likely more than I do so I'm hoping to learn from your perspectives and take critical feedback and suggestions as well as questions but before we start sorry actually the poll sorry I'm getting mixed up the poll sorry it's the next part so just to start with I don't want to patronize people with definitions of hybrid because I'm sure you know and I'm probably stating the obvious but these are the definitions that we we referred to when we started out so in particular Jesse Stommel's explanation of hybrid and as he says at the basic level it can be seen as learning that happens both in the classroom and or other physical space and online however as you probably know he goes on to suggest that hybrid pedagogy challenges our conception of place as presence as Nathan and David were just saying and that it's not just about an easy mix that it's that it can bring about learning that happens in new ways than perhaps more engaged and dynamic conversations which was something that appealed to us in particular. I think Nathan and David also mentioned Australian work on this and so we did look to Bower et al's case studies on blended synchronous which is what it was called and they were very helpful to look at although we didn't find any of the case studies were particularly similar to our contacts but nevertheless they were inspiring. Okay so before we proceed I've got a little poll that I think is ready just a quick question and you can answer this so are you currently involved here it is yeah are you or have you been involved in hybrid provision and the possible answers are yes no not sure yet thank you very much yes I guess the not sure yet might mean I may well be but don't know yet thank you for sharing that so that's interesting so a majority of people here have been or are involved in hybrid delivery so it'd be interesting to hear what you have to say a bit later okay I'm going to hide the poll now thank you so moving on to so firstly I'll tell you a little bit about our context so who are the Institute of Education students so that's the faculty that I work in anybody who's just joined who are the students or particularly who are the ones that opt to come to the academic writing centre because although all of them and that's now about 8,300 are enrolled on our Moodle because they're auto-enrolled we only see a fraction of them so they are mostly on postgraduate taught courses for example masters in education and related disciplines or teacher training courses but also doctoral programs and increasingly undergraduate approximately one third are classified as international students and of the home students many are part-time or working full-time in education alongside their studies so teachers teaching assistants special educational needs coordinators headteachers sometimes and so on and a very significant proportion are mature students returning to higher education so the job of the academic writing centre is to offer a range of academic writing development opportunities to those that would like to take take this up so what are our general approaches to doing this whether it's face-to-face or online or hybrid well we follow and what's known as an academic literacies approach which recognizes the complexity and discipline or program specific nature of academic writing so we avoid what could be seen as what we would see as oversimplistic and prescriptive writing solutions so it's not what is sometimes known as a study skills model or one that sees the development of writing as related to language necessarily or a deficiency in the student so it's not that the students can't do it it's that the students are moving from one discipline to another or one context to another or even between modules and and and that can be challenging in terms of the writing requirements or norms okay so in that way it's very much about shared investigation critical critically examining examples of academic writing it's social and dialogic and this is relevant to doing it in a hybrid context because what we what we prefer is loud classes where where it's more about student involvement and there's much more student talking time than facilitator or tutor talking time and as I say we're we're we see ourselves as facilitators rather than you know we that's sort of two well we are tutors but we are mainly facilitators who set things up so in terms of you might be familiar with diane larrellad's six learning types there's not really that much acquisition students will tend to do that so the reading the preparation etc they'll tend to do that before or after the session there we try to have sessions where there's active inquiry so for example students looking at sample writing plenty of discussion so for instance arguing and debating or questioning writing practices and lots of collaboration there are some examples in the appendix to these slides so why did we decide to try hybrid so um I'll tell you in a minute but we we we well I'll tell you the time frame in a minute but um so firstly it was a practical thing it was to overcome barriers to provision and and accessibility really so we couldn't get any any more classrooms and we wanted to increase our capacity in fact there was some pressure to increase our capacity we also wanted to provide more opportunities for students who were class distance students and so we were off we are and we do offer we did offer webinars um but we thought well if we sometimes we've got teaching rooms um smaller teaching rooms but it'll be nice if the online participants could join and uh and we could get the online and campus based students um together um working together and um we also noticed a change in student demographics although that might just be our experience of the people that decided to come to the um academic writing students so particular in particular commuter students um um or you know and students who uh maybe came to campus one day a week for their main course but really didn't have time to come in another day or an evening or whatever so that was another reason so further um inspiration uh came from our colleagues in the UCL um knowledge lab and we consulted them so we actually attended some sessions that were essentially hybrid quite a while back and we thought well why can't we do this I'm sure we can do this these sessions were more talks and panel discussions where there was a presenter and then like like this type of session or like the sessions here um rather than workshops so we did consult the knowledge lab and so well how do you think we could do this um we were very inspired by uh Jesse Stommel's um hybrid pedagogy and the case studies um that I just mentioned from Australia um we were also very interested in and inspired by research by Leslie Gawley who happened to be our line manager at the time and Martin Oliver into how students uh engage with the digital university so um devices they're using and I'm sure there's lots of other research out there that looks at this um how and where uh they're studying you know in the park um uh on the move in the bath even I remember one example from that book and this actually resonated not the bath part but this resonated with me also as a former open university student and full-time parent and uh some of the stories there really I thought yes that's exactly how I felt um about uh well I didn't have to as an open university student I didn't have to attend anything live and or sorry anything um on campus um and uh that not live but that was um a great advantage um and the opportunity to just pop in and finally there was um a strategic objective to uh uh to you know to bring um connect students with each other and we interpreted that as yeah students who were on campus and students who were across the world distant students although I can't really say that the uh digital infrastructure was always there at the early stage um to uh to support that but however um uh we were very lucky that we found um an audiovisual um support colleague who who was um very who helped us with that okay so um our pilot um how did we do this uh it started officially in October 2019 or um although two of us have been dabbling with hybrid for a few months and you know making a lot of mistakes between October and March before um we had to stop uh we ran 27 hybrid sessions mainly writing what workshops but also um all day um writing retreats and so I should um it's quite important to say that the this was opt-in and this was run alongside um other um other provision other opt-in and um provisions such as webinars um asynchronous um tutorials etc and then program specific embedded writing support which was also included uh hybrid but it was quite done in quite a different way um the numbers aren't huge but um we had uh 304 um hybrid attendances but that they were 304 extra attendances um so yes more people would come to face-to-face sessions only but these were 304 people who um who wouldn't have come to the face-to-clay so they joined a face-to-face in in a sense so um yeah um uh yeah so how um how how exact you know how in in terms of um how how we went about it so this was uh Blackboard Collaborate uh so the physical classroom and Blackboard Collaborate Ultra which is where we are now uh we did it um this was a bit contentious but we did it with just one tutor facilitator with some um audio visual support um that wasn't um all together popular but if we'd put two of us then it would have defeated the object of increasing capacity we couldn't get more tutors so um our aim was to uh to get just get more students joining who couldn't otherwise join um the in terms of what the students um did the Collaborate Screen was visible to the face-to-face participants and we made full use um sometimes not quite chaotically our initial of chat um these the face-to-face students could see the the chat on the screen they could see the uh online participants typing and drawing um uh we use breakouts so when when the face-to-face students went into uh breakout groups the online so went into small groups the breakout uh we use breakout groups for the online uh participants and we use polls screen sharing etc um we tried to um get the the campus-based students and the online participants together as much as possible using microphone and camera where we could um i'm not saying we did always did it that well but importantly uh we told the students that this was something we were trialing um and if they preferred not to attend these sessions they could go to face-to-face um sessions or just webinars if they preferred so um we invited students to give anonymous feedback after each session so um online for the participant the online participants did it um in the moodle feedback and the face-to-face actually did it in um on post-its um uh for a while which we collected and here are some um some examples so many comments were from students who appeared to be london-based or relatively close um but who appreciated uh being able to attend uh the face-to-face session online so not having to come in okay um the second quote is from a student who attended a hybrid writing um session and seemed very pleased to be able to connect with other student writers and um that we also got some uh quite a lot of suggestions and particularly in relation to great breakout groups which we found quite heartening um you know could they be longer please um um that that was quite um common um even if they took a little while to get um to get going um uh excuse me um we had expected the face-to-face participants to be less satisfied but many were quite enthusiastic and had some additional suggestions um so for example um this one uh the first one um would have liked to have been able to join the um collaborate chat and use the other um collaborate uh sorry bstc should that black will collaborate interactive tools um as a face-to-face student so we didn't do that initially um and probably lack of administration and time to set that up but it's easily done and we think we would definitely do that next time um and a lot of online students mentioned the convenience of being able to attend um while doing something else even if it was just part of the session and they couldn't necessarily participate in ways that might have been expected so um what we found interesting was the patterns of engagement were becoming more complex um but arguably interesting and I think again David and Nathan have just referred to that um uh in in terms of what we what we consider attendance and um engagement so uh quite a lot of students seem to be engaging but you know I particularly liked the last one I thought that was great you know sorry but it was brilliant my baby stayed asleep for the whole two hours that that's why I couldn't talk or and I wasn't really able to to type much but I found it really useful so anyway so I probably shared the positive feedback but there were also um it's particularly initially um some some uh very helpful um suggestions but broadly it was quite um quite uh positive so excuse me um these are some of the uh the reflections that uh that that I have and that I've sort of thought that are worth discussing but I'm sure there are um many more so we'll be back on campus no earlier than January and then the academic writing centre will probably only get a classroom for half a day um if we get anything we may we may still be um working fully online we're not poor position provision so we don't um get priority which is you know fine as well um so we expect the ratio of when we do go back to the hybrid we expect the ratio of online and face-to-face attendances to uh to change and maybe in a good way so um and of course there where they'll continue to be more asynchronous provision that is uh what the university is suggesting but we still get quite a few requests and feedback um ongoing student feedback does suggest that they appreciate um synchronous um sessions too so we want to offer um both um in terms of developing and improving our hybrid workshops we've still got a lot to learn um you know particularly how to make them interactive and dialogic but not always chaotic um and I wonder what um considerations um you think we need to you know hear in order to improve that and perhaps you've got examples of good practice that we could learn from um a question that um was asked by some of my colleagues were you know how they're two cohorts I don't actually agree that they're two cohorts I think it's a new kind of cohort or perhaps several perhaps we can think about think of it differently but you know how how um uh how to um uh how to sort of join the the two the two excuse me uh two cohorts and you know I agree with um uh Jesse Stommel that it's not an easy mix or a straightforward mix so any ideas on that and and again um as was mentioned in the previous session you know complexity in engagement patterns so what do we um consider to be active participation um to what extent is it okay if people drop in and out etc um you know how do how do we manage that what should we expect so um looking at the time I think there is uh time for a breakout groups if that's okay um and I think it was agreed that I was going to set these up so if that's okay with people I'm gonna uh breakout groups here we go uh number of groups so there are 41 participants so if we go for eight eight groups uh randomly randomly assigned uh yep yeah I think it includes the moderators but I guess you can take yourselves out if you want to um so that'll be um so five minutes if that's okay everybody to discuss your experiences of hybrid your recommendations your suggestions anything that um you've got to share and so we'll come back in five minutes um abruptly if that if that's okay um so is that okay if I start that yeah thank you very much yeah we'll stop it after five minutes thank you hi there let me know if you need help getting people back hi Martin no um just for five minutes and I've randomly moved people around groups as well brilliant um sorry I hope that's okay that I came back to the main room um sorry yep not a problem at all yeah because I thought I'm kind of eavesdropping um yeah I noticed a lot of people left when we did the breakout group so maybe it wasn't the best idea I just thought I'll try it yeah um I my general experience of people as soon as you give the prospect of people actually having yeah okay they decided to drop it out but um um but I think it's in terms of interacting with the dimension I think it's actually a good thing so um I'm glad I came to sort of take it for you sorry I can't can't hear you very well actually but oh that might be my microphone yep you're a little bit muscly Martin okay so I think there's another two minutes on the breakout room is that okay I mean yeah I wonder if okay so some microphones are moving but not that many so I'm wondering whether to bring people back what do you think or is that um I think I just because we said yeah we said five minutes I think it's only it's only one minute short of what we said yeah you're right fine yeah that's all right yeah oh sorry are you agreeing to bring them back yeah yeah yeah okay I think everybody's back in the main room so um are there any questions or any any uh feedback um observations suggestions and and you know I'm quite happy for people to to take the microphone here if that's okay oh that's interesting a couple of people said needed longer uh yeah good point yeah if you do have any questions and we'd like to ask over the microphone if you raise your hand then we can activate your microphone for you or alternatively you can put them into the chat actually um interesting what um Sandra says about it being abrupt so that's something that um yeah it seems to happen it um unless we go into the different groups and say right we're we're bringing you back now so um so in the classes we'll sort of say well you will get transported back very abruptly abrupt is the word we use that's why um it's something that I sort of learned quite quickly was to to um ask the groups to time to time themselves and uh it was too short to make connections yeah sorry about that hopefully that can continue yeah yeah so so Sandra says maybe some of our on campus students did not want to learn online and this this hindered their adoption of hybrid yeah okay that's interesting about a nice thing about zoom is that there's a one minute reminder okay that's default great because we're getting zoom at UCL okay if there aren't any questions then um thank you very much for for joining and participating and um my email's address is there if you've got anything else that you want to suggest or ask me about thanks very much well thank you so much Louise if we could all give Louise a big round of applause um over our chat function that would be absolutely fantastic I really enjoyed that and like the interactivity as well so thank you so much for that presentation and of course uh our recordings um are on the resources page of the platform and the articulating all of the slides that you've been provided with from our presenters to put them on there as well um so that brings this session to a close um and the program now has a short break where you can go to the virtual cafe on your lunch if you would like to uh you can use a social bingo uh you can have a look at the participant directory all the jobs board and then we kick back off at three o'clock with a keynote from uh Bonnie's chip and Dave Cormier so once again thank you so much Louise and everybody um have a lovely rest of the summit