Equity and inclusion in hybrid classrooms

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

I’ve had the unique opportunity to sit in one of the most fluid hybrid classes you may ever experience, taught by Professor Jutta herself—the powerhouse behind the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) and someone who has contributed to both the WCAG and AODA. With the pandemic pushing society to find technical and teaching method resolutions, Jutta built a hybrid experience I thought was too limiting and complex, where resolutions always felt like a shoo-in. Having taught hybrid, flex, and fully remote synchronized learning myself, I could not appreciate more the ease and fluidity with which Jutta, a woman now near retirement, navigated the class. A few colleagues have asked me to share what is being done differently and how a hybrid class can move toward inclusion. I’ve also had the unique opportunity to be immersed as a student and to experience firsthand and secondhand from my cohort how this hybrid class model is lacking, so I’ve included some solutions from other resources that may work. However, I have not tried it yet, but I’ve seen it modelled by other professors looking to build inclusion and equity in these hybrid spaces.

6 Tips for an Inclusive Hybrid Course Delivery

1. Camera’s for everyone.

In most hybrid classroom setups, there’s usually one camera, and one microphone the whole class uses. This makes it hard for online users to feel intimate with the class. It’s good to have, but not great. Instead, asking everyone to bring their laptops, or asking IT to bring in some cameras and iPads, to face a camera to each person in the room supports not only a closer connection to each student, but allows for lip reading as an option for those who are hard of hearing, and helps those with attention deficit order to focus on a face that’s speaking. When the teacher makes a joke, it’s so nice to see everyone laugh along with you—that sense of belonging is nurtured. I know, your first thought is some students will not want to turn on their cameras, and the option to turn them on and off the cameras should always be present throughout the entirety of the class. However, explaining the benefits to the class can give others a reason to leave it on, or at the very least turn it on when they speak to the class and turn it off while they are in listening mode. However, for those students who feel safer keeping the camera on, I would encourage them to update their profile photos at a minimum. This can be either a photo or, if that’s still not comfortable, I ask them to doodle, sketch or paint a portrait of themselves (as abstract or realistic as they wish) and post that as their profile photo as an exercise in individual expression. As for the microphone, in some spaces, the room microphone may be sufficient. In that case, those in the classroom would need to turn off their sound and mics. Otherwise, a conscious effort to turn on and off the mic when speaking will need to be practiced. It’s hard to remember at first, and there will be slip-ups, but after a few weeks, it will become second nature!

2. Big text and/or pre-uploaded slides.

Be mindful of students who only have a laptop to join the class—meaning they are viewing your slides alongside a gallery view, chat room view, and a window to take notes in, all on a 13” screen. This makes it really challenging to not only read small text on slides but make for hard screen capturing to take notes. The 12pt font won’t cut it in this case. You’ll have to opt for 14pt and 16pt or pre-upload all the slides before class so the students can toggle between screens to capture text.

3. Monitor the chat room.

Now, for whatever reason, MS Teams doesn’t allow for chat room monitoring while sharing a screen. The best thing to do instead is if you’ve created your deck in MS Powerpoint, you can click the Presentation Mode in that file so that you can see your deck with presenter notes AND monitor the chat at the same time. If all comes to fail, assign a student to monitor the chat. Ask them to raise their hands anytime a question or relevant comment comes up and they can speak up on behalf of whoever posted the comment. The teacher can then respond directly to the student who posted the question/comment. It’s important here to ask the student if they wish to continue to respond in the chat via the proxy of the student chat monitor. Keep in mind not all students are comfortable or able to speak up with their voices (and this can be on and off, not a static choice) so always providing the option to participate via chat and via student proxy is a wonderful way to practice inclusion.

4. Use the break-out rooms.

This one tops the list for many but is it done well? When the class is hybrid, there’s an inclination to group remote students together in their own smaller groups and the in-person students together in smaller groups. This could work sometimes, but it’s best to vary it up. Try to include some in-person students with remote. This provides for better classroom dynamics and great discussion opportunities and experiences. While it might get noisy in the room, allow students to leave to a hallway or participate via chat. This will also switch the dynamics a bit and provide the remote learners with an equitable space to speak up.

5. Group chatter falls.

There are two ways to do this and several reasons why they’re a great way to create inclusion in the class. Chatter falls are a great way to help students warm up to participating and a great transition exercise. When a class first begins, it sometimes takes a few minutes for some or many to transition to “I’m in class” mode, especially for those who are at home and there isn’t a physical space transition to get into this mode. A chatter fall provides a space to make that transition not only for the remote learners but also for those in person, as participating can be uncomfortable for those who are challenged with social anxiety. As I said, there are two ways to do this. The easiest way would be to ask the group a casual question, such as “What was the last show you watched and did you like it?”. Ask students to type their answers in the chat but not to press enter. Provide 1 minute for everyone to type in the text, then say “ENTER!”. This way, everyone’s answers come in at the same time. Scroll through and read each answer, and provide an emoji reaction to the comments (in MS Teams only). A should out to Professor Bryn Ludlow for sharing this wonderful inclusion practice. The second way to do this is to set up the chatter fall on Mentimeter.com. Thank you, Professor Maha Bali, for sharing this tool! You can use the Q&A tool to ask students an icebreaker question and the difference in using this tool is that answers are provided anonymously. Some students may feel uncomfortable sharing their experiences with their names attached to them. This is a wonderful way to engage those students to warm up to participating in the class.

6. Hand signals for clarity.

This little ditty is not limited to hybrid learning but can be applied to any lecture, presentation, or group facilitation. I learned this one from Stephanie Guico at a co-op workshop she had hosted at OCAD University. There are five hand signals in all to help support learning and understanding for students while the speaker is speaking: to signal a change in volume from the speaker move both hands are used to wave upwards or downwards, showing to lift or lower the speaker’s voice; to signal a repeat in something said, signal by rotating hands like a wheel in motion; to signal the speed or the pace of the speaker move hands apart to slow down, and closer together to speed up; lastly, to signal jargon being used, or language that the listeners don’t understand, use your pinky and write the letter “J” in the air and the speaker should define the word in question. Practicing these signals in your classroom will create understanding and a great learning experience.