Bringing in-class online - A hybrid solution

Public education is in a crisis. Online courses have been proposed and debated among the UC regents, numerous college administrators, faculty, and students. On one hand, online education can reduce overhead while enrolling more students. Administration wants to enroll more students while incurring minimal overhead costs. However, simply translating the classroom lectures and materials to an online environment does not necessarily produce equivalent student performance and satisfaction from the course compared to an in-class environment. Since there is no standard in online education, it has produced erratic results in terms of student performance and costs to students as well as administration. A change in teaching and learning methodology by both teachers and students is required to take the most advantage from today's technology and apply it toward improving student performance and participation. This article presents tools and a methodology to provide a more individualized learning experience for students in large hybrid and online university courses while keeping overall costs and time commitment down as well as improve overall student performance.