In 2020, King’s College London introduced HyFlex teaching as a means to supplement online and face-to-face teaching and to respond to Covid-19 restrictions. This enabled teaching to a mixed cohort of students (both online and on campus). This article provides an outline of how such an approach was conceptualized and implemented in a higher-education institution during an intense three-month period over that summer and prior to the limited re-opening of the university campus. This was a new approach that offers a number of pointers for reflection and provides key insights in on this novel learning environment and the physical and pedagogical contexts in which learning can occur. Technical implementation factors are detailed, along with both reflections on challenges and solutions. Pedagogical issues such as cognitive load, social presence, and resolving the issues of a cohort spread across two locations are discussed. While we should be mindful of the limitations of this relatively-specific research, and shouldn’t therefore over-extrapolate our findings, one key finding is that delivering Hyflex is associated with a higher cognitive load. Further, the audio quality of our implementation enhanced the feeling of presence in the learning environment. We recommend providing appropriate technical and pedagogical training, as well as audio-visual and digital education support.

This research investigates an innovative physical learning space in higher education, looking at its influence on student engagement. Employing a socio-material lens to analyse how educators co-constitute pedagogy and the available technology and spatial design, the study shows some examples of enhanced lecturer and student engagement, resulting from adjustments to the learning environment, based on most respondents’ survey responses. This was in part due to the capacity of the innovative learning environment to support active and problem-based learning activities, fostering inclusive, interactive, and collaborative student learning experiences. A mixed methods approach was used to understand the effects of changes to the setup of the learning environment. We find that both the lecturers and students believe that this novel space has positively influenced how they engage in class by using the space setup and the available technologies for interactive/collaborative learning. By understanding the socio-material dynamics shaping these environments, the research contributes to the advancement of strategies to improve and promote higher engagement in innovative learning settings and the findings, derived from the perspectives of both lecturers and students, offer insights that can inform practices in other higher education institutions.

Hybrid flexible learning is a mechanism for providing flexible learning to both online and on-campus students. Synchronous HyFlex teaching uses both technology and pedagogy to connect both groups within the same cohort. It is gaining popularity in higher educational institutions, but it also can create challenges associated with pedagogy, including technology, acoustics, and logistics. Finding solutions to these challenges is an organisational imperative for institutions aiming to address them. This article provides an overview of a mechanism for reviewing and problem solving as it relates to hybrid flexible teaching. A conceptual overview is detailed, building on previous literature; and experience from implementation, and rooted in a learning environments context, is described. The unique contribution of the study is demonstrated through the framework for resolving and understanding problems to provide solutions within the specific example of hybrid learning, which has not been analysed or considered in this way before. Example case studies are provided and considered, with an emphasis on practical real-world solutions (rooted in literature and evidence) that are likely to be useful to fellow practitioners.

The rise in online learning, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to greater use of synchronous hybrid learning (SHL) in higher education. SHL allows simultaneous teaching of in-person and online learners through videoconferencing tools. Previous studies have identified various benefits (e.g., flexibility) and challenges (e.g., student engagement) to SHL. Whilst systematic reviews have emerged on this topic, few studies have considered the experiences of staff. The aim of this review was threefold: (i) to better understand how staff experiences and perceptions are assessed, (ii) to understand staff experiences in terms of the benefits and challenges of SHL and (iii) to identify recommendations for effective teaching and learning using SHL. In line with the PRISMA guidance, we conducted a systematic review across four databases, identifying 14 studies for inclusion. Studies were conducted in nine different countries and covered a range of academic disciplines. Most studies adopted qualitative methods, with small sample sizes. Measures used were typically novel and unvalidated. Four themes were identified relating to (i) technology, (ii) redesigning teaching and learning, (iii) student engagement and (iv) staff workload. In terms of recommendations, ensuring adequate staff training and ongoing classroom support were considered essential. Additionally, active and collaborative learning were considered important to address issues with interactivity. Whilst these findings largely aligned with previous work, this review also identified limited reporting in research in this area, and future studies are needed to address this.

The coronavirus epidemic was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on the 11th of March 2020. Two days later, King’s College London enacted plans to encourage all staff and students to teach online. This created a unique opportunity to both review and assess how teaching has changed in this institutional context. This report provides an overview of what has been done in institutions more broadly, the reaction to online learning, and gives feedback from users and from other data sources on the perceived impact on teaching. This research is novel in that it is one of the first largely reflective narrative accounts of how, and in what manner, changes to digital higher education were conducted and perceived during the COVID-19 pandemic.