From the Academic Dean: What is Hybrid Learning?
Learning in a hybrid fashion is learning in a mixture of traditional classes (typically called on-ground courses) and on-line courses. There are multiple ways to run a hybrid program:
- An individual course can be hybrid where students meet on-ground a few times a semester while the remainder of the course is completed on-line.
- An individual course can be hybrid where students meet on-ground as many as half the typical number of times a course meets with alternating weeks on-line.
- A full program can be considered hybrid where some of the courses meet on-ground and other courses are completely on-line or some courses are a mixture of both.
- A full program can also be considered hybrid when most of the coursework is on-line for each individual course, but students have access to faculty seminars and lectures as needed (maybe one or two times a semester or year) throughout a full program.
The reason hybrid is not strictly defined at Northeastern University-Seattle is because we know faculty and colleges from the Boston-based campus will create the most suitable and academically appropriate format of hybrid for their particular class and program. While Northeastern will offer hybrid classes in many of their programs, some may remain as on-line only depending on program and professor preference. In addition, hybrid programs are preferred by students and hybrid programs have lower drop out rates than online-only offerings.
As an instructor of hybrid learning, I appreciate the flexibility and convenience of a hybrid program without any reduction in the quality of the course. Hybrid learning could quite possibly be the future of learning!