Course Content
Intro
This module aims to equip practitioners with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to facilitate hybrid sessions with stationary and remote participants at the same time in a variety of different contexts and settings. As was mentioned in a previous module hybrid learning offers plenty of benefits: more flexibility for teachers and users, accessibility for the various groups of potential learners, or affordability to enumerate the most important ones. At the same time facilitating workshops in a hybrid space can be challenging – in fact, the facilitator needs to conduct two parallel meetings – one for the face-to-face learners and one for an online group. It is worth underlining that hybrid spaces are not only about the technology that we use but also about communication between people, their behaviours, engagement, and motivation.
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SCOPE OF THE MODULE 2
Teams in Hybrid Spaces
This session aims to introduce you to team management in hybrid spaces. Safe Space: what is it? How to create a safe space in a hybrid environment? Informal communication – how to extend informal communication into hybrid spaces? How to integrate two ways of communication in hybrid spaces? How to transfer non-verbal communication in hybrid spaces?
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THEORETICAL PART
Safe spaces: how to create safe spaces in hybrid classrooms
Informal Communication – how to extend informal communication into hybrid spaces
Moderating Hybrid Activities
The aim of this module is to equip facilitators with the knowledge, competencies, and skills necessary to conduct hybrid meetings. In the previous module, you could learn about the importance of preparations and the power of communication. In this module, you will have to deal with three major challenges related to working in a hybrid space, such as maintaining motivation, engagement, and visibility.
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Moderating Hybrid Activities
Motivation
Engagement
Visibility
Monitoring Hybrid Collaboration
The aim of this module is to present the tools and good practices that will enable you to monitor activities and collaboration in the hybrid environment as well as create and read teams. It refers you to the previous modules and the content related to building and maintaining motivation and engagement. You will also get familiar with the term of the organizational culture which is the crucial element of the monitoring activities.
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Monitoring Hybrid Collaboration
Draft Lesson
Reading the Hybrid Room
What do we miss?
When teaching in a hybrid space, you will need to devote your attention to many different aspects and not lose sight of the main purpose of the meeting. This means that you may miss some important details.
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What do we miss?
Activities
Extra materials
Self-assessment
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9 questions to test your learning level
Engagement and teamwork in hybrid spaces

Motivation is a state of readiness to take and continue action, arousing energy within oneself and directing it towards achieving one’s goals. The level of motivation is an individual trait and does not remain constant – it initially rises to an optimum level before steadily declining. Keeping motivation at an even level within a team is a difficult thing to do. Keeping participants motivated in a hybrid space is already a real challenge. 

BARRIERS

Both groups experience distractions, which may include: 

  • other people talking to each other (in the case of the stationary group)
  • sounds of telephones (both groups) 
  • participants running late (both groups) 
  • participants not switching off their microphones when not speaking (online)
  • technology does not work (online)
  • one or the other group is left alone, “unattended” (both groups).

This can cause frustration and diminished motivation to act. It is worthwhile for the whole group to be aware of this and therefore avoid these behaviours. This requires more concentration but allows the whole team to save some time. 

At the same time, a group working online may experience a phenomenon known as ‘zoom fatigue’. This is the fatigue, worry, or burnout associated with the overuse of online communication platforms. Its origin can be due to several causes, including: 

  • seeing yourself
  • reduced mobility
  • intense eye contact at close range
  • increased cognitive intensity – the need to maintain a high level of concentration for long periods; 

Zoom fatigue term is linked to a decrease in energy and a weakening of motivation. To counteract this, remember to take short but regular breaks. It is worthwhile for the co-facilitator to monitor the situation in the online group on an ongoing basis. 

Example: Ukrainian schools have been working exclusively with remote groups for three years now. Each lesson lasts no longer than thirty minutes, followed by a break of a few minutes. 

It seems crucial to develop the right strong relationships between group members and also between the group and the instructor. The stronger the relationship, the less risk there is of someone breaking off notoriously and disorganising the whole group. It is also important to systematically develop good habits and reinforce desired attitudes. 

There are many tools that help to keep participants motivated. One of the most popular and effective  are games, which can combine educational (training) and entertainment objectives. An interesting tool in this context is the phenomenon of gamification. 

Gamification – the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts to engage people, motivate action, stimulate learning and problem-solving while achieving desired behaviours or other set objectives.

Example: mBank. The mBank Tower project was to combine a game set in the “real” interiors of the new head office with modern “e-learning” and thus design together with employees the optimal working model for them (stationary, remote, or maybe hybrid?). You will find dozens of games on the Internet for team-building and maintaining motivation. You will find some of them in the “Activities” section. 

Tips

How to motivate your team?

  • create a good atmosphere during the meeting 
  • be prepared – know your team, participants should feel that the meeting is effective and relevant to their experience, so that they can build on the results; 
  • set goals – attractive and measurable – e.g. if we tackle this sentence, we can finish earlier today; 
  • ensure that participants are treated equally, are listened to and have a sense of empowerment; 
  • remember to have a sense of humour and a positive attitude – they can help you out of many difficult situations; 
  • provide variety in tasks, use games. 
  • remember to provide feedback, participants should feel that their contribution to the meeting has a purpose and is needed to produce a joint outcome.

Find more tactics on how to motivate hybrid team here: 

https://elearningindustry.com/actionable-tactics-to-motivate-a-new-hybrid-team-now 

You will read about how to build trust and increase the involvement of individual team members in the next section.

 

ACTIVITIES

 

Activity #1 

Hybrid space – discover the Stinky Fish 

The Stinky Fish is a popular metaphor for issues your team fails to address. The longer everyone avoids conflict, the quicker it will rot. The Stinky Fish metaphor reminds us that unattended issues don’t magically vanish – they end up contaminating the entire team.

Ask the different cohorts (in-person groups and remote participants) to discuss separately what their anxieties and uncertainties about working in this new setting are.  At the meeting, collect these fears on a whiteboard; revisit the list at the end of the day: was it as bad as we feared? Or did we find ways to deal with risks for a productive and enjoyable time together? 

TIP: You can use a Miro template for this task. Here is the link: https://miro.com/miroverse/discover-the-stinky-fish/ 

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