Hybrid courses, which are also called blended courses, present many advantages to both the institution and to the students. In a hybrid course some time on the physical campus is replaced by time in the learning management system. At my institution it usually works out to be a 50-50 arrangement. The institution gains valuable classroom space to deal with a burgeoning student population. Students love the apparent reduced time in a classroom seat.
However, a conversation that I have had many times with my colleagues is that reduced time on the physical campus should not equate to reduced overall learning time. The online portion of the class is not equal to homework. The online portion of the class should include real learning. There should be—and this is not an all-inclusive list—activities, discussions, interactive exercises, group work, etc. Online students should expect multimedia, announcements, and feedback.
For students, real learning is not just reading from the text or from the web, nor is it simply posting an answer to an assignment, nor is it taking an online quiz, exam or other assessment. The online portion of the class should be as dynamic and lively as the on-ground portion. In other words, the online portion of a class should be a class.
If all you need is static, one-way content, if all you need is to post homework, then I would assert that a hybrid course is not what you need. Keep the students in class for the full number of credit hours and supplement those hours with the online support materials you would like.
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