Is Hybrid Education a beneficial legacy in post-COVID-19?

Article originally published in Linkedin

Hybrid Education seems to have already become a reality within Brazilian education. But are we operating with it in the right way?

That is something to think about. To implement an educational model without research, without reasoning, and without reflection is practically to condemn students to lack of access to quality education and a better future.

In a way, this is how HE entered Brazil, because of the school lockdown due to COVID-19, a whole transformation that should occur gradually (or at least minimally planned), happened overnight.

We are still dealing with the impact of accelerated changes and a vast amount of experiments — some more promising than others.

However, it is already possible to reflect on some difficulties that have arisen, which need to be taken into account in order to exploit to the full the potential for change that now presents itself.

This is what I intend to explore in this article.

The Challenges of Hybrid Education

Is Hybrid Education really the new watchword? Is it a permanent change, or are we talking about a passing fad?

In fact, the hybrid teaching model has played the role of double-edged sword.

The model is certainly not a novelty. Distance learning is something that has existed since the mid-19th century — and e-assisted learning came to life in the 1970s, with the help of television. However, hybrid teaching as we discuss today appears in the late 1990s, with the popularization of the Internet.

Regardless of the model, the results have been positive all over the planet. In countries like the United States, the acceptance curve of the hybrid model was growing. In 2009, three million children were already being educated via the Internet, against 45,000 in 2000. Now, since the beginning of the pandemic, the search for the model has jumped exponentially. According to Google Trends, interest in the model has risen 100× in searches made on the site, especially between June and August.

Kindergarten, elementary, high school, and universities that already maintained the union of teaching and technology showed more competence during the adaptation process, both on the student’s as well as on the teacher’s side.

According to a study by Project Tomorrow, 17% of students saw as beneficial the possibility of receiving individualized attention from their teachers, through messages or private video calls.

On the other hand, the challenges are great, especially in the domestic and family context. Not all families are prepared to move into distance learning and have the necessary requirements, such as a mobile device, computer, and a good internet connection.

According to a 2018 survey by the Internet Committee Management in Brazil, 58% of our inhabitants did not have computers, while 33% did not have Internet.

In other words, broad access to this type of education is not yet a reality, however beneficial the practice may be. If adopted, we may be heading towards an excluding model of education.

However, this is exactly what the pandemic has forced on our educational system. In the meantime, there has been a lack of attention to the assistance of the students’ families, especially in relation to parents and guardians who have somewhat more limited resources.

Reconciling learning

It is necessary to think about solutions, because the advantages of hybrid education are significant. Online learning and Hybrid Teaching have the potential to make students more independent and self-motivated. For intensive and long-term studies, the virtual medium can act as a support tool that goes hand in hand with classroom instruction.

This means that it promotes the dreamed approach between children, families, caregivers and teachers, creating a new generation of students that sees more integration between home and school, re-founding that old saying: “The school is the extension of the house.”

Teachers and educators who have had to successfully adapt to new teaching techniques, embrace the innovative method and hardly think about giving it up, together with parents, caregivers and students who have come closer thanks to this innovative form of education.

At the school level, hybrid teaching needs to be truly integrated into the pedagogical project. It is composed not only of strategies that can complement the content learned in class or help students with their homework, but also of tools not yet fully used by schools.

Just think, for example, of the potential we have for psycho-pedagogues, coordinators, teachers, psychologists, and other specialists to have a more permanent contact with families, via online.

At the level of public policy, this effort needs to be integrated into public policies that enable access to infrastructure and quality electronic tools for the most needy students — this, however, without forgetting to take care of the traditional, face-to-face model of education.

Can we take advantage of this opportunity to refound education in Brazil once and for all? In a few years, we will find out.