Choice

A common approach to learning design is to be student-centred, and this is a popular idea in instructional design models. However, there is a difference between student-centred and learner-choice. The first focuses on the learning designer making decisions that they believe will facilitate an authentic student experience. On the other hand, learner choice firmly shifts the learning journey into the hands of the learner, with the learning designer needing to provide multiple and various opportunities for the learner. Fundamentally, the teacher/instructor must be willing to “let go” of a significant amount of control in the learning journey and trust the student to make choices that may differ from ones previously imagined by the designer/teacher/instructor.

When trust is evident between the learner and the designer/teacher/instructor, the learner will move confidently through their choices. Ultimately, they will develop the skills to navigate to the learning outcomes they need for the results they want. In some cases, students will say they don’t like choice, but this may be because they are unfamiliar with being given choice and autonomy in their learning experiences. In these instances, the student needs to be supported to explore the choices in a safe environment, where risk is considered a positive attribute. Once students have experienced the positive aspects of choice, they won’t want to return to being restricted in their learning experiences.

Underpinning HyFlex learning is the choice of learning mode (online, on-campus, asynchronous), but this can be extended to choice at all stages of the learning experience.

HyFlex learning and teaching provides for choice for all because:

• learners are given a choice about when, where and how they study
• learners are given various opportunities and means to interact with their peers, the content and the teacher
• the learning design provides equivalency of experience regardless of learning mode
• learning is presented through multiple modes of content and resources.

Choice in the context of HyFlex is about providing choices for the learner. For learners to have choices, they must have access to multiple resources, pathways, multimedia, and modes.

Typical examples of design for choice include:

• A simple shift from providing a list of topics to choose from (something that looks like student choice) to asking the learner to formulate a question to guide their research. The result is that the learner has more autonomy and still researches the discipline area. For this to happen successfully, the designer/teacher/instructor has an important support role in listening to the learner’s interests and helping develop a sense of inquiry.
• Encouraging personal preferences, for example one learner may prefer to watch a video and not read the text, while another might read the text and never watch the video. If they feel pressured to consume all of the provided content, the element of choice has been removed. They have true flexibility if they know they can achieve the learning outcomes by choosing which parts they engage with.
• Providing multiple ways the learner can explore content initiates flexibility. The concept of “redundancy” (see Reiser and Dempsey (2012), for example) is often cited as a reason not to provide multiple versions of the same idea or concept. However, in a HyFlex model,  it assures the learner is not “missing” part of the learning.

References

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (Eds.). (2012). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (p. 408). Pearson.