Innovating the Hybrid Small Group Model in a Synchromodal Learning
Environment
William Cain
cainwil1@msu.edu
Sandra Sawaya
sawayasa@msu.edu
John Bell
johnbell@msu.edu
College of Education
Michigan State University
USA
Abstract: This best practices paper will discuss the process of refinements and adjustments made
by the instructional design team during the implementation of a Synchromodal Learning
Environment for multiple hybrid small group interactions and discussions. A synchromodal
design is one in which face-to-face and online students meet simultaneously with instructors for a
single, shared learning experience. This paper will briefly introduce the concept and role of
technology navigator (Tech Nav) and discuss in particular the technology support, pre-course
arrangements, and the pedagogical and technological considerations for design and
implementation that took place before, during, and after the completion of the course.
Introduction
Emerging and maturing technologies have given rise to new ways of conceptualizing and implementing
learning environments that merge the interactions of face-to-face and online students and instructors. This best
practices paper will discuss the process of refinements and adjustments made by the instructional design team during
the implementation of a Synchromodal Learning Environment for multiple hybrid small group interactions and
discussions. A synchromodal design is one in which face-to-face and online students meet simultaneously with
instructors for a single, shared learning experience.
The hybrid small group model is a synchromodal design in which small groups composed of a mixture of
face-to-face and online students (along with periodic visits by instructors) interact to present individual research
reports, discuss readings, and engage in constructive dialogues over key course concepts and issues. In addition, the
instructors periodically convene the entire class to communicate announcements, presentations, and brief lectures.
To support these two different kinds of learning interactions, the instructional design team conceptualized and
refined a unique configuration of technologies. This paper will discuss in particular the technology support, precourse arrangements, and the pedagogical and technological considerations for design and implementation that took
place before, during, and after the completion of the course.
We will briefly describe the content and mechanics of the course. We will then address the pre-course
discussions and arrangements that took place prior to its implementation, followed by descriptions of some of the
actual course sessions. This paper will conclude with a discussion of the lessons learned and where future
development of the hybrid small group model may be headed.
Course Design Challenge
CEPESE/COE Design Studio assisted in the design and implementation of the second half of the
Proseminar required for students in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology doctoral program at a
large Midwestern university in the United States. [Please note: for a full description of the institutional background
and educational context in which this course design took place, as well as the role of the CEPSE/COE Design Studio,
please refer to Sawaya, Bell, & Cain (2013).] The course is designed to give students a deeper introduction to the
main tenets of educational psychology while simultaneously exposing them to current theories, concepts, and topics
in educational technology. The course was scheduled for 16 weeks between January and May. Students were
required to address topics such as Learning Sciences, Instructional Systems, and Technology in Subject Matter
Learning on a week-by-week basis. Related readings were assigned for each topic, which could be found on the
main course website. Students were expected to do the assigned readings as well as prepare presentations and
research reports before they came to the whole class sessions. The whole class sessions were held every third week,
meeting for a total of 6 times during the semester. Two instructors were assigned to teach the course. The final
student enrollment consisted of seven face-to-face (f2f) students and 15 online students.
It should be noted that one of the instructors employed a similar course design for another class in the
program (Roseth, Akcaoglu, & Zellner, 2013). Two main distinctions about the course described here as compared
to that earlier are (a) the introduction of a second video conferencing platform and (b) the fact that the majority of
the students were online participants.
The course design was based on theories involving cooperative learning. The overall pedagogical intent of
the design was to provide students with as many opportunities and pathways for interaction and cooperation with
every other student in the course, thereby increasing students’ sense of content knowledge and facility both
individually and collectively. The instructors’ primary pedagogical strategy for the course called for students to be
organized into small, semester long base groups of three to four people. For each class session, students would first
gather in their base group, generally making small talk and trading related program experiences and information.
After a few minutes, the instructors would orientate the students on the topics and goals of the session. Students
would then be asked to move to different discussion groups to engage in a variety of exercises and activities,
including brief timed presentations and discussion sessions on specific content areas. Students usually moved to at
least two different discussion groups during the duration of a session before returning to their base groups at the end
for a wrap-up announcement from the instructors.
Supporting Small Group Interactions
The instructors for the course were interested in a course design that would allow students to move easily
between the series of small group discussions and presentations that would occur each session. As mentioned, there
were seven f2f students and 15 online students enrolled in this course. The synchromodal sessions of the course were
held every three weeks and would last for two hours.
The instructors chose to use Google Hangouts as the main audiovisual platform for hosting the small group
discussions. Google Hangouts is a free video conferencing platform that can support the video streams of up to ten
separate participants. It should be noted that separate Google accounts were created for each base group, since the
number of base groups would form the organizational structure for the number of Hangouts. The accounts were
named so that students would know which groups they were to participate in for that class session. Typical
instructions for moving between groups during a class session might be: “Everyone begin in your base group. After
about five minutes, look at the discussion schedule on the course website to find which discussion groups you will
be in today.”
Figure 1. Hybrid small group model for a
Synchromodal Learning Environment
The instructors also needed to make announcements, alert students when they needed to change discussions
groups, and deliver brief lectures to the class as a whole at certain points. Since Google Hangouts can only support
ten participants at a time, a second video platform – GoToMeeting – was proposed as a means of supporting these
whole class deliveries. Since a single device can only run one video conferencing platform at a time, online
participants were required to have two devices running simultaneously. One device, usually a laptop computer,
would host the interactions on Google Hangouts. The other device, an iPad, would host the interactions on
GoToMeeting. It should be noted that f2f students were not required to operate two separate devices since a large
display in the classroom would show the interactions on GoToMeeting for the entire class. A second classroom
device, an iPad mounted on a height-adjustable tripod, would be used to provide focused, close-up views for online
students of the instructors as they made announcements and delivered brief lectures.
The instructors and the CEPSE/COE Design Studio team understood that the transitions of the students
between discussion groups would be the most challenging aspect of the course design. The instructors wanted the
Google Hangouts to be anchored on devices within the f2f setting. This would allow instructors to keep track of
which Hangouts were active and who should be participating at each particular Hangout.
The instructors and the CEPSE/COE Design Studio team realized that online students would need
additional practice prior to the official start of the course in order to become familiar with the technology,
particularly with how to operate both video conferencing platforms simultaneously without becoming confused.
Accordingly, prior to the beginning of the course, the technology navigator or Tech Nav was responsible for
contacting all of the online participants in the course. He sent emails to each participant and scheduled one-on-one
meeting times over the course of a weekend in order to familiarize them with the particulars of using both Google
Hangouts and GoToMeeting. The Tech Nav encountered a range of technological literacy on the part of the students
and considered the familiarization sessions crucial to the pre-course orientation process. [Please note: for a full
description of the nature and responsibilities of the role of Tech Navs, please refer to Bell, Cain, & Sawaya (2013)]
The First Design Iteration
The original whole class session format called for students and instructors to meet in a specially equipped
room called the hybrid learning classroom. The dimensions of this room were approximately 16’ x 16’. This room is
equipped with a single SMART board, a 50” HD monitor, and 16 mobile node chairs - chairs on wheels with
mounted swivel tables. The tables on half of the node chairs had additional mounts to hold iPads for use during class.
In total, the technology requirements for the first iteration of the course design were as follows:
 A SMART board coupled with a Mac mini for computer and Internet capabilities
 GoToMeeting – a video conferencing platform that can support up to 24 participants, six of which can be
streaming video feeds
 One Logitech camera – mounted above the SMART board to stream a view of the entire classroom at an
elevated angle
 One iPad mounted on a height-adjustable tripod
 Seven node chairs equipped with iPads
 Seven separate Google+ accounts to give each iPad access to Google Hangouts, a video conferencing
platform
 Headphones for each f2f participant
 A splitter for each iPad that allowed multiple participants to hear the audio output for each iPad
 One Chat 160 omnidirectional microphone and speaker system
Figure 2: First design iteration of the hybrid small group
Synchromodal Learning Environment
As class began, particularly when students began their small group discussions, it soon became apparent
that the dimensions of the room were too small to comfortably support the volume of individual and group chatter.
Even when f2f participants moved to separate corners of the room to engage in discussion, the online participants
reported being able to hear noise and conversation in the background. This caused the f2f students to talk even
louder in order to be heard, which only increased the overall noise volume inside the room.
The Tech Nav also discovered that iPads did not support a Google Hangout if no one immediately joined.
In contrast, a laptop or desktop computer keeps a Hangout open, allowing participants to join and leave until the
organizer has ended a session. At the time this course design was implemented, iPads did not have the same
capability to leave a Hangout open; participants needed to join within minutes or the Hangout would simply fail to
initiate. If there was no one besides the organizer present in the Hangout, the Hangout would end.
The f2f participants also discovered that the iPads did not function well with the audio splitters that were
used when two f2f participants were in the same hangout and thus needed to hear the audio from the same iPad.
Some of the f2f participants used their own headphones to listen to the small group discussions yet a number of these
headphones were equipped with their own internal microphones. As a result, the iPads would only receive audio
input from one of the participants. This was not a problem if only one f2f participant was using a single iPad to
engage in the conversation; however, if more than one f2f participant was engaged in the Hangout hosted on that
iPad, the online participants could only hear the audio input from one of them.
The instructors and the Tech Nav met after class to discuss the various technological difficulties. Since this
course design was intended to be similar to a design that one of the instructors had successfully implemented
previously, it was decided that the new course should try to replicate aspects of the successful model. The instructors
and the Tech Nav decided it would be best to move the f2f location to a different, larger classroom equipped with
desktop iMacs that could host and hold open individual Google Hangouts, even during transitions when there was no
one in the Hangout.
The instructors were also very concerned about the quality of the audio interactions. The lead instructor felt
that the omnidirectional microphone used to channel audio input for the GoToMeeting platform was too sensitive; it
was picking up much of the background noise from the students and instructors during the small group discussions,
causing a sense of disruption. Students also expressed confusion because they could not decide which audio stream
was most important at any given moment. The lead instructor felt that, in the interest of clarity, the only audio input
everyone should hear during whole class announcements or lectures was the voice of the instructors themselves. It
was decided that future sessions should try to minimize any outside audio input during whole class announcements
and lectures that was not from the instructor – including those from the f2f students. This was a deliberate design
decision reached by the lead instructor and consistent with the overall pedagogical and learning strategies of the
course, mainly that most if not all of the learning processing would be done by students engaged in cooperative
learning contexts contained in the small group arrangements.
It should be noted again, however, that the student make-up of this course was not identical to the student
make-up in the successful course design the lead instructor had experienced. In the previous course, the majority of
students were gathered together in the f2f location, along with the instructor and two teaching assistants. In the
model under discussion here, the majority of students were online and not physically present in the classroom. It was
because the majority of students were not physically present, and because a single Google Hangout could only
support ten participants at a time, that the idea of a second audiovisual platform for whole class announcements and
discussion was introduced. The course design needed further refinement and innovation.
Changing the Room: the Second Iteration
When the next class was held, the class was held in the larger room equipped with eight separate iMac
desktop computers. The computers were arranged along the walls of the room with their screens facing roughly
towards the center. Each computer was assigned a number that matched the corresponding Google Hangout base
group. When the f2f students entered the room, they went to the desktop that corresponded to the number of their
base broup. They found the desktop was already hosting an open Google Hangout. The online participants not
physically present received a notification from Google Hangouts that sessions were already open. They were
responsible for joining the correct Hangouts, starting with their base groups and then logging out and logging in to
the correct small group discussion Hangouts as the situation required. All f2f students were issued headphones that
did not have internal microphones attached which allowed them to hear the conversations through their individual
headphones while using the computer’s internal microphone to converse.
Figure 3: Second design iteration of the hybrid small group model in a Synchromodal Learning Environment
This technology arrangement satisfied the instructors’ desire to have students begin class by catching up
with the members of their base groups and then making easy transitions between Hangouts for periods of small
group discussion. Online participants simply logged out of one group and logged into the next group. F2f
participants, however, had to physically move periodically from computer to computer in order to participate in the
correct small group discussion.
The instructors also made a point of moving between the small group Hangout discussions by physically
walking to the appropriate desktop computers. The instructors felt it was an important pedagogical strategy to
perform what they referred to as cognitive sampling within the small group discussions. In a purely f2f situation, it
would be relatively easy for each instructor to walk among the groups, listening to the quality of the conversations,
and adding input and instructor support when necessary. In the synchromodal design for this course, however, the
instructors would walk from computer to computer around the room carrying their headphones. When they wanted
to join a small group discussion, they would simply plug in the headphones and listen to the students as they
discussed the day’s concepts.
The decision to move to a larger classroom space was an effective solution to the matter of hosting seven
separate audiovisual small discussion groups in a single space at the same time, with the majority of the individuals
in those groups participating online from remote locations.
There was, however, still the matter of coordinating whole class announcements, alerts, and brief lectures
by the instructors. Accordingly, the instructors and the Tech Nav chose to add a second audiovisual platform,
GoToMeeting, to play this critical role in coordinating these activities. The size of the room, however, necessitated
certain changes to the original technology requirements and set-up. The adjusted technology requirements were:
 A SMART board coupled with a iMac desktop for computer and Internet capabilities that was also
connected to GoToMeeting
 Two Logitech cameras – one mounted above the SMART board to stream a view of the entire classroom at
an elevated angle; the other mounted on a tripod for a focused view of the instructors

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Seven iMac desktop computers
Seven separate Google+ accounts to give each iMac desktop computer access to Google Hangouts
Headphones for each f2f participant
A splitter for each iMac desktop that allowed multiple participants to hear the audio output in each Hangout
Two laptop computers, one to host the GoToMeeting session, the other to separately monitor the audio
connection on GoToMeeting and to keep Tech Nav notes
GoToMeeting was used (as in the first iteration) to convey the physical arrangement and presence of the f2f
participants to the online participants. As in the first iteration, a camera was mounted above the SMART board to
give online participants a view of the entire classroom. The new classroom, however, was substantially larger than
the original classroom. The single camera offered online students little opportunity to see the instructors’ faces with
any detail. Fortunately, the new classroom was also equipped with a second large screen at the far end of the
classroom. The Tech Nav utilized this screen to host GoToMeeting on his MacBook Pro laptop computer and project
the participant images there. He could also use the laptop to run a second camera, this time a Logitech camera with a
freestanding mount, to give an unobstructed and focused view of the instructors as they were speaking.
Changing the Audio: The Final Iteration
Supporting whole-class and instructor audio input and output configuration in the new classroom required
some additional refining and equipment adjustments. The instructors, acting on feedback from the online participants,
decided that the omnidirectional microphone and speaker unit used in the first iteration was too sensitive for the new
larger classroom. When the f2f participants were not close to the unit, the microphone would begin to pick up even
the smallest ambient noises and broadcast those out to the online participants, causing distractions. The Tech Nav
tried to compensate at first by turning the microphone on only when one of the instructors was speaking to the whole
class, and then muting the microphone the rest of the time.
The precise timing for this action ultimately proved too awkward to coordinate and the decision was made
to adopt a new audio solution: six separate wireless microphones stationed at each desktop computer. The addition
of the six wireless microphones coupled to each of the desktop computers in the room meant that the audio input
from the GoToMeeting audiovisual platform was no longer needed. Since almost all of the student interactions were
taking place in Google Hangouts on the desktops, and the instructors were now using microphones that fed directly
into those Hangouts, GoToMeeting as a second communication platform became unnecessary. GoToMeeting still
streamed the view from inside the classroom and the view of the instructors as they spoke; however, the audio the
online students heard from the instructors came through Google Hangouts.
Final Design Thoughts and the Role of the Tech Nav
The third design iteration was deemed by the instructors to be the most successful at supporting the
technological and pedagogical conditions they wanted from their particular vision for hybrid small group
interactions in a synchromodal design. All of the technological elements came together so that f2f and online
students could see and talk to one another, deliver short presentations, and participate in several small group
interactions and conversations throughout the two-hour class period.
As the instructors and the Tech Nav gained experience in how to manage the technological and pedagogical
aspects of the course design, it became easier to make adjustments to the configuration of all the different elements.
Different design ideas were exchanged both verbally and through email, and the instructors made a point to discuss
their impressions of each session with the Tech Nav at the end of class. It should be noted that by the sixth and final
class session for this particular hybrid small group model of a synchromodal learning environment, the Tech Nav
made sure to arrive at the classroom at least 90 minutes in advance to make the appropriate technology arrangements.
This set-up included: logging in on six desktops to all six of the Google accounts that would host Google Hangouts,
making sure the cameras showing the classroom and instructor views from GoToMeeting were positioned correctly,
opening GoToMeeting on two separate machines displaying images on two separate big screens, and pairing the
wireless microphones to each of the desktops hosting Google Hangouts.
Given the number of discussions and test runs prior to the implementation of the course design, and the
amount of expertise held by both the instructors and the Tech Nav, one might be concerned that three separate
iterations were needed for the model to become satisfactory. However, it is our opinion that the affordances of
synchromodal designs, and the willingness of both the students and the instructors to find better ways to work with
the complexity of the desired interactions in hybrid small group, made the experimentation of this course design
experience well worth the time and the effort.
References
Bell, J., Cain, W., Sawaya, S. (accepted). Introducing the role of a technology navigator in a synchromodal learning environment.
Best practice paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the World Conference on Educational Media and Technology
(EdMedia). Victoria, BC, Canada. Submitted: April, 2013.
Roseth, C., Akcaoglu, M., & Zellner, A. (2013). Blending synchronous face-to-face and computer-supported cooperative learning
in a hybrid doctoral seminar. TechTrends, 57(3), 54–59.
Sawaya, S., Bell, J., Cain, W. (accepted). Introducing the enhanced personal portal model in a synchromodal learning
environment. Best practice paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the World Conference on Educational Media and
Technology (EdMedia). Victoria, BC, Canada. Submitted: April, 2013.