Your cart is currently empty!
What is Fleximode?
Flexible Modes of Teaching
Fleximode is MIT’s approach to blended learning. It gives students the flexibility to learn online, on-campus or a combination of both to suit their lifestyles and commitments. The purpose of Fleximode is to optimise the use of technology to enable students accessing their learning via various methods to leverage the same course content, learner networks and activities. Fleximode will allow MIT to reach new student markets as well as provide an even better learning experience for our on-campus students.
Fleximode has been developed to integrate online and face-to-face learning activities to complement, reinforce, and elaborate on one another, rather than regarding the online learning activities as add-ons or duplicates of face-to-face learning activities.
There are several components that make up the full Fleximode ecosystem and these include:
Creative Services
MIT’s Fleximode Studio was created in 2019 to convert on-campus course curriculum into digital assets to support online learning. The facility was designed with a high-quality, built-in Camera and Video Production Suite with green screens and soundproofing treatment.
Inside the Studio a team of passionate creatives design online resources called academic assets. These are products such as videos, interactive activities, voiceovers, animations, and more, that work alongside or replace course content to give students a more engaging and memorable learning experience online.
Live Delivery Services
Digital learning environments are a solution that enable rich, real-time, online or hybrid classes. The hybrid class model combines the face-to-face element of in-person teaching along with the flexibility of location. Students can be much more flexible around how they choose to attend the class – on-campus or remotely – while still getting the full experience of being inside a class.
MIT Hy-Flex Space
The Hy-Flex Space (MCA-210) is a purpose-built hybrid classroom with a range of technology to enable synchronous live-streamed classes with a mix of on-campus and remote students. The room can be set up in multiple modes and is flexible enough for most teaching techniques.
It has been designed to engage remote students, allowing them to fully participate in class discussions and breakout groups, ask questions of both the lecturer and peers, and see inside the classroom, not just be an observer.
Take a tour of the Hybrid room:
- Projector
- Camera one (class)
- Interactive whiteboard
- Document camera
- Control dock and PC
- Standard whiteboard
- Independent screen one
- Camera two (teacher)
- Independent screen two
- In-class speakers (remote students)
TechPark Hybrid Teaching
Hybrid classes don’t need to be limited to a specialised room or location. A project is underway for MIT’s TechPark campus to provide portable solutions for lecturers to deliver live-streamed classes in a range of environments, such as from under a car or at a building site.
The technology will provide remote students with a first-person-view (FPV) of the class and the ability to interact with their lecturer and classmates.
Teaching Technologies
Fleximode utilise a variety of teaching technologies to assist learning online and on-campus.
Canvas LMS
Online Learning Platform
Canvas remains MIT’s primary learning management system. It allows us to provide all course information and content, set up for easy submission of assignments, and create an engaging interface that makes learning an enjoyable two-way or multi-way process.
ePortfolios
Mahara – Electronic Student Portfolios
This is the system that a student can use to set their personal goals, track progress, and record achievements – which can then be exported as a digital CV. By creating their own LinkedIn profile, students can develop their online professional presence and build professional networks.
eProctoring
Deliver Secure Exams online
This is a remote solution designed to emulate traditional exam and assessment conditions. An online student would log-in to the system before starting an exam. The system will authenticate the student, lockdown the browser and files, record and video the session, and mark-up any anomalies identified for a post-session human review.
eSurveys
MyKoha – Open, Honest Feedback
In the same way we survey our on-campus students to determine their learning experience with us, we need to be able to extend this survey to our online students.
In addition to the functionality of an on-campus survey, an online survey will enable screen-responsive survey administration, tracking of engagement and targeted follow-up interventions, sophisticated aggregate analyses including demographic, security, and privacy protections.
Content Solutions
This is where the Fleximode Team works with the lecturer/teacher to transform their ideas and vision for the course into communication that will work for learners online.
One of the Fleximode design team will blend the course curriculum or content ideas and knowledge with best practice online learning design principles. They will consider the nature of the content (for example, how to convey technical knowledge, practical applications, and other learning components) and the subject (for example, what is suited to learning in a ‘subject’ like Nursing will differ from what is suited to learning in Plumbing) in this process. What comes out of this co-design collaboration between teaching staff and Fleximode designers are:
- a Content Brief (an accurate collection of information to support learning in the Canvas course), and
- a Delivery Calendar (what you can expect in terms of when the work will be completed, and steps along the way).