Along with the vast growth of fully online education, a corresponding trend is the growing popularity of hybrid (or blended) courses and programs. OSU defines a hybrid course as one that includes both regularly scheduled on-site classroom meetings and significant online out-of-classroom components that replace regularly scheduled class meeting time.

The blended learning mix map from the Blended Learning Toolkit is a widely used tool to visualize a hybrid course under design or redesign. This simple template of two overlapping circles provides space to list online learning activities, face-to-face learning activities and possibly activities that occur in both learning environments. For example, discussions may be a regular course activity online, in class, or in both environments.

Much of the real value of developing a mix map is gained from drawing arrows to connect each element of the course to one or more other elements. For example, an arrow may show that course videos are linked to weekly quizzes that assess student mastery of the video content. Arrows can also be used to add information about the the pedagogical purpose behind the connection of elements as in a sample mix map from Univ. of Central Florida’s Kathie Holland.

Anthony Klotz, OSU assistant professor of business, illustrates 10 weeks of teaching-and-learning progression with his sample MGMT 453 mix map. He shows that discussion, review and Q&A take place throughout MGMT 453 both online and face-to-face. OSU’s Hybrid Learning website provides downloadable mix map templates and more sample mix maps.

If sketching out a mix map for a whole course seems daunting, then beginning with a mix map of a typical week of the course may be the place to start. A weekly mix map, as a representative chunk of the course may provide a conceptual template for many of the other weeks of the same course.

The mix map serves multiple purposes:

• It gives a snapshot of the balance between online and face-to-face components. For example, does the proposed mix map for your course seem to show a classroom course with some online supplements? Or does it show an online course with an occasional face-to-face check-in?
• The mix map is valuable to diagnose whether a hybrid course under design is actually a course and a half. Has a 4-credit course taken on the appearance and corresponding student workload of a 6-credit course? If you add a time estimate to each course element on the mix map (for instance, 2 hours to complete the weekly reading), what do all the activities in a week add up to?
• The connecting arrows are useful to assess whether the course elements are well integrated. Are the online and face-to-face learning activities deeply interwoven or will students perceive the hybrid course as two separate courses, one online and one in-class, running on parallel tracks?
• The mix map can be used as well to check alignment of learning activities with course learning outcomes or with more granular weekly learning objectives. Ask yourself, how do specific activities and the forms of assessment connected to them on the mix map align with your learning outcomes?

Consider using a mix map! Faculty developing blended courses frequently find that spending even 10-15 minutes sketching out their planned hybrid courses on these “magic circles” can lead to significant insights about course design.