HYBRID EDUCATION – A CRITICAL REVIEW INTO CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Hybrid education is a complex combination of simultaneous face-to-face and online teaching. This model of teaching comes with a wide range of benefits, primarily being able to offer the same content to a wider audience. Hybrid education became an effective form of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these post pandemic years, the benefit of hybrid education can still be utilized, allowing for improved flexibility in teaching schedules, engaging students in interactive learning, bringing online students closer to the teacher and face-to-face students, and offering education to students who could not otherwise participate. However, with all the benefits of hybrid education, there are some significant challenges which restrict the implementation or hinder the full potential of hybrid education. Some key challenges are student engagement from the online students with the teacher as well as with other students, technological requirements, physical classroom set-up, education of the teachers, and time investment in re-structuring courses. In this article, we review the challenges of hybrid education, strategies to address these challenges focusing on implementation and effectiveness, as well as evaluating student feedback from students at Jönköping University that have been a part of hybrid education.