Dynamic hybrid learning with Google: Do's & Don'ts

Teachers, IT admins and education leaders around the world are using Google products to reimagine teaching and learning. And for good reason: Google Workspace for Education presents a unique opportunity to do things differently: to engage students in new ways, and to inspire them to explore and create. In this blog, you’ll learn about the most useful Google tools for hybrid learning and how to best use them in and around your classroom.

Building an effective hybrid learning strategy

Hybrid learning is student-centered, differentiated and flexible. Building a student-centered strategy involves focusing on relevant, personalized learning that provides voice, choice and agency to learners. As a teacher, you become a guide or activator of learning rather than a transmitter, while your students become the co-designers of their own deep learning.

Your most important task, then, is to learn how to engage students wherever learning happens and how to facilitate open-ended learning to foster curiosity and creativity. You’ll need to reach beyond what was previously imaginable and shift the way you use digital technologies: from a means to deliver content to a means for collaboration, communication and connection. 

Indeed, a hybrid strategy isn’t about simply digitizing assignments and worksheets. It’s not substituting tech for paper and it’s not replicating the traditional school day in a hybrid environment. Rather, it’s about distilling a dynamic, ever-evolving learning mix out of all the (offline and online) possibilities that best serves students’ diverse needs. 

Sounds easier said than done? Don’t worry. We’ve listed some of our favorite examples of using Google to create a dynamic hybrid learning experience for you. Here’s how you do it – and how you don’t.

To sum up…

Hybrid learning is all about diversifying learning through engaging activities: activities that empower students to explore their interests and define their passions while applying newly acquired skills in meaningful ways. You can get the most out of a hybrid education setting by encouraging students to take charge of their learning.

Moving beyond the school walls, the school bell and a rigid curriculum is a dynamic practice. So, don’t expect everything to always go as planned. Do practice flexibility and innovate your teaching. And do start using digital technologies, not as a substitute, but as a means to drive deep, lifelong learning.

Learn more!

When school is anywhere, educators and students need powerful tools that work everywhere. Want to dive deeper into Google’s tools for hybrid learning and learn about the latest features in Google Workspace for Education? Watch the on-demand recording of Google for Education’s virtual event: The Anywhere School.

More on hybrid learning:

• Read more about the key challenges and benefits of hybrid learning: Making the switch: From distance learning to hybrid learning.
• For hands-on tips, guidelines and resources to kickstart your hybrid education strategy, check out our free Hybrid education strategies for educators white paper.