Hybrid?!

On objective level, I can understand that I could have gotten a lot out of the online elements of the class. I understand that in many of the blog posts I wrote I was able to actively link a lot of the concepts we had read/talked about in class to my own experiences/the real world in a way I simply wouldn’t have had time for in class. As well as this, it allowed me to adopt my own voice writing in a way that would be much harder in a more formal essay This appears to be the thrust of other hybrid classes (if University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s website is any indication), and I appreciate the ability to expand my learning in this way.

That being said, I still feel that the information and connections that really stuck with me was the stuff discussed in class. There I had to more actively wrack my brain for connections (which makes it stick more by virtue of the challenge, I think) as well as focus more on the arguments my peers were making (without which the conversation would die). I did get a lot out of the speech/analytical blog post I wrote, where I felt I was forced to completely pull apart a text, but that was challenge I didn’t get as much on other online assignments. However, the leisure I feel at home, researching stuff, takes away from a lot of the excitement I get going over stuff in class. At this point the hybrid still feels too split. If there was more of a merging of the atmosphere of an in class discussion and out of class research, I think I would feel more challenged.