Southern Offers New Approach to Learning This Fall

Students will have a new way to learn with Hyflex classes this fall at Southern WV Community & Technical College.

Southern WV Community and Technical College will offer its students a choice in how they learn this fall.

Hyflex classes are a new approach to learning and will provide students with several options for their education.

Southern’s Chief Academic Officer, Bill Alderman, says this new approach to learning will give students more flexibility. Students can attend class via Zoom, go to the classroom for in-person learning, or take the entire course online.

“No matter your schedule, you may benefit from this modality,” Alderman says. “Whether you work, have family demands, or simply wish to try mixing and matching face-to-face and online, this modality provides it all. A HyFlex class makes class meetings and materials available so students can access them online, in person, during, or after class sessions. Regardless of the path taken, all students will achieve the same learning objectives.”

Hyflex is short for “hybrid flexible.” The hybrid part is familiar, thanks to COVID-19. It means the class is sometimes in person and others online. The flexible part introduces the concept of when it occurs. It allows students to participate at the specific time the class takes place or to catch the lesson on their own time.

The in-class part of a Hyflex class is the one we’re most familiar with because it’s what we’ve known as the norm for years. The class meets in a specified room at a set time for a specific duration.

Students who don’t attend class in person can join the class live from their devices, called remote synchronous learning.

Remote asynchronous is where Hyflex classes stand apart from traditional hybrid ones. Besides in-class and online class students, you also have a group that doesn’t attend the course at the specified time. These are asynchronous learners.

The HyFlex course design is built upon four fundamental values: Learner Choice, Equivalency, Reusability, and Accessibility, each with a corresponding guiding, or universal, principle for designers and instructors to follow.

This fall, Southern will offer Principles of Accounting 1, Speech Fundamentals, Intro to Health Care, Business Math, English Composition 2, English Literature before 1800, Computer Literacy, and Intro to College as Hyflex courses.

For more information on Hyflex classes, contact Bill Alderman, Chief Academic Officer
at or 304-896-7403.