Benefits and Drawbacks to Concurrent Instruction in K-12

As school district administrators explore how to best educate their students during the COVID-19 pandemic, some administrators have turned to a concurrent instruction model. Universities have used concurrent instruction (often known as HyFlex in a higher-education context) for years, but school districts rarely implemented the model prior to this year.  

District administrators across the nation implemented concurrent instruction this year

Although the precise number of school districts that currently use concurrent instruction remains unclear, EAB interviews find implementation fairly common across the country. For example, the following districts currently use—or plan to implement—concurrent instruction.

EAB identified significant drawbacks to concurrent instruction

While peer-reviewed research on the long-term effectiveness of K-12 concurrent instruction has yet to emerge, EAB’s interviews with dozens of district leaders and virtual learning research experts across the country revealed the following advantages and disadvantages to concurrent instruction.

Advantages

• Concurrent instruction prevents the need for additional staff. Under a concurrent instruction model, the same teachers can instruct both virtual and in-person students. EAB interviews indicate that many districts turn to concurrent instruction due to staffing constraints.
• Concurrent instruction permits greater flexibility. Students may attend class either at home or in-person without needing to switch teachers should they need to stay home for several weeks.

Disadvantages

• Virtual students find concurrent instruction disengaging. EAB interviews suggest that students receiving virtual instruction through a concurrent instruction model often feel disengaged. Oftentimes, teachers find it difficult to pay enough attention to both in-person and virtual students to engage both groups during a class. 
• Teachers find it difficult to manage students both virtually and in–person simultaneously. EAB interviews suggest that teachers struggle to manage the behavior of both virtual and in-person students at the same time.
• Consistent technological issues disrupt teaching. In Sarasota County School District (FL), teachers at the district note that dealing with constant technology issues (e.g., adjusting the camera, troubleshooting a student’s microphone) consistently disrupt teaching. Further, 77 percent of teachers at the district do not believe that concurrent instruction constitutes an effective instructional model, according to a survey completed by the district. Only six percent of Sarasota teachers believe that concurrent instruction constitutes an effective instructional model.
• Time-consuming logistics cut into planning time.Teachers at Pinellas County Schools(FL) find that administrative tasks required by concurrent instruction, such as responding to emails and technological set-up, prevent teachers from adequately preparing for lessons. Similarly, at Valparaiso Community Schools(IL), teachers emphasize that they do not have time toplan for both students learning in-person and virtually.

As a result, EAB rated the learning efficacy of concurrent instruction a C-. See the below graphic for how EAB rated other instructional models. Note that our ratings of the ‘A/B days’ and ‘A/B weeks’ models do not involve concurrent instruction. 

Hybrid instructional model ratings

Instead of concurrent instruction, assign teachers to instruct either virtually or in-person if feasible

Instead of using concurrent instruction, administrators may consider assigning individual teachers or specific periods for all teachers to dedicate to virtual instruction. Interviews with EAB partners illuminated how several partner districts plan to provide both virtual and in-person instruction for elementary and secondary school students:

Shift pedagogy to optimize concurrent instruction

If your district opts to use concurrent instruction, use the following practices gathered through EAB interviews to maximize the model’s effectiveness.

• Assign a student to monitor virtual students and chat feature. Since teachers cannot always pay full attention to both virtual and in-person students, assign a student to manage the videoconferencing platform’s chat feature. These students can raise virtual students’ questions to the teacher.
• Ensure teachers engage virtual student every few minutes. Virtual students often do not receive enough attention during concurrent instruction classes. Teachers should explicitly engage virtual students with a question or request every few minutes.
• Align teaching with student attention span. As a rule of thumb, add two to a student’s age to determine their attention span. For example, the attention span of a fifth grader should be around 12-13 minutes. Ensure lesson plans do not overstretch students’ attention spans—especially for virtual students.

Further, use the following key practices from Cornell University’s Center for Teaching and Learning,the Forbes article Optimizing Concurrent Classrooms,and the Inside Higher ED article 6 Tips for Teaching Online and In-Person Simultaneously to further maximize concurrent instruction’s effectiveness.

• Employ interactive polls (e.g., polls that go beyond a multiple-choice response) so in-person students can interact with virtual student responses and vice versa.
• Divide students into groups often and give groups a specific task. Use Zoom breakout rooms for virtual students to ensure they can communicate clearly with each other. Assigning a specific task that groups must complete will help both in-person and virtual groups remain engaged.
• Encourage teachers to repeat each student question or comment out loud to ensure both virtual and in-person students can hear and understand other students’ questions. Also, students should verbally share comments and well as write them in a virtual chat.

Next, see EAB’s graphic below for how we recommend teachers deliver various learning experiences in different instructional models. For example, if your district plans to implement concurrent instruction, EAB recommends teachers introduce new content during both asynchronous and synchronous remote instructional time.

Lastly, for best practices in virtual instruction, see EAB’s list of resources below.

Next, check-out our virtual instruction checklist for K-12 educators, which contains over 20 virtual teaching strategies that improve student learning outcomes for.