You likely have heard of a number of terms to refer to different types of modality – and the number of terms are ever expanding:

Face-to-face (F2F), blended, hybrid, flipped, e-learning, online, distributed, distance learning, virtual learning, remote teaching, multi-access, hyflex, blended synchronous, synchronous hybrid, asynchronous, bisynchronous, …. and so much more. What do they mean? How do they differ?

The one thing they have in common is that they all have to do with modality in education. Modality refers to how we communicate in terms of timing and location.

Face-to-face refers to classes that are on campus/in school. The timing is typically synchronous because everyone is engaged in a live conversation.

Blended or hybrid emerged and typically referred to the consecutive mixing on face-to-face portions and online portions.

Tech-enabled or tech-integrated is often used to refer to a face-to-face class that has technology embedded in some way, but often not reducing “instructional hours” to do so.

Online learning used to be synonymous with asynchronous learning, which means not “live” or happening at the same time, but as the internet speeds increased and the computers/laptops became more advanced, online started to mix asynchronous (forums, emails, blogs, etc.) with synchronous learning, which means happening live or at the same time, such as video conferencing. Other words commonly used for online learning include e-learning, distributed learning, distance education, etc.

As software and hardware became even more advanced, entire classrooms became video-enabled, allowing remote learners to come together synchronously (live) – thus MERGING face-to-face learners with online (remote) learners. Because blended refers to consecutive face-to-face and online modalities, new terms emerged to brand the merging of modes. Blended synchronous and synchronous hybrid refer to the synchronous merging of remote learners and F2F learners. Multi-access learning is a broader framework that includes F2F, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and also considers open access to include open learners (the public) for access to resources and/or discourse. HyFlex emerged to capture designs that allowed the learners to entirely choose their modality, which may be the same for some multi-access courses, many courses have designs which require participation in some components (e.g., a F2F required time at the beginning of the term and end, required participation in synchronous time (F2F or online), etc.).

Dr. Valerie Irvine released a Landscape on Merging Modalities article on October 25 in EDUCAUSE Review to help understand the terminology. It is recommended reading for learning more about the terminology above.