In the search for ways to engage students online, HyperDocs provide a way of facilitating independent learning while giving a structure to help them navigate new ideas. Jennifer Gonzalez explained the beauty of Hyperdocs in her ‘Cult of Pedagogy’ blog post “How HyperDocs Can Transform Your Teaching.” and explains, that although the term HyperDocs was coined by Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis, their work is one iteration of a series of ways educators have strived for more student agency in the classroom.
Currently, with more teachers and students working on online platforms and with the added challenge of distance learning, HyperDocs are an opportunity to, as Jennifer Gonzalez said, “transform your teaching.”
Getting Started
The first place to start is Hyperdocs.co. This site has a whole range of resources, templates and samples for you to use, for free. There is the option for a yearly or monthly fee to get professional development content, however, starting with the free content is more than enough to get you going.
Models of Learning
One of the clear advantages of using HyperDocs as a teaching tool is that you can choose the structure model that suits you, your students and the context that you teach in. Whether it’s SAMR, 5 Es or a Playlist model, HyperDocs can be adapted to suit your needs.
What has Worked For Me
Particularly through this period of distance teaching and learning, intense experience and student feedback has led me to a few things that have worked well.
Personalisation - Insert a mix of resources from external sources with videos and other multimedia that you have created. Students invest more when they can see your investment in their learning. I use Bitmojis, my own videos for demonstration and audio/ visual instruction.
Task Weighting - In some cases (not all) it can be helpful to align tasks with a mark or weight scheme so that students can prioritise their time. This weighting I found particularly helpful for Mathematics HyperDocs where students had to demonstrate their understanding as well as their reasoning.
GoogleApps Mash-Up - Having a variety of activities for students to engage with can help you to accommodate for the varied learning styles in the class. eg. Embedding Google Drawings, YouTube, Links to shared Google Docs and Forms. Hyperdocs aren’t limited to Google Docs either. Google Slides and Drawings are commonly used to package learning for students.
My Example
In my example, I have used the 5E model for the Hyperdoc. Watch the video below for a walk through of the Hyperdoc.
Written by Guest Writer - Ben Sandison