Getting Started With Blended Learning!

Did you know? Up to 82% of employees prefer a blended learning environment over a traditional one. Blended learning, as the name suggests, is a combination of eLearning, instructor-led training, and performance support.

What is blended learning? Blended learning combines the best elements of both worlds: traditional face-to-face classroom training and high-tech online learning. You can engage all types of learners by covering all bases — those who learn best in a structured environment with face-to-face interaction with an instructor and those who learn best with semi-autonomous, computer-based instruction.

Your firm will likely have millennials who prefer digital learning and traditional learners; the blended process caters to both groups. Let’s now get into the details of blended learning, blended learning models, and best practices.

What Are the Upsides of Blended Learning?

During the last decade, teachers at higher and lower educational institutions have organically adopted blended learning as a valuable learning methodology in and out of the classroom. Fortunately, business education is catching up. Blended learning’s success is due to five primary advantages:

Taking Account of Everyone

Blended learning targets all types of learners, whether they like the traditional classroom, want to learn digitally, or prefer a combination of both. Blended learning uses a range of approaches to personalize content to the learner and curate it for the subject matter without the constraints of a classroom or an all-online course.

While not all face-to-face training can be converted to digital content, you can re-engineer current content for online distribution that compliments the existing training.

Feedback and Learning Trends

Blended learning combines online and offline technologies, enabling teachers to quickly incorporate the most up-to-date learning trends and modalities into their courses. For greater, data-packed insights into learner progress and achievement, instructors can leverage built-in reporting features in most LMS software products.

Learners benefit from blended learning because they may discuss, model, and practice their new abilities in a safe environment, rather than just seeing or hearing. Learners retain what they’ve learned by applying new knowledge soon after leaving the physical or virtual classroom.

Lowered Costs

Compared to eLearning development, in-person training may appear to be a cheaper alternative, but examine the actual cost of face-to-face sessions: Time away from the office, paying instructors, and flying in remote staff can all eat into the L&D budget. A hybrid eLearning method saves money on travel and may use it repeatedly, reducing teacher time.

Enhanced Engagement

In every meaning of the word, blended learning is an engaging experience. Learners practice online through various content mediums, each tailored to a specific learning style, to reinforce the offline teachings. Learners can connect with any information, practice what they’ve learned, and communicate with instructors and other learners at any time and on any device. The community experience keeps learners interested and provides teachers with information on their progress and areas that require additional attention.

Customization

The difficulty for global firms is to make learning universal, regardless of branch location. Language interpretation and travel are two more issues that can be readily addressed with blended eLearning, which provides training to all employees, whether they work in another nation or at home.

Individuals with a diverse reach are also diverse. Why should all learners be forced into the same training program if they have varying degrees of understanding and expertise? Blended eLearning takes a smorgasbord approach to train, enabling learners to take the initiative and decide how and when they interact with the information.

The ability to test out of a familiar topic or listen to the same audio several times ensures that each learner receives the necessary training (and want).

What Are the Different Blended Learning Models?

It’s nearly difficult to adapt the learning experience to suit every learner when you’re teaching a diverse group — or is it? A blended learning model can help you adapt your subject matter for time constraints, learning approaches, and even personal preferences, but putting one in place necessitates significant shifts in your training mindset.

Check out some of these blended learning options to see if they’ll work for you:

• Face-to-Face: Traditional instructor-led learning sessions are enhanced with technology to allow learners to set their own pace of learning. Role-playing, coaching, hands-on practice, and feedback are all advantages.
• Rotation: Learners rotate from one learning activity to another in a structured learning session led by an instructor or in a self-directed online environment. Learning stations, labs, and the flipped classroom are examples of how learners can practice a subject before attending face-to-face instruction.
• Online Lab: This blended learning paradigm occurs before, during, or after training and is digital, with little or no teacher interaction. Learners can use their mobile phones (mLearning), PCs, or tablets to access the content. This method engages learners and helps them remember what they’ve learned.
• Self-Blended Learning: Self-blended learning is extra content—webinars, white papers, industry blogs, or video tutorials—enabling self-motivated learners to explore further into a topic. To stimulate inquiry and growth, a robust LMS can combine multiple content sources into one system.
• Flex: The terms “flex learning” and “customized learning” are interchangeable. Learners control their learning path by accessing tools of learning integration in a Learning Management System (LMS) and choosing what they want to learn. The instructor is usually present to answer questions and act as a mentor.
• Gamification: Allowing learners to play is one of the most effective ways to motivate them! Learners feel a sense of competition and are more driven to explore the material on their own time when you use gameplay features such as points or levels.
• Online Driver: This blended learning methodology is entirely self-directed and takes place online. Learners can communicate with a teacher via chat, email, or a message board. It offers a flexible schedule and tailored learning but lacks the face-to-face connection that blended learning methods do. An LMS is the most effective way to enable users to direct their learning while still keeping track of their progress by watching videos and eventually participating in classroom discussions. You can use one of the existing learning management systems or have one customized expressly for your needs.

How Can You Deploy Blended Learning in Your Organization?

Blended learning is effective for covering a significant quantity of course material with independent and engaged learners. But how can you convince learners to take charge of their education? You may make the most of a combined at-home and in-class effort by incorporating best practices and blended learning concepts into the remainder of your curriculum.

Give a Thorough Explanation of the Framework

You may lose your learners from the start if they don’t grasp why you’re integrating independent and in-class study. Instead, spend some time explaining why you’ve chosen blended learning as your delivery technique. Perhaps you’d want to spend class time putting concepts into practice and engaging in discourse, or you’d prefer to appreciate how your learners learn at different speeds—and respect their time.

Include Activities

Attempt to be all-inclusive for varied employee groups: While some people prefer to learn by reading, others prefer to learn by doing. You cannot think of a one-size-fits-all approach to effective learning, but various activities such as group discussions, games, online quizzes, and even role-playing can help.

Embed Media

The internet is the most incredible potent learning instrument of all time, and you and your learners have it at your fingertips. When you could display an entertaining video instead of writing up a whiteboard question, it’s a no-brainer. Additionally, encourage learners to watch a film on their own time before returning to class the next day to answer discussion questions. Why tell your learners a fact when they may do their study and report back in class?

Alternatively, combine an online lesson with a short in-class presentation. When you allow the learners to apply what they’ve learned, they’re more likely to remember it.

Examine Content for Use in an Online Format

Make a list of all of your educational materials and determine which ones you want to migrate online.

• Determine what training materials are already available.
• Evaluate the content to see if the current content meets the learning objectives.
• Determine which elements need to be improved or updated for them to be online ready.
• Determine what new content will be needed to fill in gaps in existing content.

NOT the Technologies, but the Learning Objectives Should Guide Your Design

Using technology to attain the intended learning results is what blended learning is all about. Use the learning objectives as a road map to design your blended learning strategy, aligning the content, evaluations, and activities for the most optimal learning experience.

Rather than opting for the most cutting-edge technology, consider the function before selecting the form (the digital learning technique).

Go Micro

Utilize a curriculum of microlearning modules in your blended learning to accommodate the modern learner’s short attention spans, each dealing with one learning objective – short enough for learners to retain the material and use it to improve their work performance.

Formats for Microlearning

You may use Microlearning in a mixed learning strategy in the following ways:

• Pre-training: Use microlearning videos or case studies to introduce fundamental concepts.
• During training, use short instructional movies and infographics to supplement classroom sessions.
• After the training, provide performance assistance in micro-FAQ modules and ‘how to’ micro demos.

Ad: PlayAblo’s Enterprise-Grade Micro-Learning platform is built for millennial learners. Micro-Learning, along with assessments and gamification features, ensures learning outcome measurement along with sustained engagement.
Find out more and request a custom demo!

Use Rapid Authoring Tools

Rapid authoring software includes a media collection as well as ready-to-use templates. For the GUI, introductory slides, summary, evaluations, and more, there are standardized templates that you may use between courses. To match your needs, you can alter and reuse these templates.

Go for a Pilot

Use a trial run to evaluate the technology, instructions, content, activities, and user experience to identify issues before the final launch. Here are some pointers on how to get started with online learning:

• Determine how long the pilot will last.
• Choose an audience that represents the entire workforce for whom the training is being developed.
• Allow the sample group to test the course(s) in various places to understand the bandwidth and Internet connectivity that most learners will have.

Getting Started

Consider what your training provides and what you want the learner to learn by taking a step back. Because you’ve created instructor-led classes, you’re presumably already aware of this. Ask yourself, “Where are the problems?” with the help of your experience and the instructors.

Almost every trainer will admit that some portions of their programs are difficult for them and their learners. Consider dry, factual material like technical specifications, compliance data, or a complex series of actions that may require practice to grasp. This is your window of opportunity: what can you take from instructor-led sessions and turn into eLearning so that learners can learn and grow?

eLearning and instructor-led content are wonderful complements to each other, thanks to modern instructional design methodologies that have generated some unique and engaging ways of generating that assessment.

Instructor-led sessions benefit from converting some course content to eLearning because instructors can focus increasingly on applying knowledge or more complicated tasks. The “what” can be provided by eLearning, while the “how” can be supplied by instructor-led content.

We recommend utilizing a learning management system that includes the Tin Can (Experience) API to track offline and online training interventions. You may create a system that collects information from both instructor-led and online learning events, as well as a “report card” for each employee to track their learning interventions.

Conclusion

You’re all set to roll out your blended learning program! You’ve discovered the advantages of blended learning, as well as blended learning models, best practices, and real-world blended learning examples. Your learners will appreciate you providing them with learning that is tailored to their needs.

Ad: PlayAblo’s Enterprise-Grade Micro-Learning platform is built for millennial learners. Micro-Learning, along with assessments and gamification features, ensures learning outcome measurement along with sustained engagement.
Find out more and request a custom demo!