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| Photo: Stephanie Morgan |
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| Photo: 3dsculptor/iStock |
Recent years have seen a rise in organisations reducing their use of face-to-face training in favour of a blended learning approach. However, Towards Maturity reports that only 22% of learning is delivered through fully blended solutions, and while this is has grown in recent years, there is still room for improvement.
At Bray Leino Learning, we believe blended learning is the answer to your prayers if you want fresh, focused, agile learning that focuses on performance. But what is stopping more organisations from taking the leap?
Myth #1: eLearning + face-to-face = blend
In the beginning, all we had in terms of delivery methods was classroom learning.
If you wanted to learn you had to book onto a course, possibly in a hotel somewhere. People had to take time away from their work, and to travel. It was expensive and inconvenient. It’s no surprise L&D got a bad rep with some people.
Then eLearning was born, and it was the best thing since sliced bread. Anything that could be made into eLearning, was. The natural next step was to combine these methods to get the benefits of each – and so, ‘blended learning’ was born.
Initially, when attempting to blend learning, many people thought: I’ll keep the classroom element, and incorporate some eLearning—hey presto, blended learning! Or is it?
Actually, this is the definition of a classroom sandwich—which is not true blended learning.
A classroom sandwich centres around a classroom session, rather than understanding what the most engaging delivery method would be. The knowledge element is pulled out of the classroom-based experience and delivered as pre-reading—often digitally or as eLearning—usually to make the classroom part quicker or less costly.
I have rarely seen this work!
However, when we design learning based on the key drivers of ‘making it digital’ and ‘reducing face-to-face’, we are often not considering the best, most desired, way to deliver the learning—so how can it be the best possible method if we’re limiting ourselves like this?
Myth #2: Face-to-face training is dead
People have been suggesting that time was up for face-to-face learning when eLearning came on the scene.
I disagree. I do, however, want to encourage L&D professionals to think about balance, and to employ methods that will best achieve the results they want—rather than starting with the method and hoping to 'solutioneer' the desired effect.
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Source: TrainingZone
