Most in-classroom training was, of course, put completely on hold last year due to safety restrictions posed by the global pandemic. Organizations and training firms that weren’t high on the digital maturity scale already had to do some hard and fast turns to meet the needs of their learners and clients remotely. But merely shifting eight hours of in-person training to eight hours of video conferencing quickly proved ineffective, and there simply was no single answer, no silver bullet when it came to learning technologies.
So, many organizations turned to a blended learning approach that has now become the new normal in our pandemic world. But what is it, exactly? How did we get here, how do you do it well and why is it so effective that experts think it’s poised to take over corporate learning for the long haul?
Following, let’s dive into blended learning — or “the digital blend,” “the blend” — whatever you prefer to call it. In fact, a digital learning leader at a national restaurant chain says, “I think that pretty soon we won’t call it ‘blended learning’; it’ll just become ‘learning.’ You don’t call classroom instructor-led training ‘direct learning’ or ‘inquiry-based learning,’ we just call it teaching or learning. Blended learning is going to be synonymous with what learning is. And it can be a really cool experience for the learners.”
Modalities in blended learning
It used to be there was a discrete spectrum of different types of corporate training that were generally used separately, one at a time. They ranged from instructor-led and in-the-classroom learning to on-demand e-learning, collaborative online learning, virtual instructor-led training and more. You were likely to have high-stakes “human skills” training in the classroom, compliance training and discrete knowledge transfer via e-learning, and maybe if you were a global company some of your classroom-based training would be translated to VILT for globally dispersed audiences. In the past few years, cutting-edge companies have also turned to collaborative online learning, which allows for interactivity and classroom-level engagement but in an online and more self-paced format.
Now you can use aspects of all of these approaches at once: otherwise known as the digital blend. It’s not an either/or scenario for corporate training anymore; now it’s either/and. You can look closely at the pros and cons of each modality on the spectrum with the particular lens of your learning goals and corporate culture in mind and mix them up as they best fit your needs. This is especially true if you have a central platform from which you link to other tools, so the learner has a seamless experience.
There are numerous ways you can blend modalities and learner experiences. Here are a few examples of what a blend might look like:
- Collaborative online learning over a period of months with live virtual office hours every week.
- A digital training platform with context and self-paced content as well as links to e-learning courses on the LMS, with additional weekly webinars for Q&A.
- Pre-work on a learning platform with asynchronous discussion boards and applied learning assignments in between face-to-face virtual Zoom or Webex sessions, with post-work and feedback back on the platform.
Erik Williams, senior consultant for MDA Leadership Consulting, explains, “When I think of blended learning, to me that means that you’re being thoughtful and intentional in the types of methods or modalities that you’re going to use to create a learning experience. You’re not going to rely on just one particular methodology, but you’re thinking through what the right components are to make it engaging and relevant.”
Or, as Diane Burgess-Faber, senior vice president and chief learning and design strategist for Mandel Communications, puts it, “Why use only rotary phones when you have a 2021 smartphone in your pocket? The same applies to learning: Why use just one mode of learning when you have access to technologies that encourage the use of live, virtual and digital all in one experience?”
The pandemic changed the game
2020’s pivotal shifts due to the pandemic led to a rapid rise in the use of blended learning. As a senior learning leader at a national restaurant chain recalls, “The pandemic hit and it was like, boom, we need to reinvent the way we deliver our learning programs. It was like three years of work in two weeks. We went all-virtual at first when the pandemic hit — we just added a ‘V’ to the ILT, converting eight hours a day of ILT to eight hours a day of VILT — which of course was not an ideal experience, but it worked at that time because we were able to deliver our programs without a delay. Of course, this was not a great long-term approach, so we started looking at how to deliver a truly blended learning program.”
A lot of companies experienced a similar ride, from “normal” to VILT to searching for something better. Mike Esterday, CEO of Integrity Solutions, saw two waves of client requests in 2020: “Some clients immediately said, this can be a competitive advantage — while our competitors aren’t training, we’re going to train. For instance, our health care clients didn’t have access to see their physician customers, so it was a great time to train on virtual selling. Some companies thought early on that by the end of the summer, ‘this’ll all be over and we’ll be back in the classroom in no time,’ so a second wave of organizations in the fall said, ‘we’ve gotta do something, let’s try this blended thing.’ And it’s working for them as well.”
Williams says one of the beautiful things about blended learning that they have seen unfold over the past year is how it created a space for people to stay connected and learn together, “especially for something complex like leadership where nobody wants to, and no one should, define and work through leadership issues in a vacuum. So a blended learning approach can create a variety of spaces for people to connect, wrestle with a topic, and collaborate through that problem-solving and learning process.”
One of the exciting things about digital blends is organizations and training firms have a much larger toolkit to choose from than when they were limited to just one modality. And you can leverage each modality for its best aspects and circumvent their downsides — the “dip and dunk” forgetting curve of ILT is a thing of the past.
Williams explains that “learning in the flow” has been a big phrase the past couple years in their industry. “The flow of work has changed, and clients are having to think with a blended learning mindset — how can we utilize that meeting or interaction for applied learning, how can we get creative with the flow of work and take advantage of new technologies and blended approaches to meet people where they’re at now, and will continue to be?”
Differences in approach
“It’s not a 1-to-1 trade — meaning a one-hour module in an ILT class does not simply become one hour of e-learning or a one-hour Zoom session,” cautions the senior learning leader from the national restaurant chain. “We want our designers to dig deeper and pull apart the ILT module in a way that it might become something like a 15-minute VILT combined with a discussion board and a five-minute video, for example — and reassemble it in a way that it is all part of one cohesive experience for the learner. Prepare the learner for a live synchronous session with an asynchronous piece of content and then something else that supports them afterward, so you have a thematic experience throughout all pieces of the curriculum.”
Esterday says the skills for facilitators are transferable from in-the-classroom face-to-face learning, but there are some differences. “It’s so easy for it to become a mere presentation through technology, rather than a conversation or interaction,” he says. “So we teach our facilitators how to engage participants during the virtual sessions, how to use breakout groups effectively, ways to get learners to talk and be on camera — all important skills. Facilitators need to know how to reference and reinforce the asynchronous pre-work learners completed in the online learning platform.”
Williams’ company has expanded its instructor definitions for the blended learning space: “We have introduced an orchestrator role to connect the components of a blended learning experience. For example, a learning experience that takes place over four weeks will have one individual who is in the orchestrator role, pulling through all the red threads from assessments, coaching, feedback, the other faculty. A SME might show up for a module around strategy and lead some exercises, but it’s the orchestrator who will connect what they’re doing with the next facilitator who’s talking about talent development or change leadership. So this idea of having an orchestrator of learning, especially in blended learning with multiple components and voices, means there’s someone who can connect all the dots and create a seamless experience, which is more important than ever.”
Best practices
The restaurant chain senior learning leader advises, “We shared with our design teams that the blended experience should be treated no differently than the live ILT experience — the entire program. Trainers and facilitators should be prepared to engage with learners inside the digital experience as they would within the classroom, which makes the collaborative piece of blended learning so critical. You’re not simply throwing disjointed pieces of content out there, but you’re having conversations with participants as you would in a live classroom experience. Don’t look at blended learning components as stand-alone things. They’re all part of one cohesive experience. It’s about how you connect it all so that it doesn’t feel to the learner like a collection of one-off learning modules.”
However, Williams adds that not all professionals have increased their digital savvy. “So it’s not all wine and roses necessarily,” he says. “Learning leaders need to be savvy and not take that for granted quite yet — even
though we’ve been pushed off the cliff, there’s still a learning curve with new platforms. Some of the keys to success with blended learning are things we’ve always known to be true: manager involvement, the importance of engagement from leaders at all levels, variety. If I see a video in a learning experience from my CEO or my skip-level leader, I’m probably going to pay more attention because it’s a signal that my organization cares about my development here. And blended learning online makes capturing those sentiments from leaders much easier.”
And at the end of the day, as Williams puts it, “At the same time as you’re focusing on being human-centric for the end user, you have to ground any learning, included blended, in organizational context and business priorities.”
In conclusion
Blended learning works, and not just as a pandemic-era means of getting by. It appeals to the new “in the flow of work” means of learning that has arisen due to the increase in remote or remote-hybrid workplaces, and there’s no going back to just classroom-based one- or two-day trainings. Classroom will likely replace some of the VILT components of the blend, but it will remain a blend of synchronous and asynchronous, online and virtual and live, face to face and self-directed, and so on. As the restaurant chain digital learning leader enthuses, “It’s an exciting 10 years coming. Buckle up!”
