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What is Blended Learning? Everything You Need To Know

How do you learn best?

You may be the type of person that needs to handwrite notes, ask a lot of questions on how something works, or maybe you’re a hands-on learner. There are many ways to learn, so how can a learning program cater to all of their learners’ learning styles?

This is where Blended Learning can help.

In this article, we will get back to the basics of blended learning, including what it is, why it’s popular, and what the advantages and disadvantages of blended learning are.

What is Blended Learning?

Blended Learning, also commonly known as Hybrid Learning or personalized learning, is a concept that brings together traditional and digital learning techniques to create a fully comprehensive program. It’s the best of both worlds that incorporates both synchronous and asynchronous styles and tools that are combined to create a training program that works for everyone. 

Some popular tools used for personalized learning programs include:

Read More: 10 Great Blended Learning Tools

Why is it Popular?

Blended Learning has become popular with learning and development because everyone learns differently; some people may want to engage face-to-face with others, while some may want to take their time to learn alone. Others may prefer to listen to a lecture. Everyone learns differently, and by creating a program that includes different modalities, you can be more inclusive to your learners.

Watch More: A Learner-Centered Model of Blended Learning

In addition to personalized learning opportunities, blended learning can be more cost-effective for an organization. When utilizing digital modalities, you can educate large groups of learners while saving money on facilitating brick-and-mortar location training. You can work around your learners and employee’s schedules when you use digital training in the workplace, therefore ensuring that their workload remains balanced.

Example of a Blended Learning Program

That definition seems pretty straightforward, but what does a blended learning program look like?

Your program can start with Instructor-Led Learning that allows the learners to meet the instructor and each other in one physical location. During that seminar, there can be a Virtual Reality activity that is done in smaller groups. Then, the learners can be assigned eLearning homework that is hosted on an LMS platform that can later be reviewed on a discussion forum or hosted video.

A learning program that combines traditional and digital learning techniques allows the instructional designer to build a more personalized learning experience that can lead to a higher retention rate.

Read More: How to Launch an eLearning Program

Pros and Cons of Blended Learning

Advantages:

  • Convenience – By utilizing digital learning in your program, it can be more convenient for learners to complete work on their own schedule wherever they feel comfortable. This convenience can also save you time and money throughout the lifetime of the learning program.
  • Increased Engagement – You can entice your learners to engage more in your program by catering to their learning language. A learner that doesn’t want to participate in role-play at a seminar may be more comfortable doing online activities to practice the curriculum.
  • Personalized Learning – When you have different modalities lined up, you can create a more personalized learning program, whether you assign eLearning modules based on departments or give options for online vs. in-person seminars.

Disadvantages:

  • Technology Troubleshooting – Whether it’s remembering your password or just getting to the right place, some people are not comfortable using technology. Your learners can run into technical problems that can cause them to stall and lower their retention rate.

Solution – You may not be able to avoid technical issues completely, especially user error, but you can help avoid them by providing how-to lists and comprehensive user manuals. 

  • Self-Pacing Requires Self-Discipline – When you have a self-paced eLearning platform, it may be challenging to motivate your learners to log in and finish their program. Discouragement can come with low performance and an instructor may not catch a low performing learner in time for corrections.

Solution – This can be helped by instituting deadlines, offering rewards, adding gamification, and using engaging content.

  • Learner Credibility – When you allow learners to work on their own, especially using online tools, you lose oversight to ensure they’re not plagiarizing or being untruthful about their work or assessments. 

Solution – This problem can be mediated by creating original content and assessments that the learners won’t be able to find online, and instituting anti-plagiarism checks on assignments.

Is Blended Learning Right for You?

We covered everything you need to know to get started with blended learning, including what blended learning is, an example of blended learning, and what the advantages and disadvantages of blended learning are. 

So now it’s time to ask, are ready to build a more personalized learning experience?

Is your learning and development program using Blended Learning? Comment below and share your experience!

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