The argument for blended learning

Following on from my posting last week, So what is blended learning?, which attempted to define a workable definition for blended learning, I have been trying to clarify in my own mind whether the issue is of any real importance. Is blended learning useful and, if so, in what circumstances?

The argument for blended learning is really very simple. Each of the most common approaches to learning and development has its own extensive array of advantages and disadvantages. Take the examples of face-to-face workshops, one-to-one coaching sessions and online self-study content - each is capable of contributing to the effectiveness of a learning intervention and of getting in the way. Each has its efficiencies and its inefficiences. In some situations, given the particular learning requirements, audience characteristics, practical constraints and opportunities, the disadvantages are not significant and can be lived with. In others, the compromise is too great and the solution is unsatisfactory - only a blend of approaches will achieve the learning effectiveness that you require, while making efficient use of available resources - time, budget, skills, tools, equipment, facilities, etc. So what are those situations?

A blended approach is most likely to be appropriate when:

The learning requirement is complex and multi-faceted: You are much less likely to blend if all your learning objectives are of a single class - knowledge, cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, psychomotor skills, attitude shifting, etc. Conversely, where your objectives are wide-ranging, it could be really hard to find a single approach that will cover them all. Take a typical training task, where you want someone to develop a skill and apply this on the job. This may involve conveying some background knowledge - facts, concepts, principles; it may demand that you demonstrate the skill in question; you may want to provide an opportunity for safe practice of the skill; the next step may be to support the learner in their first attempts to use the skill in a live situation. Chances are, you'll need a blend here as you move across the continuum from abstract to concrete, from theory to practice.

The learning need is sizeable and the intervention is therefore likely to be prolonged: Blending comes at a price administratively, so you’re less likely to create a blend for a one-hour intervention than you are for, say, a three-week induction/on-boarding programme. A blended solution will, almost by definition, offer more variety and therefore help to maintain interest.

The target audience is relatively heterogeneous in terms of their prior knowledge, motivation, preferences, metacognitive skills, etc: Blended solutions lend themselves to a modular architecture, providing learners with more flexibility to mix and match the elements that meet their needs. You can also design some redundancy into a blend, so elements overlap to some degree in the content they address, which allows learners some scope to concentrate on those elements which they find most helpful and/or most convenient in their particular circumstances. Blends can also be modified and extended while the intervention is in progress, to respond to problems and opportunities that arise.

So, not every situation requires a blend, but a sizeable proportion do. It would be fair to say that a great many current learning interventions are attempting the impossible because they employ a single social context (self-study, one-to-one, group) or broad media category (online, face-to-face, etc), when it clearly isn't versatile enough to do the job.