Advantages Of Blended Learning

From: http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/Advantages-of-Blended-Learning/ Blended learning integrates—or blends—learning programs in different formats to achieve a common goal. Most often, blended learning programs integrate classroom and online programs. For example, a blended learning program might present prerequisite material through an asynchronous web-based program, then teach newer content of the curriculum in a classroom. But blended learning can also integrate materials in other formats. For example, a blended learning program might begin by presenting prerequisite material in an asynchronous online format, then present the next set of content through a virtual classroom. Rossett, Douglis, and Frazee (2003) observe that anything can be blended in blended learning, whether it be classroom and e-learning, two or more types of e-learning, or two or more types of off-line learning. They suggest that blended learning programs blend material presented from the traditional classroom, live virtual classroom, and asynchronous instruction (Rossett, Douglis, & Frazee, 2003).

Advantages That Blended Learning Offers

Blended learning has become popular among instructional designers for a variety of reasons, some curricular, some personal. Curricular Advantages of Blended Learning Writing in a report for Brandon-Hall.com, Marsh (2001) suggests the benefit of blended learning is that it takes the best from self-paced, instructor-led, distance, and classroom delivery to improve instruction. The report states that blended learning has the advantage of being able to overcome the fact that “most e-learning is boring, requiring greater discipline on the part of the student.” More specifically, blended learning offers these curricular advantages:

• Blended learning lets designers split off prerequisite material from the rest of a course. In classroom-only courses, learners must sit through this material, even if they have mastered it. By separating it and using the computer, designers can test learners in advance. Those who can demonstrate mastery of the prerequisite content can skip the online part and go directly to the classroom section. Those who are not familiar with the content can learn it at their leisure, without other learners nearby who already know the material and are visibly expressing their frustration with the novice learners. The computer has infinite patience with these novices. • Blended learning lets instructional designers separate rote content focusing on lower-order thinking skills, which can be easily taught online, from critical thinking skills, which many instructors feel more comfortable addressing in the classroom. (These skills can be taught online, but many instructors and students are more comfortable addressing them in a classroom.) For example, some companies have overhauled their management training programs to use an approach like this. The programs begin with online modules about management policies and procedures. These online materials include online lessons, use of online guides—such as policies and procedures guides—and study groups, comprised of other managers who are at relatively the same point in their positions. Once students demonstrate mastery of the basic policies and procedures, they continue with a classroom course, in which learners practice complex management situations, such as establishing performance plans, giving performance appraisals, and addressing performance challenges. The classroom segment uses role plays, case studies, and other discovery learning procedures that explore higherorder thinking about these policies and procedures in real-life management situations. Learners can have more meaningful conversations about these topics because they have developed a familiarity with basic management policies and procedures and have had time to integrate what they know into their thinking.

• Blended learning lets designers tailor learning content to the unique needs of different audience segments. In some instances, designers have a basic core of content that all target learners need, but different segments of that group apply that content differently. In an ideal situation, different learners would learn just the material they need. In a classroom, however, an instructor must teach everyone the unique material meant for just a few. For example, when teaching about a learning management system (LMS), everyone may need to learn about the purpose of the LMS and how to become a registered user. But LMS administrators also need to learn how to add courses and manage users’ accounts; training managers need to learn how to print and use reports from the system; instructional designers need to learn how to manage curricula through the LMS; and end users need to learn how to manage their learning plans. A blended curriculum might include a quick, live introduction to the LMS, followed by computerbased modules that teach the different audiences how to use the system in the appropriate way. • Blended learning can help reduce total training time and minimize time away from the job for training. Although many enterprises are committed to workplace learning, they face the practical reality of tight budgets and need for workers to quickly acquire new skills and knowledge. As a result, many training managers face pressure to minimize the time spent on training, both actual class time and time away from the workplace. Because of class-related travel, time away from the workplace can be as long (or longer) than the actual class (especially for a shorter classroom course taught in an inconvenient city). But some subjects are sufficiently complex that much of them must be covered in a classroom. However, some elements can still be taught online. Some instructors blend classroom and live virtual classroom (also called synchronous instruction), running some class sessions online, which lets workers take the courses at their workplace. Furthermore, these online sessions can be scheduled

at slow times, to minimize absence from work during high activity times. Training and performance improvement professionals strongly believe that blended learning provides for a more effective learning experience. For example, a 2003 study by The eLearning Guild, found that the top three reasons for using blended learning were • More effective than classroom alone (76.0 percent) • Higher learner value and impact; the effectiveness greater than for nonblended approaches (73.6 percent) • Learners like it (68.6 percent) These findings are consistent with those reported in a study by Thomson (2002). The Thomson study sought to determine whether there was a significant performance difference on real-world tasks among learners who received a blended learning solution, e-learning alone, and no training. The study also sought to determine whether there are significant differences in time to performance on real-world tasks among learners who received a blended learning solution, e-learning alone, or no training. The study found that learners who participated in a blended program (one that followed Thomson’s model for blended learning) performed 30 percent better than those who only took an e-learning program, and 159 percent better than those who received no training (the control group).

Personal Advantages of Blended Learning

In addition to these curricular advantages, blended learning offers a unique personal benefit to instructional designers—namely comfort. When e-learning hit the Internet in the late 1990s (to be technically precise, e-learning first emerged in the late 1960s but was called computer-based training until the Internet boom), many of its strongest proponents suggested that classroom learning was going to decline or disappear

altogether. To experienced classroom instructors and designers of classroom instruction, these e-learning advocates were essentially saying that they had become obsolete. Some of these people became resistant to e-learning, even though signs indicated that, after nearly three decades of “experimental” status, e-learning would finally become a significant part of corporate training and higher education. Blended learning offered a comfortable middle ground. On the one hand, it acknowledged that e-learning would play a significantly larger role in corporate learning and higher education programs. On the other hand, blended learning left a significant and meaningful role for classroom learning. Rather than addressing feelings of being displaced by computers, instructors could focus on meaningful ways to blend the learning experience, appropriately integrating computers where they make sense and providing classroom experiences when they felt computers could not appropriately teach the content.