Edition No. 10

Blending Learning: Developing the Right Mix for Your Company

People process and learn new information in many different ways. For more than 3,000 years teachers have searched for instructional techniques that maximize comprehension and enhance the learning experience. In today’s business environment, trainers are developing blended learning programs to achieve performance gains. A blended learning approach means combining traditional classroom training with web-based training (WBT) and other technologies, thereby offering the best of both worlds in learning. And with technology advances, training efforts can be leveraged both geographically and across various job categories to increase effectiveness.

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Developing Your Blended Learning Initiative

Blended learning primarily involves identifying the best way for the learning audience to achieve mastery and improve business performance. Developing your blended learning initiative can be a compromise between: 1) business and performance objectives; 2) the best way for a particular group of people to learn; 3) the various ways that materials can best be individualized, presented, and learned; 4) the available resources that support learning, training, business, and social activities; and 5) the ways to maximize capabilities for access, interaction, and social relationships.

Making informed decisions about how to manage and use the palette of available instructional resources such as classroom and online technologies (WBT, online meeting services, chat rooms, answer lines) to achieve business, performance, and instructional objectives is the goal of every trainer. These technologies also include data and performance measurement tools, which let you take a management system approach to training. The ability to capture metrics helps drive business efficiency and individual performance improvement.

Still, instructor led learning does have its advantages in certain situations. Training is a social process and face-to-face interaction between instructor and student is and will continue to be a vital part of learning. And there are certain hands-on motor skills, like operating a forklift or donning a respirator that cannot be completely mastered through technology-based learning alone. But WBT has so many advantages that it has become an essential ingredient in today’s blending learning approach to training.

Time and Cost-Efficient

The two primary advantages of Web-based training are its cost and time savings. Using technology to reach a multitude of audiences quickly and efficiently, without requiring travel offers a substantial cost savings. Typically, in any training program with predominately instructor-led classes, two thirds of the cost of the program is in attendee travel costs. Even though WBT may initially be more expensive to launch, the cost savings over time far outweighs start-up expenditures, many of which are one-time investments.

Time savings is also a major benefit. According to a recent study done by WR Hambrecht and Co., WBT cuts training time by between 25 and 60 percent. Employees not only learn faster via the web but they are able to put their newly acquired skills into practice more quickly. An additional benefit of WBT is that administrative time is drastically reduced. As classrooms offer more training online, the time spent registering, notifying, canceling, rescheduling, wait listing, and measuring results also decreases.

Web-Based Training is Ready When You Are

The communication infrastructure for WBT consists of backend, behind-the-scenes technology that allows you to administer the entire educational process, both technology-based and classroom-based efforts. A learning management system lets you enroll students, build curriculums, and issue reminders to track regulatory compliance with interval training deadlines. The system helps you test learners and evaluate and track competencies. It can analyze data in the aggregate, allowing you to assess an organization for fundamental understanding and identify training weaknesses. In addition, course-authoring tools allow for customization and communication of key, company-specific information. Technical features give you the ability to establish virtual classrooms while company Intranet sites can be used to quickly and consistently deliver a quality training experience.

Web-based Training can also deliver a much higher retention level. Students learn at their convenience and at a time during the day when they are the most alert and ready for a challenge. Because WBT can be just-in-time training, it is ready when you are. Also, students can go back over information if they want to review; this repetition boosts retention. Web-based training is less intimidating than classroom learning and doesn’t allow passive participants to hide, which can easily be done in a classroom setting. Peer pressure also lessens with online training.

Blended Learning Boosts Productivity

A blended learning approach can be a real boost to productivity, too. Employees can return to revenue-generating activities faster because they learn at their own pace and generally more quickly via the web. There’s no waiting for scheduled classes if they have the option to learn at their own individual speed online. By eliminating the travel associated with instructor-led training, employees spend less time traveling and more time on the job.

The Perfect Blend

Is there a perfect mix of blended learning? Not really, it depends on the audience, objectives, and company culture. The blended learning experience can range from an all technology program with limited classroom time to mostly classroom experience with limited technology. So what criteria should you consider to create the best blend? You should ask the following questions:

Does the approach improve learning outcomes and support the business objectives?
Is the blend appropriate for my audience?
Does the blend fit into the culture of my organization?
Do we have the resources to support the program over time?
Is the blend scalable?
Is the blend sustainable?
Most importantly, does this blend lead to the best combination of benefits and cost savings?

ESHconnect and EORM, Inc. will work together with you to develop an appropriate blend of instructor-led and Web-based training.

About EHSconnect

ESHconnect’s primary area of focus is knowledge management using technology to support activities associated with environment, health, safety, ergonomics, business continuity, emergency preparedness, regulatory compliance, social responsibility, business sustainability, and efforts associated with ISO 14001 and 18001. Visit ESHconnect's website for more information on their services or to explore the possibilities of a blended learning approach for your organization.

To learn more about blended learning programs that ESHconnect and EORM have partnered on, you may wish to view ESHconnect's case studies and blended learning presentation.

Recently at AIHce 2004, Glenn Fishler, EORM chief executive officer, and Rich DeLuca, EHSconnect’s vice president of Business and Product Development, hosted a Blended Learning breakfast seminar. To view their joint presentation, with accompanying audio track, click here.