Making sense of blended learning

The Authors

Martyn Sloman, Adviser: Learning, Training and Development at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development. His new book The Changing World of the Trainer was published by Butterworth Heinemann in April 2007.

Abstract

Purpose – This paper has the aim of considering blended learning in the global context.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach is to use research surveys supplemented by extensive case study interviews involving 19 countries

Findings – The paper finds that it seems beyond doubt that the concept of blended learning has arrived and is here to stay. However, if it is to add value to our understanding of effective training and learning the term needs to be considered in a broader context. It is not simply about delivery and technology. If the term blended learning is to have longevity in our trainer vocabulary we must extend its use beyond technology. It must be as much about varying learning methodology as it is about training delivery. We must understand more about what motivates learners, what support they need and how these supportive interventions can take place in practice. Only with this understanding can we get the “blend” right.

Practical implications – Emphasis needs to be shifted from technology to learning.

Originality/value – The paper includes a case study based on language training in India using a blended approach.

Article Type:

Viewpoint

Keyword(s):

E-learning; Learning; Training; Globalization; Modelling.

Journal:

Industrial and Commercial Training

Volume:

Number:

Year:

2007

pp:

315-318

Copyright ©

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

ISSN:

0019-7858

Periodically a term emerges in the world of training and development that seems to have something important to say. The new term appears to capture an insight and offer a new approach to a continuing problem. Historically the two terms that arrived with this sort of impact have been the “systematic training model” and the “learning organisation”. Both have come and gone – they are no longer the subject of prominent conferences or large numbers of articles which are catalogued on our journal base at the CIPD's library. Today's fashionable term is “blended learning” – more than anything else this seems to capture the mood of the time (or the zeitgeist, for those readers who are crossword addicts).

The emergence of such terms says something about the state of training and the role of the trainer. The rise and fall of a term should not be dismissed as mere faddism. However it is important that we get behind the sound bite and try to find out what is at stake – what does this new term tell us about the problems we have solved and those we have yet to consider? In this article we will undertake that exploration in respect of “blended learning”. First, to assist it is helpful to undertake a brief retrospective look at the “systematic training model” and at the “learning organisation”.

The systematic training model was a product of the 1960s and arrived across the Atlantic from the US military where it was known as the instructional systems design (ISD). Essentially the ISD/systematic training model sees the actions necessary to improve individual and team skills (and by implication the skills available to the organisation) as a series of sequential steps or interventions. These steps are: identify training needs, design training, deliver training and evaluate the training. When the term arrived it met an important need – to bring rigour and precision to a hitherto rather casual if worthwhile discipline. Its great merit is that it offered a framework for determining what is an effective training intervention. As learning and development in organisations became less trainer-centred and less defined by events in isolation so its limitations became apparent. It has however left an important legacy for the profession by making us think in a more systematic way about what we do.

The second term “learning organisation” achieved tremendous popularity following the publication, in 1990, of a book by the US commentator Peter Senge. In a complex and challenging volume Senge (1990) differentiated learning organisations from traditional controlling organisations. In the years following publication the concept of the learning organisation excited many practitioners, but interest in the term (though not the ideas behind it) has subsequently declined. In retrospect there was a lack of debate and agreement on the steps that should be taken to ground the concept and the climate that would be needed for a “learning organisation” (however defined) to flourish. Its strength was that it pointed the profession into a more holistic perspective in the place of learning and underlined its linkages with the other systems in the organisation. Its weakness was that it ignored the connection with the business model. Learning, training and development are derived activities; they take place as a consequence of business needs, not for their own sake. However, despite its drawbacks “learning organisation” has left an important footprint on our thinking.

Now we have blended learning. Its first appearance in 2001 could be seen as a response to the perceived failure of e-learning to achieve its potential. We realised that simply making e-learning modules available through the web and hoping that something would happen as a result would not work. Blended learning is seen as an approach to training design that involved a combination of delivery methods and in some cases learning methodologies. In particular blended learning suggests that e-learning will be most effective when it is part of an overall strategy involving the classroom and on-the-job workplace learning.

Now, as most trainers will recognise the idea of combining different methods of instruction has a long history. Readers may recall the following extract from Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. Mr Squeers, the proprietor of the Dotheboys Hall School, seems to be prepared to vary his approach to include different methods of delivery. He demonstrated his philosophy education to his new employee, Nickleby, in the following manner. Was he ahead of his time in recognising the value of blended learning?

Now then, where's the first boy?

“Please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlour window,” said the temporary head of the philosophical class.

“So he is, to be sure,” rejoined Squeers. “We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows this out of the book, he goes and does it. It's just the same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the second boy?”

“Please, sir, he's weeding the garden,” replied a small voice.

“To be sure,” said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. “So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge of plant, he goes and knows 'em. That's our system, Nickleby; what do you think of it?”

However, when technology is available to enhance the mix, blended learning becomes an attractive twenty-first century concept.

“… when technology is available to enhance the mix, blended learning becomes an attractive twenty-first century concept.”

One of the most thoughtful of writers on e-learning has been Professor Allison Russell of the University of San Diego. Writing with Rebecca Vaughan Frazee she defined blended learning as follows:

Blended learning integrates seemingly opposite approaches, such as formal learning, face-to-face and online experiences, directed paths and reliance on self-direction, and digital references and collegial connections, in order to achieve individual and organizational goals.

and identified three different models of blends.

An Anchor Blend starts with a defining and substantive classroom event, following by independent experiences that include interaction with online resources, structured workplace learning activities, online learning and reference, diagnostics, and assessments.

The Bookend Blend is characterised by a three-part experience: something introductory; an essential, substantive and meaty learning experience, online or F2F, [face to face] and then something that concludes and extends the learning into practice at work.

The Field Blend is most distinct from training-as-usual. It is employee-centric, with each individual surround by many kinds of assets and continuous choices about when and where and whether to reach for them.

It seems beyond doubt that the concept of blended learning has arrived and is here to stay. However, if it is to add value to our understanding of effective training and learning the term needs to be considered in a broader context. It is not simply about delivery and technology. A case study may assist – it concerns language training in India as is set out (see Box).

Although the application of English Edge can be presented as an e-learning case study, what is important is that the initiative took full account of the starting point of the learner and the context in which learning takes place. In short we must become more learner-centred in our thinking and approach.

This is the one of the major conclusions of a major new study of learning, training and development based on 58 case studies across 19 countries. Our conclusion was that the precise agenda must depend on the nature of the business; the role of the trainer (or people development professional) has become one of “Supporting, accelerating and directing learning interventions that meet organisational needs and are appropriate to the learner and the context.”

So, if the term blended learning is to have longevity in our trainer vocabulary we must extend its use beyond technology. It must be as much about varying learning methodology as it is about training delivery. We must understand more about what motivates learners, what support they need and how these supportive interventions can take place in practice. Only with this understanding can we get the “blend” right.

Box 1