How Blended Learning Changes What We Do
By Allison Rossett

ASTD’s 2005 State of the Industry report is positive about blended learning.

Though efficiency gains continued to be realized by e-learning itself, many BEST (entities winning ASTD awards) organizations attribute efficiency gains to the blending of e-learning with the other learning activities such as classroom instruction, and on-the-job coaching. One BEST organization reported that for one of its management training programs, blended learning with a substantial online component resulted in annual deployment cost savings of over $20 million.

The same study acknowledges the many ways that technology is currently being used, noting that an increasing amount of learning content is accessed as needed during job performance: "As learning becomes more integrated with work, the learning function’s activities and impact are becoming more transparent and integrated with other performance improvement strategies." In addition, the report notes an increase in self-paced, independent learning.

Thus, the climate is primed for blended learning. Impatient executives want key people interacting with customers or equipment, not instructors. Employees are road warriors who want development, information, and coaching when they need it—not when a centralized bureaucracy can schedule it. More employees work at home, far from training rooms and instructors, increasingly dependent on information and development that must occur far from company headquarters. And technology for employees grows more available, for critical access, tracking, and guidance.

Sounds like the best of all possible worlds, right?

Not so fast. Let’s look at blended learning, with an emphasis on what workforce learning professionals can do to convert this good idea into dependable results.

• What is blended learning?
• Why be keen on blending?
• What threatens blended learning?
• What’s a workforce learning professional to do?
• How do we get smarter about BL?

What is blended learning?

Blended learning integrates seemingly opposite approaches, such as formal and informal 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. (Rossett & Frazee, 2005)

From the executive’s perspective, blended learning is about improving performance and achieving business objectives as employees spend more time where they are most needed—at work. From the employees’ perspective, blending allows them to answer questions and meet needs at a time and place of their choosing.

But what about workforce learning people? For us, there is more of everything: assets, decisions, decision-makers, locations, reach, technology, freedom, and potential. That is, the potential both for positive and negative effects.

Blended programs vary in form. Some are free form and technology rich, best characterized as a smorgasbord of tasty resources. Managers, auditors, customer service reps, or teachers-in-training are encouraged to feast at will, 24/7. If all goes as it should, employees search, find, learn, and develop as they go about their work.

Other blends have more structure and less freedom. Typically anchored in the classroom, employees are oriented to the content—and to this new way of learning prior to returning to work. Upon their return to work, they may access synchronous and asynchronous e-learning experiences, knowledge bases, community, and coaching.

Assessments? Guidance? Instructors? Tracking? The intensity and amounts differ, with one program commencing with an online assessment, moving into the classroom and then returning to target continuing needs through online diagnostics. Another program, although primarily field-based and independent, might be directed by a mentor who monitors participation, nudges engagement and targets resources.

Before blended learning option, learning was more straightforward. Employees, supervisors, and the organization committed to a certain class at set time and place. It had a defined beginning, middle, and ending. However, for blended learning to contribute, employees with diverse skills and motivation must make good decisions during the ebb and flow of work.

• Do I use this e-learning module now, later, or perhaps not at all?
• Will I be active in my online community? Do I want to add an entry to the blog?
• Should I take this self-assessment and use it to point me to resources?
• Doesn’t seem that my supervisor wants me to do this while I’m at work…what do I do about that?
• Which class should I attend? Why attend any class at all when I’m so busy?
• I downloaded seven podcasts. Where do I start? How do I find time to listen to them?
• Do I want to read this book or the other one that my e-coach recommended?
• Can I get back to the office for the lunch chat with my team and manager?
• What is available to me in the databases, reference manuals, templates, and checklists to help answer this client’s question?

Why be keen on blended learning?

According to Kim and colleagues’ 2005 survey of 200 training professionals in the United States, respondents anticipated an increase in the use of blended learning in their organizations. That others are doing it is interesting, but not conclusive. What might blended learning do for you?

• Blended learning brings learning, information, and support to work. Instructors and managers have good reasons to worry about transfer when employees experience a dichotomy between learning and work. Will the skills and knowledge picked up in class in November help with leveraging the software in March? With blended learning, things are different. Got a question? You can look it up online. Got a problem? You chat with your e-coach or share it with an online community. Eager to hone skills in dealing with conflict? You can take a course, work with an e-coach, and use materials embedded in your Personal Information Manager to nudge new approaches. The American Management Association offers a blended learning approach that leverages convergence (Leonard, 2005).
• Blended learning promotes connections and conversations. Blended learning encourages the organization to extend lessons and conversations beyond the classroom and into the workplace through coaching, e-coaching, and online communities. A sales person who has learned about a new product can chat with more experienced colleagues attempting to bring that product to market. An executive can reach out for expert views from a trusted e-coach. Individual needs get met as experts coach you on your concerns, starkly different from teaching 15 or 20 in a classroom.
• Blended learning provides consistent and updated messages. Instructors are a great resource, but their messages can be idiosyncratic and their smarts and enthusiasm depart after class. Technology, on the other hand, lingers to deliver standardized messages, consistently, tirelessly, swiftly, repeatedly, patiently, around the globe. Online modules, knowledge bases, and archived presentations do not get jet lag.
• Blended learning capitalizes on the resident smarts in the organization. Blended learning presses people and organizations to find, store, stir, and share what they know. The knowledge management movement that disappointed some is enlisted as a key player in blended learning. A database might help sales people reuse parts of proposals. Far-flung hotel administrators can "ask the experts" through FAQs, email, phone calls, or live video streams. Employees may turn to their supervisors to practice a skill or explore an idea. Learning experiences are paired with knowledge available on demand.
• Blended learning improves performance and controls costs. Studies report increased cost-effectiveness (Graham, Allen & Ure, 2003), and increased productivity for those using a blended approach as opposed to e-learning alone (Thomson/NETg, 2003). Nelson (2005) and Bersin (2004) reported enhanced employee retention and reduced training time for blended approaches (Zenger & Uehlein, 2001). In addition, online resources can be easier and cheaper to update and distribute (Osguthorpe & Graham, 2003). The costs of real estate are reduced, as organization take lessons and messages to workers, no matter where they are (Conlin, 2006).

What threatens blended learning?

People do, of course.

Blended learning redefines roles. As we move from instructors in rooms to many kinds of assets out there where the work is performed, participation and results shift into the hands of employees and their managers.

Employees

Blended learning moves responsibility for learning from the instructor to the employee. For many, this is not an easy transition. They like what they know—classroom experiences led by instructors—and can be uncomfortable and not particularly adept at learning more independently and online. According to Brown (2001), "An important finding in the education literature is that many students given control over their own learning choose to terminate the experience before mastering the training task."

In a proprietary study conducted for a large government organization, we found that executives were most favorably disposed to blending. The employees, however, were less so. Table 1 encourages a dialogue between learning professionals and their workforce about readiness for blended learning.

Supervisors/Managers

Blended learning, because it often occurs in the workplace, depends on an active and supportive supervisor or manager. When blended learning is in place, managers and supervisors must coach, guide, track, motivate, and encourage. Not all are ready for this change.

For example, Shell EP used a ‘learning agreement’ between the learner and manager that detailed expected performance improvement to result from the course. While learners were pleased with the learning agreements they developed with their managers, managers were less enthusiastic. The researchers concluded that "it is necessary to identify additional tools and strategies to involve the line managers, to extend their role from ‘approving’ the participation in the course to being a full partner in the learning process," (Margaryan et al, 2004).

In a 2005 study conducted for the California Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) organization, we found that supervisors were not eager to welcome learning into the work environment. They prefer distinct events. "Supervisors expressed concern that on-the-job learning activities and mentoring would interfere with a detective’s effectiveness at work. They also recognized the value of networking with peers during classroom training and did not want their detectives to lose that," said POST instructional designer Sven Blomberg.

These finding suggest that participation by supervisors is by no means automatic. Table 2 presses managers and supervisors to examine their readiness for blended learning.

Instructors

In a blended learning system, instructor-led instruction is one way to teach, but certainly not the only way.

When a blend is in place, instructors do more than stand and deliver. Through online systems, they might monitor and nudge employees’ progress and persistence. Or they might update an e-learning module, deliver a synchronous class, record a podcast, moderate a discussion board, coach managers, offer feedback on a group or individual task, analyze workplace readiness, and post answers to frequently asked questions.

Instructors come to see themselves as more than instructors. Perhaps a good way to describe the change is from delivery in a set time and place to delivery of their expertise in many places and many ways. For some instructors, the play is the thing. They love to command the classroom. (This I understand very well.) Blended learning allows them to retain the stage, but expects that they will also propel their expertise and experience beyond four walls.

Executives

The executive’s role in blended learning is to assure a culture that is active, collaborative, and cross-functional, in which each employee, manager, and supervisor can be unabashedly dedicated to continuous learning and reference. Executives must lead the way in making the workplace a place for learning and all forms of inquisitiveness.

Ask executives to examine where they stand. Table 3 poses questions for line leaders.

What’s a workforce learning professional to do?

It isn’t just employees, supervisors, and executives who must change. Blending, of course, means changes for workforce learning professionals too. Some admit that these expectations are daunting.

Let’s look first at some obvious new expectations, such as acquisition, creation, and update of diverse assets. Next, there is the press to leverage technologies in many ways, including how to keep track of individual participation in experiences that happen everywhere, all the time.

Consider that blended learning involves orchestration of many programs, people, and relationships—not just classes. Before blended learning, a learning specialist might worry about three-ring binders. With a blended approach, attention moves to online assets, podcasts, diagnostic assessments, knowledge bases, and guidance systems, to name a few possibilities. Before, the focus was on learners and instructors. Where a training manager once worried about getting the right instructor scheduled into a room, now the concern is what the instructor thinks about their expertise, to her willingness to put wheels on that expertise and make it available in many ways. Now, attention is on more illusive forms of tracking and evaluation, in which technology is used to ask fewer, more frequent questions that gauge engagement, use, and usefulness.

And then there are those changes that are more subtle. Has the work environment changed? Can customers point to better services and products? Is the context rich with useful resources? Do employees answer questions for themselves? When employees cannot answer questions for themselves, do they go to appropriate resources? Do they contribute to those resources? Are the resources refreshed based on change and data? Are supervisors proud of the roles they are playing in development? Are successful, informal ways of learning spreading? Do employees continue to attend judiciously selected development events?

Table 4 poses questions that encourage workforce learning professionals to query their own readiness to leverage blended learning.

How do we get smarter about blended learning?

This article is a beginning. The movement to blended learning demands new commitments from us and others in our organization. As you can see, blended learning means more than adding some online pre-readings to a class.

Success will come when great systems combine with savvy understanding of needs in the field. Blended learning is about what people choose to do at work.

Habits will be broken. Successful employees will learn, seek and find continuously. Great supervisors will be in the middle of it all. Stellar workforce learning professionals will be influential planners, designers, developers, motivators, evaluators, and visionaries.

What kinds of assets are typical in a blend? Where does technology fit in? What forms do blends take and when would we use these different forms? What about blends for smaller groups of employees? For large numbers that are spread across the world? For employees who do not embrace the topic? How does blending alter familiar approaches to evaluation?

Allison Rossett, a member of ASTD’s Board of directors and professor of educational technology at San Diego State University, is the author of books and articles about workforce learning, technology, and performance improvement. Contact her at arossett@mail.sdsu.edu. 

A free, comprehensive White Paper about blending learning, authored by Allison and Rebecca Frazee, is available at www.amanet.org/blended.