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Applying blended learning to your corporate training can have a ton of benefits. Not only does it have the potential to reduce corporate training costs, it can also improve learner comprehension and retention while also helping your instructors do their jobs more effectively. Not only that, blended learning provides greater autonomy to students and allows your business to offer better, timelier feedback.
But how do you successfully implement blended learning into your training program? That starts with knowing a few of the different methods. Today, we’ll be going over some of the top blended learning strategies — but first, we’ll briefly touch on what most types of blended learning strategies share in common.
The Anatomy of an Effective Blended Learning Strategy
The best blended learning strategies incorporate a mix of different instructional styles and modalities. This diversity helps to ensure that your training caters to multiple learning styles. Moreover, it’s easier to support multimodal learning, something that’s been shown to improve both retention and comprehension.
Another thing the top blended learning strategies have in common is their focus on personalization. Blended learning basically combines the best of both worlds, providing collaborative learning in the classroom and personalized learning paths online. With this in mind, we recommend making sure that whatever blended learning strategy you ultimately choose, personalization is a major focus.
Blended learning is, above all, about learner engagement. Focus on finding ways to make participants want to learn more, such as through achievements, leaderboards, or simulations.
With this in mind, it’s worthwhile to incorporate virtual learning technologies within the classroom. The idea is to add another layer of engagement and provide students with the opportunity for hands-on exploration. These interactive elements could be as simple as a smartphone app or as complex as immersive virtual reality.
The key is to find whatever approach best fits your training. Since no two corporate training initiatives are the same, you’ll need to think about several factors:
- Who are your learners? A training program targeting your IT department will look different from one intended solely for your sales team.
- What are you teaching? Is this a professional certification course, onboarding, or general skills development?
- What’s your timeframe? How quickly do you need your trainees to complete this course?
Exploring Blended Learning Strategies: Five Great Options
The Flipped Classroom
Also known as the flex model, the flipped classroom delivers most or all of the instructional content online and outside the classroom, typically through self-paced training. Learners are free to engage with training materials on their own schedule between classes. In-classroom instruction is largely devoted to collaborative learning, hands-on practice, and instructor assistance.
Students gain a deeper understanding of their training by exploring it with their peers while also having the freedom to learn however they’re most comfortable with outside of class.
Enriched Virtual Model
This model takes the flipped classroom a step further, shifting training almost entirely online with occasional face-to-face check-ins. Nearly all training material in the enriched virtual model is delivered through a digital learning platform or virtual lab, and scheduled classroom time is usually dedicated to workshops, hands-on activities, or in-person assessments. It offers many of the same benefits as the enriched virtual model, combining the flexibility of online learning with the engagement of in-person instruction.
Station Rotation
The station rotation learning strategy isn’t unique to blended learning — it’s been around in one form or another for quite some time. It works by dividing learners into groups and then setting each group up at a different ‘station,’ with each station focused on a specific modality or learning activity. After a set period of time, each group of learners moves to another station.
Blended learning incorporates online and virtual training tools into the station rotation model, introducing components such as hands-on scenarios, gamified challenges and assessments, and AI-driven brainstorming.
Online Collaboration
With this model, the course’s digital materials act as a supplement to in-person instruction. Although virtual content may be accessed in the classroom, it will largely be treated as supplementary. Outside the classroom, online discussions, group projects, and other collaborative activities will help learners connect with one another and develop a better understanding of the material.
Virtual Lab
With the virtual lab model, learning takes place completely online, typically through either a portal or a cloud-based platform. Usually employed when physical classrooms are either unnecessary or infeasible, it enables students to log in and learn from anywhere with an Internet connection. Virtual labs are also an excellent choice for any software-based training program which requires significant hands-on learning or features simulated elements.
What’s The Difference Between Blended and Hybrid Learning?
Now you know about some of the most effective blended learning strategies available to your business. Next, why not learn a bit more about how blended and hybrid learning relate to one another with our blog What is the Difference Between Hybrid and Blended Learning? Once you’re done that, you can also read a bit more about Online vs. Blended Learning.
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