Four Tips: Transitioning Classroom Instruction to Blended Learning

Are you moving from an instructor-led environment to ablended learning approach? Consider these tips for beginning the process.

Start with WHY

What do you want to gain by moving instructor-led courses toa blended learning environment?

Some of the reasons for transitioning content frominstructor-led training to a blended approach may include: cost savings,efficiency gain, access to on-the-job (OJT) tools and information, and trainingreinforcement.

Prioritize

What could bring the biggest return on investment (ROI) toyour existing training programs?

One way to determine this is to examine your current instructor-ledtraining (ILT) course offerings and their budget and resource impact.

A good place to begin is to compare your ILT courses andidentify those that:

• Require more time from the training staff
• Use significantly more training facility space
• Incur more expenses (e.g., travel,accommodations, meals)
• Involve more attendees relative to other classes
• Impact a larger percentage of the employees atyour organization

This helps you determine where to focus and have the mostimpact.

When transitioning content to include a blended-learningapproach, this information helps you discover where you can have meaningful resultsand positively impact the experience and outcomes of learning for moreemployees.

Example: You are a learning and development manager for a financialinstitution. You review your course catalogs and department budget, and you discover:

• You have one training team staff memberdedicating 85 percent of their time supporting new-bank-teller training
• The teller training classes require the use of aroom in the central training facility space five days per class, tying up thespace for three weeks of every month
• The expenses associated with reimbursing oraccommodating the tellers during training is 60 percent of your total budget
• Tellers have a higher turnover rate than otherpositions (even though the turnover rate is comparable to that of otherinstitutions)
• Tellers are one of the largest consumers of yourdepartment’s course offerings

Based on this information, creating a blended learningapproach to new-teller training may yield cost savings, increased efficiencies,and additional facility space, as well as freeing up training staff time andbetter using team resources.

Involve your team

Offer support and encouragement to team members who will beresponsible for assisting in moving training content online. If they are theprimary content owner or instructor, try to reassure them that theirinvolvement and ownership is critical to a successful transition, and that youvalue their experience and support.

In many cases, the person (in this example, the trainer) incharge of the content and delivery of an instructor-led course is also thesubject matter expert. If they are reassured, and involved in the process, theycan be an ally in the transition. But overlooking their concerns, or notinvolving them in the decision-making, could compromise their trust andpotentially damage the project.

They may worry that moving some of the course material todifferent formats could make their role less valuable. Helping them understandhow their role may be different (and even more impactful) can mitigate theseconcerns before the project to transform the content is underway.

Decide WHAT to change

Start by reviewing your existing content, getting feedbackfrom subject matter experts, and digging deeper in class evaluations.

You don’t have to re-create all of the content or change itat one time. Instead, start small, determining what existing content might betransferable in a different way. Rather than replacing rich, context-drivenlearner experiences with dry, less engaging online content, consider takingsome of the material to create:

• Resource guides and handouts that can beaccessed online as OTJ training and reference materials
• Discussion boards and moderated chats or videoconferences to supplement the classroom experience
• Self-study and written material and knowledgechecks as pre-course work
• Interactive simulations and feedback

Applying a few of these approaches can help yougain some quick wins, get feedback, and adjust as needed. As you betterunderstand the reaction of your learners to blended learning, you can continueto adjust your training strategy and adapt to their needs.