Learning was once a limited two-way street. The process involved a brick-and-mortar institution, and a teacher with whom to only collaborate with in-person. Plus, the stationery and coursework had to be lugged around.

The introduction of online learning was a significant breakthrough. And many years down the line, blended or hybrid learning methods are fundamental in today’s device-centric and connected economy.

What is it?

Blended or hybrid learning represents a training model that combines both traditional (the classroom) and modern methods (delivering coursework using online channels).

What is important to note is that both approaches are useful and come with good advantages between them. As a result, blended learning represents a model that embraces technology in order to boost learning outcomes and essentially, to influence business results.

What are the benefits of blended learning for your organisation?

Cost efficiency

With blended learning, you can recuperate funds/costs that come with traditional learning, and boost the return on investment. It’s also a good way to avoid logistical headaches; it makes it easier to stay organised and be in-step with the coursework, even when the team cannot manage to attend the same venue.

The combination of the two modes of learning also allows for asynchronous learning. Asynchronous learning doesn’t require real-time interaction. The coursework is available online for the team to access when it aligns with their calendars. Projects are largely dictated by deadlines.

So, when it comes to your organisational learning efforts, a blended learning model offers you a good balance of both formats.

What’s more: it eliminates the necessity for high travel costs in order to get your team skilled up. It also helps the students effortlessly incorporate their learning and still manage to attend to their actual work responsibilities.

Tailored education

In order to decide on a learning format that perfectly fits your professional educational needs, it’s important to ask these strategic questions:

1. What kind of learners do you have in your business?
2. Are they self-starters and reserved, or are they sociable and can easily collaborate across the organisation?
3. Do they thrive under constant communication and supervision, or do they work better when left to their devices?

The reason is that people learn, study and retain information in different ways. Augmenting classroom teaching with online learning enables the team members to learn at their own pace. That boosts the overall learning outcomes, level of expertise within the team, and information retention—it further validates the investment.

With a blended approach, learners receive personalised support from an online instructor. It’s important to remember that not all the people in the team will thrive in live training sessions, and vice-versa.

Quick feedback

Traditional learning methods, implemented on their own, can hinder immediate feedback. The administration work that needs to be carried out by the teacher ends up consuming ample time; that time can be better used to work with and accelerate students who may need help through personalised interactions.

Blended learning empowers the students to complete assignments and exams online, and receive immediate feedback using immediate grading.

A hybrid learning strategy makes traditional training that much more valuable. Students can complete their work individually, and they can come to the live classes with the same level of information. This ensures that more time can be provided for valuable class discussions and practical application of the knowledge gained from the program.

Facilitation of big groups and classes

Blended learning helps with the facilitation of large audiences. The method doesn’t rely on the instructor’s consistent presence to facilitate the curriculum. And in the event that there are many students enrolled for a single course (example: students from all the seven regional offices of the organisation across South Africa), it’s easy to switch to online learning mode.

With that said, it’s also sensible to consider that there are learning topics that are difficult to precisely deliver using online training. Those subjects often require nuance and real-world communication. Example: Presentation and people skills.

To work effectively with large groups, you can publish relevant portions of your syllabus within a learning management system. The team can learn the concepts on their own for a big picture view, and you can use the live sessions to drill deeper into the course details.

One of the key pillars within the Quarphix Universe is our training service. We offer digital learning that facilitates new ideas for corporate businesses, SETAs, and government institutions.

We have developed our training services for scale and security. Your team can learn anywhere, atanytime; and they deserve to make their learning progress without fear—we have the best in-class cyber security to protect your information.

We’ve also invested ample time and resources to convert copious amounts of the training material, and the associated value chain process into a digital system. Because our mission is to afford our clients—your organisation, your team—a first grade learning experience that is reliable, convenient, stimulating and relevant in the digital economy and beyond.

For more information, you can chat to us about your learning and business objectives, we’re happy to take you through our training catalogue.