What is Blended Learning?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Blended Learning refers to a mixing of different learning environments. The phrase has many specific meanings based upon the context in which it is used. Blended learning gives learners and teachers a potential environment to learn and teach more effectively."

When we first heard the term "blended learning" - in the early 1990's - it was in the context of a training course we were developing for USWest, currently QWest, the telecommunications company headquartered in Denver, Colorado.  They had a world-class training department that ran the most efficient corporate training center we've ever seen.  But, that's another story.  Getting back to blended learning...They had a requirement that all courses (from outside vendors as well as internally developed ones) have at least three forms of media.  In other words, it wasn't acceptable to drone on for hours standing in front of a projector screen.  Our courses in Reliability Analysis methods, Statistical Process Control, and other analytical methods, contained a mix of overhead slides, flip charts (both pre-made and on-the-fly), and team exercises that involved "toys".  In the late 1990's, when Albany Analytical was doing Weibull Analysis for a large government organization, we bought up every balsa wood airplane from every hobby shop within 100 miles.

After a while, corporate training courses were expected to have "props" such as flying objects, catapulting balls, and team "simulations".  These all added to the learning experience and put the participants in a better state of mind for the more academic lessons.

At some point in the early 21^st century, blended learning became synonymous with mixing online learning with face-to-face.  Someone got the wrong idea that blended learning was another name for e-Learning.  The above definition is really the right definition...blended learning isn't a specific mix of any finite list of methods.  It is a blend of whatever methods are available and appropriate.  These methods include:

• Online, Face-to-Face, Offline (books, for instance)
• Synchronous (everyone doing something at the same time) or Asynchronous (self-paced, at any time)
• Multi-media usage (audio, video, props)
• Team or Individual efforts
• Teacher-involved or not
• Classroom, Lab, Field

It is fairly widely accepted that we all have a preferred learning style and most of us have a true aversion to one or more methods of knowledge transfer.  Some people absorb information better by listening; some prefer to read.  Others can't learn unless they actually do the task.  None of these methods is better than another.  To create truly effective training, we must include methods for each learning style for every critical topic...some lecture, some games, some hands-on, some team effort, some individual effort, some homework...these can all be accomplished using whatever technology is available.  Interaction online (through chats and forums) is still personal interaction.  Reading online is still a solitary activity. 

Blended Learning is the blend of methods to suit the learners, the topic, the learning objectives, and the constraints.