The main goal of blended learning is to combine the best of online and traditional learning methods and provide learners with the best and most effective learning and training experience. There are many virtual training methods that you can easily combine with a traditional classroom to develop a learning culture in your company.
Such a culture can enhance your employees’ knowledge, skills, and performance, resulting in a more successful organization. According to some blended learning statistics, 73% of mentors said it helps increase learners’ engagement, while 76% say it can benefit learners.
Let’s see the top five business strategies for blended learning tools to ensure a delightful training and learning experience for both you and your employees.
1. Use a variety of instructional materials
Different employees have different learning preferences and styles. Therefore, the best way to make blended learning employee-centric and engaging is to use various learning resources and instructional materials.
This should include textbooks, documents, videos, audio files, presentations, group discussions, and everything else you can think of. For example, millennials prefer learning in a virtual environment, while baby boomers feel more comfortable in a traditional classroom setting.
Including a variety of materials can make your blended learning more engaging and exciting. Use your materials to diversify the everyday classroom activities:
- Start your lessons with an engaging activity
- Instruct your employees to focus on one topic at a time
- Lead a group discussion
- Create a related activity and break employees into groups to complete the activity
- Assign homework from your eBook or textbook
2. Deploy technology
Some topics are absorbed best by showing a video; some work best using the audio format. You can start by showing a video and engaging your learners to discuss the video online through blended learning tools or social media.
Collaborative tools, webinar solutions, virtual classrooms, LMS software are all perfect solutions to make information sharing seamless and ensure deeper learning. In addition, the use of the latest technology in your training sessions will help both your employees and instructors gain more control over learning and teaching.
Consider using the following online training tools:
- Online tools for authoring: Authoring tools are responsive, easy-to-use, and flexible enough to let you create courses, lessons, and tests. They help you get your learning material to your employees more effectively
- Learning management systems: LMS software is an excellent way to deliver blended learning by creating personalized learning sessions. LMS tools such as ProProfs enable users to create engaging online courses, organize employees into groups, measure learning performance, and more. Exploring advanced LMS features provides an avenue to further enhance the effectiveness of blended learning strategies, ensuring that training sessions are not only engaging but also meticulously tailored to meet diverse learning needs and outcomes.
- Production process tools: They help instructors create online learning courses that can be customized and personalized. They allow mentors to develop a training plan, conceptualize it with a structure, create a course, and start improving every aspect to ensure better delivery of knowledge
- Audio and screen recording tools: These tool help develop systematic training sessions with guides to useful resources for further learning. There are various online tutorials on how to screen record in windows and mac. You can use a third-party app or use the built-in tools in your operating system.
- Video and audio tools: If you have to capture audio/video for educational purposes, these tools can help you combine audio files with screen captures to improve communication with your learners.
- Graphic design tools: Sometimes, your learning lessons need additional graphic elements or further editing to match your learners’ needs better. Tools such as ProProfs are great for creating informative and custom-designed courses with presentations and infographics, and adding videos and images quickly and easily.
3. Make it mobile-friendly
Modern-day learners use various mobile devices that let them learn on the go regardless of where they are. If you want to improve the effectiveness of your blended learning, make your blended training sessions mobile-friendly to enable your employees to tap into the content any time, anywhere.
Such a high level of personalization and flexibility will increase learning participation and improve the completion rate. In addition, the mobile-friendly option helps deliver training through a distance learning method that also includes live virtual training.
Mobile learning provides certain benefits for both employees and employers:
- It enables all team members to receive the necessary training anytime, anywhere
- Mobile training is cost-efficient as it supports learners on smartphones
- Maximized learning and knowledge retention, minimal forgetting curve
- Ensures employee motivation as many mobile learning tools support the elements of gamification in training. In fact, 95% of employees find gamified training more interesting and engaging
To make blended learning mobile-friendly, you need blended learning software. These tools let you create a microlearning course design and optimize it for mobile to provide concise and clear insights into the training material.
4. Set smart goals
One of the essential aspects of blended learning is setting learning goals with your employees’ needs in mind. Setting learning objectives helps instructors motivate learners by providing guidance during training sessions. However, when it comes to defining your learning goals, they should match your company’s objectives.
Start by considering the following things:
- The purpose of your blended learning
- The main goal you wish to achieve with your training
- A way to measure the effort of your learners to meet the main goal
- The materials that will be included in the training
- How your training benefits your employees
- The time it takes to achieve the main goal of your training
Having clearly defined learning goals are essential for creating user-friendly, relevant, specific, and measurable blended learning programs. But, more importantly, it will allow you to keep the focus on the essential matters, making your training more engaging and accountable, thus increasing the chances of learning success.
5. Leverage assessment & reporting
One of the best things about using blended learning software is the ability to get insightful analytics and reports on learners. You need assessment and reporting to measure the performance of your learners, how they interact with the content, who’s taken a course, track both engagement and performance, and gather feedback.
In addition, the best blended learning tools allow instructors to create quick quizzes for further assessment, regular check-in meetings to go over the lessons learned, and get valuable insights. All this helps them evaluate retention and understanding and identify any potential issues in the training and learning process.
Such tools can also help mentors discover knowledge gaps and the main pain points of learners. LMS blended learning software also supports data visualizations used for auto-generated reports that are easily downloadable and shareable across the company departments.
Consultants, coaches, and instructors can rely on these advanced reports and assessments to make informed collective decisions.
Take advantage of blended learning
Blended learning is a valuable and effective teaching and training technique. It helps employees absorb information much faster and in a way that makes the knowledge stick with them.
More importantly, blended learning allows you to combine both offline and online learning and teaching methods to ensure you achieve your training goals. In addition, each employee gets the benefit of receiving learning materials according to their preferences.
A blended learning software solution, such as ProProfs LMS software, is an excellent tool to diversify your learning. Harness the power of the latest blended learning tools. Deliver knowledge across any channel your employees prefer and measure performance and engagement in the process.
