To successfully implement blended learning in the workplace, you must come up with some new concepts. Get some recommendations and examples of blended learning activities to add to your training strategy, ranging from learning challenges to group presentations.

Blended Learning Activity Inspiration

Blended learning is not a new theory, and its popularity is growing as more businesses incorporate some type of digital learning into their training efforts. Whether you’ve been using this teaching solution for ten years or are just getting it started in your organization, new techniques can help.

 In this post, we’ll discuss blended learning exercises that will assist you in developing an effective and interesting employee training program.

Why Should Employers Use Blended Learning for Employee Training?

To begin, let us define blended learning. Blended learning blends the advantages of traditional instructor-led instruction and self-paced internet training. Live instructor-led courses might take place in person or online via webinars or web conferencing technology.

A solid learning management system (LMS) will assist you in integrating the two sides of training into a single class. It will host the asynchronous online content and will send out reminders and links for upcoming live sessions.

Blended learning is an excellent solution for employee training because it is a training strategy that:

Allows for adaptability 

Online training may be rapidly modified and upgraded. If there are any classes that employees find challenging, you may quickly and easily improve them. Similarly, if new info becomes available or products are changed, you may update online content and resources for a fraction of the expense of hard copy material and in-person retraining.

It is convenient for students

 Employees can finish much of the learning at their leisure because much of it is asynchronous. They can log in when they can engage with the training content, log out when they need to return to work or take a break, and resume where they left off. This increases the likelihood that they will devote the time and attention required for training to have an impact.

It is simple to assess the effectiveness of training.

 The correct LMS will assist you in tracking the effectiveness of your training. Many platforms are capable of producing reports on employee attendance and performance. You can see who is participating, where people are getting stuck in their training, and how they are doing on examinations and quizzes. This data will assist you in fine-tuning your plan if it isn’t quite hitting the point.

It saves both time and money.

Live sessions, whether online or in person, have a cost. In-person training incurs fees for travel, materials, and venues. You’re paying for teacher time and incurring employee time away from work with either option. By transferring some or all of the training to self-paced eLearning, you can cut costs without sacrificing training quality.

Increases retention and engagement

 The variety of training styles accessible in blended training makes it easier to capture and maintain participants’ attention. Alter the media of text, video, and visuals. Use hands-on components such as quizzes and virtual simulations to increase interactivity and keep learners interested. Higher levels of involvement help to learn to stick.

6 Blended Learning Activities to Try 

The idea is to keep the learning process interesting and fun. Here are six blended learning exercises that you can use to engage staff and enhance learning.

1. Invite students to a Q&A session with an expert.

Another opportunity is to employ live training to provide learners with a deeper comprehension of the training content. Set up an in-person or webinar session with an instructor who can expand on what employees have already learned.

This session may begin with an introductory lesson or review. Then pose pertinent conversation questions to the group. Alternatively, have staff bring questions based on what they’ve learned thus far. The opportunity to go deeper encourages participants to grasp and comprehend the material before the session. A live Q&A session also provides teachers with an idea of what learners comprehend and where the training may need to be tweaked.

2. Socialize it

“Asynchronous” does not have to imply “alone.” In self-paced eLearning, you can still produce engagement and peer assistance. One method to accomplish this is to use social media. It could be as basic as facilitating a discussion topic within your LMS. Within the classes, provide specific questions to employees and direct them to a group thread where they can react. Start a social media community where learners can continue to discuss and learn from one another.

Create a Facebook community where employees may ask questions and share their experiences and ideas. Provide criteria for proper posts to moderate discussions and groups. To encourage interaction, post surveys, ask questions, or share quotes linked to the training regularly. As employees incorporate the training into everyday interactions, this type of social interaction can harness the potential of collective learning.

3. Organize a Practice Session

Instead of wasting valuable face-to-face time educating, create an opportunity for people to practice the skills and receive coaching. Allow learners to use the resources available in the self-paced lessons to familiarize themselves with knowledge or skills. Then plan an entire session where they can put those abilities to use.

Schedule a live practice session, for example, when employees have finished some or all of the training on their own. Bring them all together and present them with a realistic scenario. Then, utilizing the skills, they learned previously, have them work through it in small groups or as a class. Have them a script and deliver exactly what they’d say or do. Then, solicit input from peers and the teacher. This type of hands-on exposure helps learners prepare to apply their abilities on the job.

4. Participate in Group Presentations

Assign staff to collaborate on creating a presentation about the skills they learn. Allow them to present in a live group session and then welcome peer feedback and questions. Bringing people together allows them to learn from one another. When students have to explain the material to others, they will better retain what they’ve learned.

Most importantly, with improved knowledge retention and comprehension, they will bring the abilities back to work with them, where they will make an impact.

5. Create a Challenge

Send out a poll or a hard situation ahead of time to generate interest and investment in your live session. Instruct students to react using what they know right now. Inquire how they would approach a specific challenge. Encourage them to collaborate on the best method to address a certain customer scenario.

Alternatively, ask them about their real-world experiences with the topic. For example, how frequently have they encountered this issue at work? How often do they find themselves repeating a particular routine in a week? Then, to begin the live session, share the results.

Allowing folks to think about the types of problems they’ll be solving gets them thinking about the answer. It allows individuals to see how the content pertains to them, and they’ll be interested to learn about other people’s experiences. They’ll arrive at the session eager to learn.

6. Share True Stories

When people are emotionally linked to something, they are more likely to remember it. By providing real-life experiences connected to the skills, you can use blended learning techniques to generate an emotional connection. Show students how their skills helped an individual, a life, or an organization prosper. Consider making a fascinating video that conveys the tale and displaying it during your live session or self-paced training course.

Connecting the learning to a story provides learners with an emotional connection to the information. They will gain a better appreciation of its importance, and the training will be more remembered as a result.

Tips for a Successful Blended Learning Program

Keep these success suggestions in mind when you pick what activities to include in your blended learning course.

• Continue with self-paced learning bite-sized.

When information is delivered in small, manageable portions, it is easier to absorb and recall. Keep lessons short (about 15 minutes) and focused on one topic or skill at a time. This strategy will improve the effectiveness and appeal of your training.

• Make your training accessible via mobile.

• Using familiar technology might help make your training more accessible and less daunting for less tech-savvy employees. Most people feel comfortable using their smartphones. To increase employee engagement, make sure your training platform is mobile-friendly.

• Alter your media.

Employees may be accustomed to receiving email notes and viewing textual slides. By thinking beyond the media box, you can make your content more interesting and memorable. Send a video message from a company executive. Create a useful, easily accessible infographic to compile information or summarize course content.

Conclusion

Blended learning broadens your options for reaching employees and improves the effectiveness of your training plan. Mix things up while planning your experience and considering how to balance in-person and self-paced choices. Experiment with different activities to determine what works best for your group.

After all, the entire goal is to assist employees in engaging and applying their learning. Make sure you’re getting the most out of both technology and training philosophies as they evolve, and you’ll set people up for success.