The goal of this presentation was to show strategies getting away from lectures for knowledge-based learning. Melissa Smith from The Training Clinic shared five blended learning strategies.
The most used method for presenting knowledge base material is the lecture method. We often use this method because instructors are not prepared to do it any other way.
Five Alternatives
Here are five blended learning alternatives:
Learning Tournament
This is a technique to review new information in a competitive way. Basically, it is a game. When developing a learning tournament, you have two major responsibilities:
- Writing the rules
- Writing questions
When writing the rules, you have to take into consideration the players, the judges, the time for each move, the move itself, and many, many, many other things. Examples of games that could be used include Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit among other self-made games.
Tips for success
- Start with learning objectives
- Make it visually impactful
- Making it a team event
- Reward out-of-the-box thinking
Since this is for new information, you will need to guide them to resources they can use.
Course Pre-Work
She provided for examples of pre-work and those include
- Reading – When you provide a reading assignment also provide some questions or reading prompts. You may also consider doing a pre-test after the reading itself.
- Completing an Assignment – This will allow you to benchmark the skills they have acquired
- Gathering and Bring – this is they will bring in the documents or projects that they’re going to work on in the face to pay session.
- Complete and Return a Survey – In the survey, you can ask them about different skills and how well they accomplish those skills.
When you are looking at doing pre-work in the education sense, the instructor should simply be able to make the request. However, if you’re dealing with the staff, you may want the instructions to come from management or higher management.
You also need to consider what you will do if the pre-work is not completed is there some consequence involved.
One final note: let them know how much time to spend on the task.
Information Search
One of the activities you may want to consider is a scavenger hunt. It’s important to write good questions and then after the session have some kind of reaction from the participants to the experience and have them identify underlying concept Moore’s most importantly have them explain how they will apply this to their job or to the Future.
Observation Activities
- Observation of somebody doing a specific task
- Virtual Field Trips
- Watching a video about the task
Naturally, you’re going to want to provide prompts and a debrief for these activities.
Demonstrations
In the Air Force, we call this the demonstration and performance method. Participants would watch a subject matter expert demonstration and then later perform the task under supervision.
To increase success, it’s good to provide a demonstration checklist. Participants can use this demonstration checklist as a learning tool and a feedback tool. It is something they could use as they are learning the task by following it step-by-step. You then could use it for assessments as you watch individuals do the task. A demonstration checklist would be considered a job aid.
Additional Reading
- #ATD2015: Blended Learning Certificate
- Evolution: Blended Learning
- #ATD2015 Session: Write Activities to Make Boring Lectures Disappear
- Book Review: Flipped Learning for Social Studies Instruction
- Book Review: Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day
- #astd2013: Flip your training: How to design for practice with @KoreenOlbrish
