“LAS solves a longstanding problem with blended learning with their methodology.”
Next Gen Blended Learning
Blended learning has been around for as long as learning has, but the problem is; most blends are not human-centred. They take little account of the needs of the user, their limited attention span or memory capacity – quite simply they are designed for the ease of the blend producer, not the learner.
The Next Generation Blended methodology of LAS addresses all of these issues and has been adopted by world leading broadcasters, law enforcement services, pharma and drinks companies and has even won an award.
What is this methodology about?
After having first understood the needs of your audience you essentially categorise the
knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes that you want to develop in learners:
1. Knowledge
Divide into Recall (what you want learners to hold in their heads and instantly recall) and Refer (the information it is OK for them to look-up to when needed).
2. Skills
Into those that are High and Low-risk to the individual or the organisation
3. Behaviours
Into those that are hard to change and easy to change for that particular audience
4. Attitudes
Into those that are likely to be easy to influence and those hard to influence.
You then treat each of these elements differently in the blend and the accompanying engagement campaign that fits around it. This categorisation process is the critical step that traditional blended learning often misses - it’s why so many blends look and feel great, but ultimately fail to deliver the business impact that’s needed.
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What’s the importance of human-centered design?
At LAS, we work hard to ensure the voice of the audience is heard in the learning design process whether that’s for a blend, a platform, a tool or a learning game. Quite simply - if their needs aren’t met; they won’t engage. If they don’t engage; they won’t learn, they won’t change their behaviours and ultimately, the project will fail to achieve the impact it needs.
As well as seeking to understand the specific humans we’re designing for, we also seek to better understand humans in general. We know for example from cognitive science that short-term memories are really hard to form and long-term memories even harder. We therefore don’t expect anyone to remember any learning from one exposure to it. That’s why MemoTrainer is such a great aspect of aNewSpring. In our blends we use this to reinforce the Recall Knowledge that we want people to hold in their heads.
View the methodology in detail
Case study: BBC Becoming Blended
The issue
For a number of years, the BBC Academy has been attempting to move to a more blended approach to learning. Increasingly, in order to focus on supporting performance at the point of need, increase access to learning and reduce costs; blends have become even more important.
The challenge
The broadcaster has 45 Academy trainers who are first and foremost subject matter experts, so whilst they understood the concept of blended learning, they previously had had little opportunity to put it into practice and there was some nervousness about what blended learning might mean. It was important for them to understand that their skills are needed in a blended world and the way they’ll support their learners will become more varied and interesting. The goal was to drive change within their own portfolios, whilst also persuading stakeholders to think differently about learning.
The Solution
The overall objective of the blended skills development programme was to empower trainers to come up with ideas for blended approaches to their training, improve interaction with Learning Designers and drive the transformation of learning across the business.
The core element of the programme was weekly virtual classroom sessions which used interactive tools to encourage participation. The blend also included a rich range of learning experiences such as green screen videos, animations, interactions, assignments, curated content and a social group; all accessed from a responsive microsite, which was used to release content each week. The richness of the mix enabled the experiential learning we were looking to achieve.
The Results
All seasons attracted consistently high audience numbers with 40+ participants each and every week without fail. This was supplemented with a really active community on the internal social media platform which evolved from the Academy driving the conversation, to the conversation happening naturally between trainers, learning designers and other teams.
The project won the Gold award for Best Use of Blended Learning (public and non-profit sector) at the Learning Technologies Awards 2019.
Rob Hubbard
Director of LAS and a designer through and through who is fascinated by how we learn, what we remember and why we pay attention to certain things. He is a huge enthusiast of all that technology can offer to enhance learning.
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