Enhance your training by creating a flexible online support! With the concept of Blended Learning, you gain completely new selling points and benefits like a unique selling proposition. Once created, online content can be reused and reassembled continuously. The list of advantages of Blended Learning goes even further – this article gives you an overview to help you decide for or against Blended Learning.
Note: This article was first published in July 2018. We updated it in October with many additions and links to the articles of individual advantages.
In-person learning + E-Learning = Blended Learning
Blended Learning is a technical term in education and refers to the integration of different forms of learning. For good reason, Blended Learning has been considered by experts for many years as the learning format of the future. More and more trainers in vocational training are therefore expanding their classic in-person events with E-Learning. This creates the new learning format of Blended Learning, which brings many benefits for all parties involved.
Which benefits these are and how they can elevate your training to the next level, I would like to show you below!
Overview: Benefits of E-Learning and In-Person Learning
E-Learning takes advantage of modern technologies and means of communication. Our lives are becoming increasingly digital and interconnected, so learning with online tools seems timely. And yes, indeed, many benefits arise from this form of learning – for example, a participant can practice independently of time and place and learn in a much more self-directed manner than in traditional seminars in the form of live meetings.
On the other hand, many trainers rightly know and feel that they cannot and should not simply transfer 100% of the previous trainings into the digital realm. The personal connection between trainer and participant is too important, which can only be solidified in in-person training face to face.
Self-direction and External Direction
From a didactic perspective, E-Learning offerings are tendentially self-directed processes. This means that the participant must show a high degree of personal responsibility. They decide when and where they learn. In pure E-Learning, there is often a lack of a contact person for questions and difficulties. Such support is available in traditional seminars and presentations, but the performance transfer in such externally directed processes is lower.
Both externally directed and self-directed processes are important to provide participants with support and challenge their thinking. Especially in large groups, you typically have various learning types that require more or less external direction.
Diagram: Externally directed processes such as presentations and lectures on one side and self-directed processes such as pure E-Learning on the other. Blended Learning combines both forms of learning.
Here Blended Learning scores on both sides: Why give up one form of learning when you can combine both? Those who keep the advantages of both learning formats in view can compensate for the disadvantages of the respective other learning format. Furthermore, different learning types are addressed – everyone gets their share.
7 Advantages of Blended Learning
The most significant advantages of Blended Learning for trainers, consultants, or coaches are listed in the following overview:
The 7 most important advantages of Blended Learning for trainers:
You gain a unique selling proposition
You gain a new revenue stream
You gain new client groups
You gain measurability
You gain reusability
You gain flexibility
You gain media diversity
Important: All mentioned advantages are from the perspective of trainers who previously relied on traditional in-person training and are now expanding this concept with online courses, thereby implementing the Blended Learning concept. This places the emphasis on benefits related to E-Learning – but only in combination with in-person learning does the full potential of Blended Learning unfold.
The main advantages of Blended Learning in training and coaching
So far, these were just individual keywords. How exactly can you achieve all these advantages of Blended Learning for your training or coaching, and who benefits the most?
1. Advantage of Blended Learning: Measurability
How often have you stumbled upon the question: How effective was your training in hindsight really? Standardized surveys at the end of a traditional seminar are monotonous for your participants and often provide you with little meaningful information. In the online course, you have many more options available: Embed interactive exercises, quiz questions, and exams into your online support and regularly check the learning progress of your participants.
Extra Advantage: The topic of measurability is, of course, also of interest to your customer! If your Blended Learning software contains the corresponding function, you can easily export the results of your training as a table and forward them to your client.
From the advantage of Measurability benefit: ✓ Trainer ✓ Customer
Learn more about the advantage of measurability in this article: Make your success measurable!
2. Advantage of Blended Learning: Reusability
The biggest hurdle every trainer faces at the beginning of their transition to Blended Learning: You have to invest various resources (time, money, effort) to start effectively. However, those who stick with it will be richly rewarded: Once created, online content can be easily copied and reused. This saves you a lot of time and effort in the long run!
From the advantage of Reusability benefit: ✓ Trainer
Learn more about the advantage of reusability in this article: Recycle training content and save a lot of time
3. Advantage of Blended Learning: new client groups
No matter whom you have worked for so far: With Blended Learning, you expand your portfolio and thus also the potential reach of your client groups. The topic of digitalization is a current issue in many companies, where often no one knows exactly which steps to take towards modernity. Continued education offerings with Blended Learning are therefore an offer that many human resource developers would like to learn more about.
Learn more about the advantage of measurability in this article: Gain new client groups for your training!
From the advantage of New Client Groups benefit: ✓ Trainer
4. Advantage of Blended Learning: a new revenue stream
Increase your annual income through an online course by convincing your client of the value of your new learning concept. Because Blended Learning benefits not only your participants but also your client. They are thus more likely to invest more in you. Read in this article how you can sustainably generate more revenue with Blended Learning.
From the advantage of New Revenue Stream benefit: ✓ Trainer
Learn more about the advantage of the new revenue stream in this article: Once created, permanently more revenue
5. Advantage of Blended Learning: a unique selling proposition
The trainer market is sometimes fiercely competitive, and many offerings are very similar. With your individual Blended Learning, you stand out from the crowd. If you additionally choose a learning software in which you can individually brand your online course, you show your unique selling proposition at first glance.
From the advantage of Unique Selling Proposition benefit: ✓ Trainer ✓ Customer
Learn more about the advantage of unique selling proposition in this article: Utilize your unique selling proposition in sales!
6. Advantage of Blended Learning: Flexibility
Sometimes things just don't go as planned. If, for example, your in-person training runs off schedule due to intensive discussions, as a trainer, you won't sweat with Blended Learning. Instead of having to slow down your participants, you can easily and spontaneously outsource modules into your online support. This way, you appear professional, your participants can achieve maximum learning success, and your client is happy to recommend you.
From the advantage of Flexibility benefit: ✓ Trainer ✓ Customer ✓ Participant
Learn more about the advantage of flexibility in this article: Create flexible training!
7. Advantage of Blended Learning: media diversity
Sure, you can use many media forms much more easily and practically in E-Learning than in in-person training. Especially with videos, you score points in your online course: Short films are not only more entertaining but also engage more senses than plain text. And through selfie videos, you also stay close to your participants online.
Extra Advantage: Due to the variety of media available to you in E-Learning, you also cover more learning types. For example, participants who tend to be reserved in in-person training can ask their questions in the online course in the form of comments.
From the advantage of Media Diversity benefit: ✓ Trainer ✓ Participant
Learn more about the advantage of media diversity in this article: How to succeed in training with digital media
Advantages of Blended Learning compared to a single form of learning
The basic idea of Blended Learning lies in the best possible integration. Both traditional in-person learning and modern E-Learning have their own advantages. In all areas where you reach limits in your in-person events due to given framework conditions, you can use E-Learning for compensation – and vice versa.
Advantages of Blended Learning compared to pure in-person learning
| Weakness of In-Person Learning | Advantage of Blended Learning || -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- || Exact planning required, little flexibility possibleEspecially relevant for: Trainer | You can easily – even at short notice – shift modules of the in-person event to the online support || Lack of transfer after the last in-person eventEspecially relevant for: Participant | You smoothly send your participants into their everyday life and continue to support them after traditional training through regular learning impulses. || High loss of working time due to attendance requirement in longer in-person trainingsEspecially relevant for: Customer | Instead of all-day trainings, you begin with a short in-person event and then let your participants spend a few minutes in E-Learning from time to time. |
Traditional seminars score with personal connection, but with Blended Learning, that is also present with less working time lost.
Advantages of Blended Learning compared to pure E-Learning
| Weakness of E-Learning | Advantage of Blended Learning || ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- || Lack of connection between trainer and participantEspecially relevant for: Trainer | In the in-person event, everyone gets to know each other personally and is thus motivated to be active in E-Learning. || Technical (basic) knowledge requiredEspecially relevant for: Participant | The in-person event can be used to briefly introduce the E-Learning platform and the Blended Learning concept. || Difficult to connect with individual needsEspecially relevant for: Customer and Participant | In the in-person event, you can respond more to the participants' requirements as basic content is shifted to E-Learning. |
In E-Learning, each participant learns relatively self-directed, but personal motivation often only arises in combination with Blended Learning.
Checklist: Your advantages of Blended Learning?
These were the essential advantages of Blended Learning compared to pure learning forms. Perhaps while reading, you have already envisioned the benefit for your own training or your own coaching at one point or another. Because: Not all advantages apply equally to all trainings.
Take 5 minutes now and imagine that you will start with Blended Learning in the next 2 weeks. What would change? What would you benefit from the most? I have prepared a template for you with a list in which you can see all the advantages at a glance in the left column.
In the right column, you can record spontaneously how high you estimate the advantage for your training: From 1 = Doesn’t benefit me much to 4 = Benefits my training enormously.
Tip: Don’t think too much about it, but decide instinctively!
| Advantage of Blended Learning | Assessment for my own training || ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------- || Measurability | … || Reusability | … || New Client Groups | … || New Revenue Stream | … || Unique Selling Proposition | … || Flexibility | … || Media Diversity | … || … | … |
