Many areas of organizational learning and development are much more of an art than a science. For example, companies have been especially challenged in designing programs with the right blend of learning modalities. Despite the progress toward making everything more learner-centric and improving the learning experience, most companies still define blended learning as a mix of classroom and eLearning courses. This approach ends up tipping the scales heavily to formal learning. This presents two challenges right off the bat.
First, this approach completely ignores the Forgetting Curve, which posits that within a matter of days, people forget up to 80% of what they learn in a formal learning setting. Brandon Hall Group’s Learning and Performance Study found that only 18% of companies believe their learning approach is effective or highly effective at mitigating the Forgetting Curve.
Second, the traditional blended approach does not consider the 70/20/10 model, which suggests that only 10% of what people learn comes from formal learning settings. The other 90% comes from informal and experiential learning. Only 36% of companies strongly base their approach to learning on this model.
Companies must do a better job of incorporating a wider variety of learning experiences into their programs, such as deploying spaced learning content. This approach drives learner engagement, increases knowledge retention and positively impacts behavior by making learning more contextual and relevant.
Successful blended learning requires a robust set of tools plus the knowledge and skill to apply them at the appropriate time. Programs should be configured so the different modalities suit the content and needs of the learners. Just 45% of companies say they are doing this today.
Brandon Hall Group Smartchoice Preferred Provider Qstream is a next-gen learning solution completely focused on helping companies deliver the right learning experience to the right people at the right time. They make it easy to provide targeted microlearning in and around formalized experiences, creating a more robust overall experience that is designed around how people learn. To find out more about how they help companies leverage microlearning to improve engagement, compliance, performance and more, discover more about their microlearning overview here.
–David Wentworth, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
