Blended learning is a wonderful and powerful method to educate our audience. The proper planning of the program is the utmost importance but we also see now that the actual delivery of the program can also make or break the user experience. Generally how an LMS supports blended learning can be broken down as:
LMS Delivery Options
Delivery options are easy, you just need the LMS to be capable of managing different learning types in your blended program(s). The two primary interventions are generally face to face workshps and eLearning content, but blended programs go beyond these to include downloadable content (documents, media, files), on the job assessments, document viewed and verified and also social tools.
LMS Delivery Structures
Delivery structures are a little more complex, they assign the right training to the right people at the right time. This is simple if everyone gets the same number of courses all in one big dump when they first start, but the beauty of a great blended course is the discovery aspect, the way the overall course unfolds as the learner progresses through. Birch Learning Platform manages the distribution of program elements by allowing the elements to be grouped together into Goals and structured in the order of delivery. Each element can also have criteria that needs to have been met in order for it to become active.
Here is an example:
| Course Element | Course type | Completion Criteria | Activation Criteria | Display Criteria |
| Overview | Downloadable PDF | NA | Activated at the commencement of the learning | Displayed permanently |
| Online Course | eLearning | View all screens | Activated at the commencement of the learning | Displayed permanently |
| Face to Face workshop | Face to Face | Instructor sign off | Activated only after the Overview eLearning is complete | Displayed permanently |
| Online assessment | eLearning | 90% pass mark | Activate 30 days after the Face to Face workshop | Displayed after completion of previous element |
| On the Job Assessment | Supervisor Evidence | Observational Assessment | Activate after passing the Online assessment | Displayed after completion of previous element |
| Refresher | Video | Completion of video | Activate 3 months after passing the on the job assessment | Displayed after completion of previous element |
Birch Learning Platform uses course structures and the dynamic user structures to deliver a user specific set of learning elements as reflected in the blended program plan.
Given that the learning outline contains both date based and learner driven criteria, Birch also has a comprehensive notification system to allow learners, managers and administrators to keep up with requirements as they arise and require attention.
The final big piece of the blended learning puzzle from an LMS perspective is reporting. Reporting at a high level obviously allows both administrators, instructors and management to obtain an overview of the program. Who is enrolled, how far they have progressed, what has been completed and what needs to be completed. Taking the reporting a step further however allows us to start to review and improve the content and the delivery of the overall blended program. Reports can be run that encompass such things as:
- Post face to face survey results
- How is the instructor performing
- Is the content relevant
- Were the elements that led up to the face to face comprehensive enough (Or too comprehensive)
- Online assessment question level tracking
- Why does everyone get question 10 wrong, has it been worded poorly
- Are the questions to easy or too hard
- Do they test the right knowledge
- Time taken to complete the program
- Is the program too long
- Are people failing to finish
- Learner based comparison
- People in Group A are doing better at the case studies than the people in Group B, why is that so what are the differences between the groups are the case studies not generic enough
Opening up the world of reporting beyond just pass and fail statistics provides a wonderful window into how and why our programs are poor, average or great. A great program is one that can be adjusted based on ongoing observation.
Birch learning platform enables this level of reporting by going beyond the standard reports provided in most LMS’s and adding to the ability for Managers to interact directly with the report and drill down on the report for further information.