Most of us have heard or said “history always repeats itself”, though in fashion (unfortunately) it never repeats exactly the same way – else I’ll own tons of those self-storage boxes where I can stash away all my retail investments to reuse when the fashion repeats itself in after 10 years. While it doesn’t work for me in the wardrobe department, I see it all the time in my work.
Sometime last week, someone asked, “Our company runs a 3-days orientation programme for new hires. While Day 3 is mainly on plant/facilities tour, can we reduce the first 2 days of classroom sessions into 1 day with 1-2 hours of e-Learning?”
From a mathematical perspective, the question is, “Can we condense 16 hours of classroom training into 8 hours in the classroom and 2 hours of e-Learning?” Alternatively, can we replace 8 hours of classroom training with 2 hours of e-Learning, or better yet 1 hour? By now, my well-rehearsed polite response would be, “Of course we can, but you do realize that it’s not a direct replacement – we’ve to re-define the expected learning outcomes.”
From here, the conversation can go either way.
Why do managers believe that a different mode of delivery would more than double their employees’ learning capabilities? Is it true that learning is truly more efficient with some sort of “E” (notice the capital E) over face-to-face classroom sessions?
While it’s commonly expected that e-Learning requires less learning time to achieve identical learning outcomes, the savings often comes from the inefficiencies from classroom sessions. Take for instance – regular breaks, learners who do not return to the classroom punctually, and/or facilitators who allow discussions to go astray due to inadequte moderation. Depending on a variety of reasons, time savings is usually about 20 – 30%. To achieve more than 50% savings, learning outcomes have to be adjusted.
Instructional designers may re-design some face-to-face activities into self-paced ones, and present only salient points instead of reinforcing with scenarios and role-plays. When the discussion reaches this point, things start to become interesting as we debate the alignment of some of the current classroom activities towards the required learning outcomes.
It may come as a surprise to some, but honestly, I don’t get tired of answering this question, and relish in having another educated client.
Some things never change, this is probably the most frequently asked question in the last 10 years of e-Learning, and would probably still be asked till the next World Cup. That said, it probably repeats itself more similarly than any fashion trends.
Theresa is responsible for the development and growth of Datacraft Training Services’ e-Learning & consulting business lines across Asia. She has more than 15 years of experience in the IT and learning industries. She currently serves in the National Infocomm Competency Framework (NICF) Steering Committee, as well as the Chairman of the Adoption sub-committee. She was also previously the chairman of the e-Learning chapter in the Singapore IT Federation (SiTF), an association body of IT professionals.
