Rob Bohlen has a thought provoking article in The Evolllution, titled Helping Working Professionals Succeed in Blended and Online Courses. In it, he asks “Is it really that complicated to navigate a course with a blend of virtual lectures, discussion board postings, group assignments conducted virtually, independent readings/ assignments/ labs/ quizzes/tests —all delivered and tracked via one or more systems?”
Unfortunately, he concludes that it is. With all the LMS’s, video conferencing, and social media available within major corporations, he says “The truth is; many of these do not have an elegant way to tie all of these pieces together. As of 2012, most still struggle to create a seamless curriculum for workers, connecting all of the formal and informal learning components into a simple, integrated whole.”
He points to the concept of Scaffolding as an approach that learning professionals should be looking at: “the instructional design approach and chunking of experiences to ensure the learner is oriented from beginning to end.”
It’s a good read. I recommend it.
