If someone was asking you about whether you would prefer to complete a piece of training as a virtual classroom session or an in-person one, which option would you choose? And most important, why would you settle on the choice you made?
The reason I ask? The question of virtual versus in-person is one I always find myself asking of clients when they are thinking about organising an in-house Learning Re-Framed programme.
The early part of any discussion will almost always focus on several highly practical considerations: time away from the workplace; geographical location of attendees and overall cost.
Sometimes, practical circumstances so clearly dictate the best (and most obvious) decision that no real discussion is required. Other times, some more nuanced factors are in play and a bit of discussion is required before we reach a decision.
In a recent conversation a client asked, ‘If we were to completely set aside those practical considerations, in your view what would be the best option and why?’
In the moment, without even stopping to think, I defaulted to responding to the ‘why’ part with a delivery-medium focused answer. I think this is something most people do when confronted by that kind of question.
But what do I mean when I say a delivery medium-focused answer? Essentially, I was focusing on the features of each given delivery medium and in doing that, listing off the potential advantages and disadvantages of each feature.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. Those features need to be carefully considered. They are not something to be dismissed lightly because learners can experience a given delivery medium very differently. For example, some are very comfortable in a virtual learning environment. Some are most definitely not.
But it was only after the fact, when I started to go back over my answer that I began to realise there’s another layer to this. A layer we rarely consider, if at all.
And this train of thought led me to the conclusion that this unconsidered layer connects to e-learning, too.
So, what I would like to explore briefly in this week’s piece are some of these deeper, not so well considered differences between the three delivery mediums. And in doing that, I’m actually going to group virtual and in-person classroom delivery together and compare them as a single entity with e-learning.
The obvious answers
As already noted, when people compare different delivery mediums they often think about features, which leads them to focus on things like engagement, interactivity and attention spans. All very important stuff.
But the deeper aspect we rarely consider is, I believe, the way in which each medium helps create meaning for the learner.
And once you start thinking about delivery mediums through that lens, several things that I suspect we have all felt instinctively (but maybe have never been able to quite fully articulate) suddenly start to become clear.
Why classrooms can tolerate more abstraction
One of the things I realised is that both in-person and virtual classrooms are environments that can often tolerate a certain amount of abstraction in the early stages of a session.
Now that might sound like a strange thing for me to say. Because if you know me, you’ll know that I’m always keen to emphasise the importance of context in learning.
But one of the things I realised is that approaching a new topic in a virtual or in-person classroom does grant you a bit of latitude in this respect. These mediums do allow you to begin with an abstract concept, principle or idea before fully grounding it in a specific workplace situation.
That doesn’t mean ignoring context and application completely. Far from it. You always need to be mindful of context and take the opportunity to introduce it sooner rather than later. But the learning journey can begin at a slightly more conceptual level, without immediately losing learners.
Why do I think that? Well, in my view, it’s absolutely down to the environment. In an in-person or live virtual setting, learners can:
ask questions
test interpretations
compare viewpoints
challenge assumptions
hear examples from others, and
clarify misunderstandings in real time
This is about gradually shaping meaning through the kinds of interaction the medium allows.
Some of this interaction may be carefully crafted in advance by the learning designer and/or instructor, by means of a simple interactive presentation, for example.
Some of it may be more spontaneous. If something feels unclear or slightly ambiguous, the instructor can intervene. Or another learner might offer an example. Or a brief discussion might highlight confusion that others were also experiencing.
In other words, the experience of creating meaning becomes a shared process. And I think that shared creation does allow your starting point to be slightly more conceptual before introducing context and practical application.
Why e-learning often needs a different starting point
By contrast, e-learning doesn’t have that shared element. The learner is usually operating alone. There is no facilitator or group interaction to dynamically craft meaning. No group interaction to surface misunderstanding. No informal opportunity to quickly test whether something makes sense.
And this, I think, fundamentally changes how meaning needs to be created. Because with e-learning, even the slightest whiff of the abstract or conceptual at the very beginning, can lead to learners very quickly becoming uncertain, confused or disengaged.
Which is why effective e-learning always needs a strong contextual anchor from the very beginning. Things like a:
recognisable situation
realistic problem
believable decision, or
concrete example
In other words, the learner first experiences something very specific and highly contextualised. The wider principle or concept is then gradually drawn out of that experience.
The context does the heavy lifting, not an instructor, facilitator or other group member.
A final thought
So, returning to the original client question. If practical constraints disappeared, which learning environment would I propose?
To give a more meaningful (and less conventional) answer, I think I would be considering how important it is for learners to be able to gradually co-construct understanding and meaning versus working alone with a stronger contextual scaffolding, provided from the outset.
Neither medium or approach is inherently superior. But some learners might definitely benefit more from one than the other.
The ultimate result that each medium aims to achieve is the same. But the route they take to get there is very different.
Until next time…
Andrew
PS One of the recurring themes that you may have noticed in some of my recent pieces is just how many different design aspects need to be considered to increase the effectiveness of a learning solution. The Learning Re-Framed public programme explores many of these design choices in greater depth — helping L&D teams think more deliberately about when to use classroom learning, e-learning and performance support, and how each can contribute to workplace capability in different ways.