A Look at Community Development via Blended Learning Strategies

Kirsten S. Hanson, Frances A. Clem

ost large organizations today, and many small ones, are evaluating blended learning approaches as a substitute for either instructor-led training (ILT) or wholly online learning. Blended learning is often seen as being more com­plete or better supported than ILT, while offering improved student interaction opportunities compared to learning that takes place solely online. Yet few studies have been conducted on the actual outcomes of blended initiatives and experiences.

At Oracle Corporation, the Leader Track courses were designed and developed in a blended format for the foregoing reasons, with the objective of improving student results and cost-effectiveness. Certain domains require students to practice and integrate knowledge and skills if they are to apply them effectively in their real work. Leadership is one such subject area. In addition. Oracle found that the challenges inherent in communicating consistent mes­sages and building its organization and its people across global and cultural boundaries were difficult to manage in purely online or classroom-based environments. As a result, it was hoped that a blended approach would yield improved results.

Like all other competitive corporations, Oracle is eager to remain at the fore­front of investing in and retaining its top employee talent. Nevertheless, design­ing and implementing a blended format for leadership development was deemed reasonable only if it would result in improved learning outcomes and benefits. At

To Blend or Not to Blend

the same time, we hoped it would encourage employees to develop stronger pro­fessional interconnections and an enhanced sense of being a part of the Oracle community. To evaluate this, we conducted a series of exploratory studies dur­ing the first-year implementation of blended courses at Oracle, which had inter­esting results.

The Background on Blended Learning

Many corporate training departments offer classroom learning or online learning as separate training options. In the past, participants could choose to enroll in their preferred delivery method. More recently, blended learning, usually considered to be the combination of technological solutions and traditional classroom in­struction, has attracted increasing interest from corporate trainers and others engaged in education.

It is challenging to find a widely accepted definition of blended learning, and even more difficult to find a core set of literature on blended learning method­ologies. In general, training approaches can be located on a continuum that runs from traditional, face-to-face class meetings to totally online courses that have no direct interpersonal contact (Schwartzman & Tuttle, 2002). Blended learn­ing, a phenomenon of the last decade, is generally acknowledged as falling some­where between these two extremes, incorporating elements of each.

It is important to review the theoretical foundations that already exist for blending learning. Instructional designers have a variety of theories to guide them in developing instructional materials for instructor-led training (Gagne, 1965). In­creasingly, they are also finding what works in asynchronous, online environments.

It is compelling and relevant to recognize two of the important basic elements in the natural learning process: learning by reflection and experience. As Schank (1995) explains with various teaching architectures or approaches in his book, Engines for Education, he reminds us that cognitive scientists agree that learning by reflection is essential for mental processing and understanding. This reflec­tion occurs only when the learner has time to mull something over and contem­plate questions or new ways of thinking about a situation. Reflection deepens a learner's understanding of a domain, allowing him or her to become more facile with the subject matter, and it is central for knowledge transfer to the workplace. A major opportunity for it occurs in the reinforcement activities afforded by blended learning. According to Bean (2002), " Reinforcement is where the knowl­edge transfer takes place. It is the ability to deploy a number of value-added prod­ucts and services to surround your employees and maximize the transfer of learning to the workplace" (p. 25).

The Handbook of Blended Learning

A second important element in a human's natural learning process goes back tojohn Dewey (1938). Dewey argued that all genuine education comes through experience. Yet he further explained that it " does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative" (p. 25). Dewey held that poor experiences, not the absence of experiences, are the problem, and what makes them defective is their lack of connection to further experiences. Recent work by Sticht (1994) and others on situated learning and functional context education tends to amplify Dewey's concept that all learning proceeds from prior learning. The concepts of reflection, genuine learning, situated learning, and building on previous experi­ence are particularly important to designers of blended learning because the student's learning outcomes are dependent on a series of experiences created throughout the blended learning process. Although Dewey wrote over sixty years ago, his ideas still have relevance in today's corporate training, because it is the educator's (or trainer's) responsibility to create genuine, meaningful experiences to ensure the learner continues on the blended learning path rather than becoming bored or disinterested.

The challenge for distance education researchers, as Saba (2000) explains, is the theoretical complexity of the field and the lack of corresponding methods of data collection and analysis. Even with novel technologies, improved student out­comes are more likely to be attributed to improved pedagogy and the strong im­plementation of a supporting infrastructure rather than to the technology that was used to deliver the content. Also, Clark (1983) asserted that the medium does not influence learning. Clark explains that the choice of the delivery method can influence the cost or extent of distributing instruction, but only the content of the chosen method can influence learner achievement. Decades later, instructional designers are well served to remember the lessons learned from Clark, Schank. Dewey, and Saba. Yet student outcomes have not traditionally considered community.

Community Building in Blended Contexts

It is worth exploring how an enhanced sense of corporate community can have an impact on learner achievement. While it is not usually considered a direct learn­ing outcome of training, the creation of a learning community can be the result of pedagogical design.

Although there is descriptive and prescriptive literature regarding fully online learning communities (for example, Bonk & Dennen, 2000; Palloff & Pratt, 1999). it is difficult to find applicable research about the dynamics of learning commu­nities in blended learning (mixed media) environments. One study that compared

To Blend or Not to Blend

an entirely classroom experience to an entirely online experience did indicate a statistically significant difference in the amount of confidence and social con­nection that students felt in each environment (Johnson, Aragon, Shaik, & Palma-Rivas, 1999). There was no difference shown in the learning outcomes with students from both course formats, but student perceptions of confidence and so­cial connection were lower in the online experience than the classroom experi­ence. Interestingly, a recent study by Rovai and Jordan (2004) found that blended courses produced a stronger sense of community among students than either tra­ditional or fully online courses. Given these contrasting findings, we wondered what kind of results we would see at Oracle.

Oracle's Leader Track

Oracle does not believe in training for the sake of training. For example, it does not mandate specific training for its managers (except for required governmen­tal compliance topics). Unlike some other large private sector companies, Oracle uses an organic approach to development, expecting and encouraging employees and managers to take responsibility for their own careers and personal development.

It was this perspective that guided Oracle to move several years ago from a training mind-set to a human development mind-set, acknowledging the need to invest in methodologies (that is, training) that provide meaningful experiences that employees can learn from and apply to their real work responsibilities. Further­more, Oracle's culture does not require attendance in training courses (unless a specific executive nominates employees to participate). As a result, Oracle em­ployees tend to have limited patience for poor-quality instruction. Given this free­dom to select one's own learning and the fact that Oracle employees tend to be facile users of technology, blended learning designs provide learners with a path, that is, a systematic approach to development, of relevant experiences and con­cepts that can be reinforced through an integrated classroom and online approach over time. Consequently, blended learning is becoming a more complete devel­opment solution for the optimal growth of employees, especially those in leader­ship roles, and often it is more successful than what we had anticipated.

Since quality leadership has the potential to have a great impact on the building of high-performance teams, Oracle decided to focus its initial blended learning development efforts on managers. Oracle's Leader Track is a leader­ship program that consists of four modules, each containing a two-day face-to-face workshop and virtual learning opportunities to enhance and practice key skills and concepts. In one module, the face-to-face workshop takes place in the first

The Handbook of Blended Learning

week, two modules have the workshop in the second week, and the fourth mod­ule has the workshop in the fourth week. In each module, three or four synchro­nous online classes take place before and after the face-to-face experience. (These can also be replayed online and watched if participants miss the live delivery with facilitator, slides, and voice communications.) Online 360-degree assessments and telephone sessions with virtual, personal coaches are also part of each module design. Participants are asked to post reflections to the discussion board on iLearning (Oracle's Learning Management System) and complete an actual work assignment for each of the four modules. Executive involvement also plays an important role, with Oracle executives participating as mentors, guest speakers, or workshop panelists in each module. The blended design philosophy is to scaf­fold manager learning on real, relevant work activities and help them integrate knowledge and skills on the job over time.

The time commitment for each module is approximately thirty-five to forty hours spread across a five-week period, including the two-day workshop. Although designed to be taken in sequence, each module can be taken based on a manager's current needs.

Studying Blended Outcomes at Oracle

We performed two separate exploratory studies on Oracle's Leader Track. In the larger of the two studies, in which we looked at the benefits of the blended for­mat (we referred to this as the benefits study), we had the unique opportunity to compare two training courses in the management curriculum that teach the same domain. One of the blended learning modules, which focused on helping man­agers lead with their values, also existed as a classroom-only course. At the time of this study of blended learning benefits, Oracle managers had the option of tak­ing the two-day classroom experience or the blended learning experience, which included the same two-day classroom event as well as four supporting weeks of virtual learning activities. By comparing outcomes of the two versions of the same course, we hoped to understand better the effect of blended learning as compared to the classroom-only version of the course.

Six ILT participants and thirteen blended participants were interviewed for this study. Subjects in each group were of comparable employment levels as de­partment managers and directors and had personally elected to take one of thea courses to develop their leadership skills. In this study, participants were inter­viewed by a non-Oracle researcher using a protocol; each interview was recorded and transcribed. An outside coder, who had been trained for this analysis, read and

To Blend or Not to Blend

coded the transcriptions, removing identifying information. The non-Oracle researcher then reviewed all coded responses with the coder to resolve questions and ambiguities.

In the smaller study, we considered the overall Leader Track (not just the values-based leadership module) to explore the learning community aspect of the blending learning design. This learning community study began with a review of three focus group transcripts from the blended modules. These groups were undertaken by Oracle to assess learners' summative opinions about the training after having completed one or more modules. These transcripts helped inform the creation of our interview protocol. We then interviewed five past participants who varied in years of experience at Oracle, types of positions, and gender. Both re­searchers evaluated the transcribed interviews to discern and analyze participants' comments, categorizing opinions to find unifying themes.

Although both studies were exploratory and limited in subjects, blended learn­ing appeared to introduce several new and exciting dynamics.

Building Community Through Learning

We were gratified that most participants interviewed, regardless of which group they were part of, were positive about their learning experience in the values-based leadership course. Furthermore, when we compared content retention with an on­line evaluation after three months, there was no significant difference between the blended and ILT based groups, as researchers such as Clark may have predicted.

There was one conspicuous difference between the blended and the ILT groups, however. In the benefits study, blended and ILT participants were asked a series of open-ended questions about their experiences in their respective environments. Blended participants frequently commented on collaboration with peers and support from the program. The ILT participants did not reference interactions with their peers or a sense of community; instead, they focused almost solely on the classroom instructor.

Sample comments from participants in the blended groups included:

" The biggest influence was to give me contacts and a bigger picture and sort of a navigational device, a way to articulate what I felt about strong leadership."

" Basically when you're a supervisor, manager, leader, you have a lot of the same problems, and so the sharing was a really good experience. And I heard a lot of others say the same thing."

The Handbook of Blended Learning

" I think this has humanized Oracle a little more for me. Because of my own earlier background, I always had a perception of Oracle as a very aggressive organization,... but when I met with other people during the course, I did see that many people have pretty similar issues."

We were struck by the range and types of benefits all the study participants noted for the training; we wondered if there were any trends evident in terms of which group felt it had benefited more from their respective training strategy. We categorized the responses to see patterns, according to whether the perceived benefit was primarily internal (attitudinal or cognitive changes) or external (ex­plicit, observable behavior change), or whether it was simply a reinforcement of what the individual was already thinking, feeling, or doing. We further defined our categories by coupling them with either " self" or " company" labels. This labeling was used to indicate who was the primary beneficiary of the internal or external changes. Reinforcement was not associated with a " self" or " company" label because participants explained it as a general application. Table 10.1 shows examples of each type of benefit: