Hybrid Learning in Education: benefits and best practices

Hybrid learning is the combination of online and offline education when at least half of all learning time is allocated online. It’s often confused with blended learning, although as we’ll see, these approaches are different. Blended learning may be positioned as a type of hybrid learning or as a separate method, intended to connect offline education with online capabilities.

Various hybrid learning methods include the usage of online courses and various learning materials and require good learning organization and regular communication. It’s a good approach for ` facilities and businesses, enabling them to optimize all educational processes and apply various educational facilities.

The e-learning market, including hybrid and blended learning, has risen by 900% since 2000, so it clearly worth attention. Let’s explore the specifics and peculiarities of this education type and how you may implement it in your organization.

The hybrid learning definition is any type of learning plan that implies both online and offline teaching. While after-school learning activity is encouraged in most cases, it’s still not the case here. Hybrid learning requires an organized extracurricular activity, constant contact and communication with teachers, and access to various online learning materials, such as books, videos, and quizzes.

So, the hybrid learning meaning implies the presence of a clear organization of all online and remote student activities while providing them with all distance learning opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic and imposed lockdowns made such an approach widespread in both academic and corporate worlds.

Conversely, distance learning becomes hybrid when some part of its activities become offline. For example, universities can offer some part of their courses online, while another part is conducted in classrooms or laboratories. Usually, the exact plan of hybrid learning depends on the learners’ and teachers’ preferences and the measured efficiency of online and offline activities, which are then compared. If learners perform better when they access the course or some of its parts online, they are transferred online.

How exactly does it take place?

The hybrid approach combines offline and online learning to build the best possible learning environment for people. There are several primary approaches to do this, so let’s explore them.

The advantages of hybrid learning follow from its usage of various online and offline educational approaches.

The reason why hybrid learning is good for your organization or environment is that it uses the latest technological advances and educational methods, enabling better skill improvement. Utilizing these methods can be highly beneficial for educational facilities and commercial organizations, improving their performance and learners’ satisfaction. Further, we’ll see how you can do this.

Let’s explore the blended and hybrid learning types, which are often posed into a single category and even used interchangeably in various articles and speeches. Often one type of learning is also presented as the subtype of the other, which is also not quite clear: rather, they have many similar moments, but serve different purposes. That’s why we don’t pose blended learning among the types above. Let’s discuss it more widely here.

Hybrid e-learning can be greatly beneficial for educational facilities, enabling the usage of educational technologies and practices that don’t require physical presence. Blended learning is mostly used by businesses, as they benefit from educating employees during work, using various online materials, and combining them with offline practice.

Let’s now explore the hybrid and blended learning meaning to see their similarities and differences, and also evaluate when to use each of these approaches.

Hybrid learning is the broad term for combining two learning styles. It includes schedules with online and offline educational activities, divided according to the chosen learning model. During blended learning, students study theoretical material online while completing practical tasks offline, and the learning is connected with the offline environment.

The task of hybrid learning is to divide the curriculum on online and offline educational activities based on convenience, conditions, and other reasons. In contrast, the task of blended learning is to implement online educational methods and its benefits into learning environment while still conducting the primary activities offline.

So, hybrid learning has many crossings with blended learning, but it’s important to distinguish them in order to use them properly. See the table below to summarize how they’re different and use it to plan your own educational activities.

So, how to implement the best hybrid learning model in your classroom or workplace?

First, evaluate which model to choose. Will it be synchronous or asynchronous learning? Which part of learning path can be passed online and which tasks can be conducted online? Which tasks and other activities should obligately be offline, and which you believe should be preferably offline, such as periodical meetings? Construct your hybrid model based on your answers and test it by engaging your students or employees into it and gathering their feedback.

Next, to identify the hybrid learning best practices for you, you need to assess the environment for your education and let’s see several questions that will clarify it for you.

Answers will show you the learning environment specifics, the portrait of your student, and a set of skills and concepts that should be taught. It’ll be enough to choose the right learning material, involve teachers and mentors, and plan your curriculum.

Lastly, let’s see some hybrid learning examples to explore how various organizations implement this approach in practice. There are various use cases and studies in business and classroom education, such as the article of Hwang about business and management education or research about the hybrid education implementation in France national schools. It was also implemented widely in construction engineering education in the United States, and there is a research article from Iowa State University, exploring the implementation specifics and results.

While the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end, many employees and students are happy to learn from home and go offline only when there is really a need. Taking all hybrid learning benefits, it’s no wonder. Instead of trying to drive them back offline, it’s much better to implement online education elements, grasping all its rich opportunities and building an efficient learning environment.

Let’s explore how you can do this with learning management software!

To implement it in your environment, you need a hybrid learning platform that will fulfill all your needs.

It depends on your preferences and environment, which option to select and use, so let’s talk more about it. Answering questions regarding which hybrid education model to use is also crucial here. For example, the first option is ideal for self-education, as it requires no costs and almost no effort, just plain communication and note-making to reinforce the knowledge. The second option is good for independent learning groups and self-learning teams who want to improve their knowledge. They are best suited for academic purposes when students need to learn some fundamental scientific or social concepts.

The third option, a professional learning management system, should be seriously considered by businesses and large academic institutions, as they can greatly optimize all their processes. In addition to connecting learners and providing an interface for task checking, they also enable project management features, such as task planning and work tracking. Many of them also have various motivational and engaging elements, such as interactive learning journeys and reward systems, which are essential here to avoid detachment and isolation.

So, let’s explore hybrid learning software to see how they fulfill the mission of education.

Hybrid learning tools that we’ll present here include only the learning management systems category, as the most full and professional solutions. They are different in the number of features, accessibility, and pricing and such differences determine which one to choose for each usage case. Let’s evaluate five examples shortly and summarize which tasks each suits best.

To understand which hybrid learning solutions are the best for you, check your answers to all the questions above, so you can identify which problems you need to solve and choose the LMS for that.