Blended Learning in Education, Training, and Development

Overview & Synopsis

The term "blended learning" has been growing in popularity, particularly in training and development arenas. Blended learning can be described as the use of synchronous or asynchronous technologies and traditional face-to-face instruction, in different forms or combinations, so as to facilitate teaching and learning. This mixture or blending of different technologies with the traditional face-to-face approach to teaching and learning has given rise to a new paradigm in the education environment. The emergence of blended learning as a preferred way of conducting education, training, and development is allowing corporate trainers and higher education faculty to integrate the advantages of face-to-face classroom interactions with positive characteristics of distance learning (Kriger, 2003). This article focuses on blended learning as a tool for education, training, and development that is also changing the distance education model.