My tips for better blends

This is my self-proclaimed year of the blend and I'm releasing a new book on blended learning in the new year, so it's time to collect my thoughts.

There is nothing inherently wonderful about a blended solution. Making the decision to design an intervention in a blended format is only your first step – the quality of your end result depends on what you include in the blend and when, and how well these decisions reflect the learning requirement, the characteristics of your target population and the particular resource constraints within which you are being asked to operate.

Every day for the next week or so I will be sharing some of my tips for better blends. None of these will guarantee that you will make great design decisions but they may just point you in the right direction.

Here's what's coming:

1: Don’t jump to solutions – start with a sound analysis
2: Try to stop the subject expert and the client dictating the solution
3: Focus on performance, not knowledge
4: Don’t overdo the self-study
5: Build in lots of opportunities to practise new skills
6: Use guided discovery to get across the big ideas
7: Keep a balance between the synchronous and asynchronous
8: Keep all ideas about technology out of your mind until you’ve fixed on a suitable method
9: Recognise that face-to-face learning still has an important part to play
10: Extend the blend along the whole learning journey