Resource Guide to Learning Delivery Methods

resource guide to learning

What learning delivery methods are there and how do you consider them? In 2014 Scott Leslie and I supported an analysis for decision making on training strategies for the International Labour Organization’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility, now the Impact Insurance Facility (http://www.impactinsurance.org/ ).

As I moved on to other related works, I kept drawing on these initial documents. Finally, I’ve gotten around to a) getting permission from the ILO to share (THANK YOU!) and trying to pull out some of the domain specific stuff so it might be more widely useful.

The Resource Guide to Learning Delivery Methods  (pdf for now) is a version of one of the outputs of our work, shared with permission from the Facility with the hope that it adds value to your work. (The other elements include a Glossary and a Strategic Options documents.) We hope to also put these online for crowd-sourced critique and revisions. (TBA!) In the meantime, I just want to get this OUT THERE!

From the Introduction:

This document is a version of one of the outputs of our work, shared with permission from the Facility with the hope that it adds value to your work. (The other elements include a Glossary and a Strategic Options documents.) We hope to also put these online for crowd-sourced critique and revisions. (TBA!)

The Facility team was evaluating their e-learning options to expand capacity building for microinsurance for the poor. An early identified need was to understand elearning in the wider context of delivery mechanisms.

The basic content can be useful when starting to consider capacity development, training or specifically an e-learning strategy. It is not exhaustive, and some things have become dated since it was written. Understanding that, it can help you understand the range of learning options, and where they might be most effective.

We surveyed 20 different learning delivery methods across five major categories:

  • Face-to-face delivery methods
  • Online delivery methods:
    • Traditional online courses
    • MOOCs, communities & self-directed learning
    • Synchronous methods
    • Mobile delivery methods
  • Offline delivery methods
  • Blended and hybrid methods

This guide is the detailed analysis of these methods in the context of the Facility’s domain. It includes a general description, domain-related examples, and provides insight and comparisons on these methods based the qualities the organization identified as key to assessing any proposed solution. These qualities include:

  • the implications of this method on scalability and adaptability of content
  • implications on quality control
  • any effects the method may have on motivating learners’ completion of training and achievement of learning objectives
  • the ease and costs of implementing any of these methods

Your qualities may be different, so you may wish to consider your needs and how the methods may or may not meet your needs. This document is offered as a Free Cultural License as defined by the Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ .