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Learning & Development

Published June 2007

Mentored Learning Goes Digital

  Marie Kiley and Michelle Meyer

If you search on Google for mentored learning, you will find many training organizations that offer it. The problem is, mentored learning is used to describe many different approaches to learning — how do you know exactly what you will get from a mentored learning provider?

The commonality among all these providers is that they all define mentors as subject-matter experts who support learners by drawing on their own experience and knowledge. The main difference is exactly how much support mentors provide, how the support is delivered and what other learning tools are provided to ensure the acquisition of skills and transfer of knowledge.

Before, mentoring primarily referred to an organization's internal training process in which a new employee was assigned to a senior employee. The senior employee was responsible for transferring his or her knowledge gained on the job to the new employee and to help that person become oriented with the organization's procedures and culture.

Many companies still have mentoring programs, but they have found the amount of knowledge that can be gained from this unstructured delivery process is quite limited. This is one of the main reasons companies outsource their training — so they can gain access to expanded learning tools and techniques.

There is still a huge benefit, however, to the one-on-one guidance learners receive from mentors. Realizing this, some learning organizations have blended the strengths of one-on-one instruction with more traditional learning delivery methods such as classroom learning and e-learning, thereby creating a more robust role for the instructor.

Online Mentored Learning

Online mentored learning is traditional e-learning enhanced to include one-on-one virtual support from a subject-matter expert, or mentor.

When e-learning emerged as a revolutionary learning method, everyone thought it would eventually replace traditional classroom learning. After all, it is cost-effective, especially when training a dispersed workforce. It's also convenient because training can take place anytime, anywhere.

Many, however, argue e-learning is not as effective as classroom learning mainly because it lacks the one-on-one interaction that only live instruction can provide — collaboration and human interaction are necessary components for the successful acquisition and retention of knowledge for most learners.

In an attempt to resolve this issue, many e-learning providers now offer online mentored learning. In fact, more than 66 percent of online educational institutions offer some form of mentored learning. Online mentored learning is usually conducted using the following forms of support:

E-mail. This form of support is as simple as it sounds. Learners send an e-mail to their mentor, asking a specific question or requesting guidance or clarification, and the mentor responds directly via e-mail. As with e-learning, this form of communication is flexible and convenient because the learners decide when to contact their mentors and can initiate the communication from anywhere with access to e-mail.

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