Everyone does not have the same dreams and aspirations when it comes to their career, and it is not uncommon to see many graduates who prefer to enter the workforce instead of going for their masters right away. After a few years of experience in their respective sector, they may consider continuing their education through some professional qualifications. While this may not be suitable for some of the courses, yet there are plenty of professional courses which support the working professionals aspiring for a higher education degree. One of the top-most courses that are preferred by working professionals worldwide is the Masters in Business Administration or MBA. Also, run in several top business schools as a Post Graduate Program in Management or PGPM, the MBA is a highly adaptable and practical program that enables the students with skills required to manage a business. A popular way to making the academics and the program structure relevant to the working professionals is the utilization of hybrid and blended education methods.

What is hybrid and blended education?

Hybrid learning is a methodology that integrates digital learning delivery and experiential learning assignments, with traditional classroom learning. This makes it a potent mix to educate the students in gaining the theoretical understanding of the principles of management, but also learn about the application of these principles in their working life. A successful hybrid education program can boost the learning of the students manyfold while providing the educators an easy and impactful way to deliver the curriculum. There are many elements of Hybrid Learning that make it the perfect fit for management education. Here are some of the best benefits of utilizing hybrid learning principles and techniques for working professionals.

Focus on Individual Learning – The academics of the business school in the traditional classroom learning leans towards group learning and lecture method which may stop the students from customizing their learning experience. This ultimately means that the student has less control over how he or she learns the subjects and puts pressure on the students to adjust their learning style to align with the teaching method preferred by the business school. This can easily be fixed through the hybrid learning methods where learning each subject matter takes several approaches and the student can choose between them to familiarize themselves with the material while learning it thoroughly. Since the working professionals come with their own experience, they can choose how they want to learn the subjects by paying attention to specific parts.

Higher quality interaction – The business school has several great faculty members and academicians who also carry years of work experience. One of the best parts of going to a prominent business school such as ICFAI Business School (IBS)is that the student gets to interact with these tenured veterans and benefit from their insights. In a traditional classroom, many students vie for the attention of the faculty members, and the chance of getting detailed feedback from them on any of your projects is slim. That is where hybrid learning shines by giving the students access to tools to interact with their faculty members. This helps the students get insights about their learning from the experienced faculty member and develop a deeper understanding of their subject.

Collaborative approach – The students can be assigned group projects in which they can work with their peers. Since collaboration is a valuable management skill, the students can develop it and it plays an important part in their academic and professional success. Hybrid learning has some great academic tools that can help the students in honing this skill. One of the great examples of using hybrid learning in developing collaboration is through the unique case study method of the ICFAI Business School (IBS), where a case study may be assigned to a group for analysis, decision making, and presentation of the results.

Reduction in absenteeism – One of the practical benefits of hybrid learning can be seen in the reduction of absenteeism and its impact on the students. In the classroom-only method of teaching, the students have to ensure that they attend each class as their comprehension of the next lesson depends upon it. There are very few chances of catching up if the student ends up missing more than three to four lectures altogether. Hybrid learning provides the student with impressive audio-visual tools which can quickly bring the student’s academic progress up to speed. This also results in less strain on the student since they can get class recordings through the LMS. All of these benefits make Hybrid Learning one of the most successful approaches to teach the students. This is especially true for management education where the competition is at an all-time high and the students need more support than usual. This is especially true for working professionals who need more flexibility in their studies and need the freedom to allocate times according to their availability. Hybrid education is gaining even more acceptance and is popular among students at top business schools such as ICFAI Business School (IBS).