Reshaping Professional Learning with Robust Online Courses

The pandemic is becoming less prominent in our lives and as it eases, many organizations are experiencing a new reality. Online platforms are not only a temporary band aid, but they actually allow us to provide even greater learning and development opportunities for their students and employees.

As professional Lean Six Sigma educators, we have worked in diverse industries and sectors across the world including Health care, Government, Private Sector and Universities. A couple years ago, offices and universities had to close their physical doors and only a handful were ready to quickly adapt to robust online alternatives. Many organizations had to scramble to create new ways of working. Unfortunately, professional and robust learning fell to the back burner in many cases. Now, many organizations are able to take a breath to reflect and assess how virtual learning can radically improve the learner (employee, student, patient…) experience.

As a matter of fact, enrollment in online university courses has increased even though university enrollment overall decreased. Today, millions of college students study online and more than 25% of all graduate students take at least one online course. About 2.6 million students take online courses exclusively. That’s a huge leap from just a couple of years ago.

By offering greater flexibility than on-site or in-class options, organizations are able to offer robust, modern, interactive, self-paced learning including hybrid and all-virtual models. Doing this well is much more than just putting up lectures or slide shows online. That’s a quick fix. But these makeshift models are not a sustainable way to learn.

Lean Six Sigma has been a highly respected certification for many decades. It is an integral part of many organizational Learning & Development curriculums and is included in many universities course catalogs. That said, many of these offerings relied on an instructor-led, classroom style learning. And many of these classroom courses were based on course materials that were created in the 1980s! Sure, some of them have moved from big binders to slide shows, but there are few that have moved to an interactive, robust, modern approach to teaching these critical problem-solving tools and techniques.

Robust online Lean Six Sigma learning is now accessible to working adults, students, and people across the world from non-traditional backgrounds. For students who are looking to complete a requirement for their degree, or for a professional looking to gain credentials, achieving a certification in a way that suits their lifestyle is now easily accessible from any device anywhere in the world. People gaining their Lean Six Sigma certifications are much more diverse in every way than ever before as the online world has opened up for people who may be juggling work and family obligations. A great benefit of accessibility is also affordability. The new online platforms are not only much more flexible and accessible, but they are also much more affordable, which is just moor doors opening.

Many online students choose to take fewer courses or to spread out their learning over a greater time to allow them to care for other aspects of their life – this is why the flexibility of online learning is so appealing. It allows a balance of family life, work life and educational or professional pursuits.

As most of us have experienced, dealing with a completely human-less interaction can be excessively frustrating when you need support. What is absolutely key to making an online learning model work, is having easy access to the kind of support that they might get through in-person instruction. For a Lean Six Sigma learning, support might include answers to questions as they arise, or understanding how a concept applies to their own situation, deeper explanations and examples for more technical concepts or support with an active improvement project. An online learning platform only works well when learners are assured that the interactions and support are not lost when they attend a class online.

Human support at your fingertips...a critical aspect of eLearningAt this point in time, just seeing the pandemic clouds lift, we are likely just at the beginning of a major digital transformation, which can greatly and positively impact the way that we grow and learn. And as long as people continue to value flexibility and quality education, this trend will continue to flourish. Explore online Lean Six Sigma courses and certifications and join the online community!