"We'll teach on land, on the Internet, we'll teach at sea. Pretty soon we'll be teaching in space."
That's a quote from Dr. Larry Barton, president and CEO of The American College, taken from a December 2009 "Year in Review" Webcast from The American College. It may yet be a while before anyone is signing into insurance classes on their iPad during a sub-orbital "flight" on Virgin Galactic, but you get the idea.
In much the same way social media has changed the way people communicate, and mirroring the proliferation of online colleges, education in the life insurance industry has evolved to a point where distance learning has become the norm.
While an educational provider such as The American College still maintains a live classroom setting at its campus in Bryn Mawr, Pa., the past decade saw a remarkable transition toward online learning. Carriers and marketing organizations have also been on the bandwagon for a while now, taking advantage of the substantial cost savings online learning presents.
"We have one client company that has 300 courses [available] on the iPod," Barton told me during our interview in early March ("Larry Barton: The American Way"). "You have agents in Chicago on the subway -- as they're going downtown from Oak Park or wherever -- taking courses on the iPod. That's exciting. That is where that company has realized that their agents are very receptive to that kind of technology."
While Barton admits that doesn't work for everyone, he says The American College has been working with companies like this, utilizing its digital content to help that company's learning and development training be more accessible and successful.
"Now we have agents downloading The Wealth Channel onto their laptop or iPod," Barton says. "[These companies] have asked a lot of this institution to make sure that we're on the cutting edge ... We have 160 employees here who have moved in the past seven years from a brick and mortar institution to having a lot of online learning. The move to online has been a great benefit, because so many producers don't have the time or capacity to travel."
Concerned that online learning isn't as effective as being in a live classroom? Research from the U.S. Dept. of Education suggests differently: "Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction." The 2009 study, "Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies," went on to proclaim that students who mix online learning with traditional coursework (i.e. blended learning) do even better.
The widespread availability of online classes, Webinars, self-study courses and more is making it more convenient than ever to earn that designation you always knew you needed to reach the next level.
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