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One of the hallmarks of any successful educator is an appreciation for the question: What’s the right level of structure my audience needs to thrive? School teachers strike that balance after managing dozens of lively classrooms. Corporate facilitators discover it by leading sessions with various offices across cities and time zones.
Here’s the reality: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to structured vs. self-directed learning. Both are essential aspects of your education program, and it’s a fallacy to believe one side of the spectrum is superior to the other. Learning and development teams of the past may have had their preferences, but in a world where agentic learning is redefining how to engage your audience, you can’t afford to settle for old tactics.
In this article, we’ll explore the state of structured vs. self-directed learning. What are the strengths of each? When’s the best time and place to deploy them? And, most importantly, how do you leverage both in an age of increasingly AI-personalized learning paths and goals? That’s a lot of questions to cover, but you’re in the right place to get answers.
What Is Structured Learning?
True to its name, structured learning refers to the formal learning bedrock of your education program. From your core curriculum to specific courses and certifications, structured learning is the content you design to build competency (e.g., for a specific role, for individual skills) and/or to provide your audience with credentials they can use to further their professional development.
Of the six education initiatives we define here at Intellum, onboarding, certifications, and compliance would all fall into the category of structured learning. They rely predominantly on structured, guided learning paths to help learners achieve a specific set of learning objectives. If you’ve ever helped HR facilitate a mandatory ethics training for all employees, or partnered with your product team to build a certification for your customers, you’ve engaged in structured learning.
What Is Self-Directed Learning?
Self-directed learning, by contrast, is less foundational and more ad hoc. Often, a learner needs to achieve a very specific objective—like discover what a setting does in your product or improve their understanding of a feature. In this scenario, the learner may already have intimate knowledge of a subject but want to touch up or expand their expertise.
Knowledge base content (e.g., support or “how to” articles), skills and enablement resources, and videos are all potential examples of self-directed learning. These forms of education don’t tend to have a structured, preset learning path; you consume whatever articles or videos you want, at whatever pace you set.
Structured vs. Self-Directed Learning: When to Use Which
Both structured and self-directed learning have their respective strengths—so naturally, you don’t want to pigeonhole your entire academy into a single box. Start by understanding the outcome. What do you hope to achieve with your program (either short- or long-term)? What curriculum do you need to further that goal? Work backward from there.
Structured learning excels when laying the foundation for your curriculum. If you want your audience to become proficient or outright fluent in a body of knowledge (e.g., a product, a role, a skill), explore a formal avenue of credentialing, like a certification or badge. For instance, the team at Meta Blueprint designs high-stakes certifications that upskill users in various marketing functions (e.g., campaign optimization, audience targeting); as part of that education, Meta tests users’ knowledge with proctored exams.
Self-directed learning, meanwhile, gives users the agency to jumpstart (or continue) their progress. For your academy, this might mean offering smaller, bite-sized media — videos, podcasts, support articles, thought-leadership blogs — that users can consume à la carte. Investing in these smaller resources doesn’t have to detract from your structured courses and certifications; in fact, you can design a modular content strategy that packages and repurposes evergreen elements into something that’s custom-tailored to a specific learner persona.
To use a real-world example: If you’re interested in improving your health, you might listen to a podcast on nutrition. You don’t have to start from episode one; instead, you’d seek out the specific episode (or even timestamp) that aligns with your personal learning goals. But if you’re looking to become a personal trainer, that alone probably wouldn’t get you where you need to go; a more formal learning path (e.g., a health certification and/or personal training exam) would better align with the degree of knowledge you’d need to thrive in that field.
How to Design With Both Forms of Learning in Mind
As mentioned in the intro, the question isn’t “Should I incorporate structure into my academy?” but “How much structure should I build?” Your audience isn’t a monolith; each person has specific learning goals and thus their own unique learning path. Just as you’d never present an auditory learner with a wall of text, you’d never force structure upon individuals who may thrive on self-guided education.
The key, as with most things in life, is balance. Here are a few ways to keep both structured and self-directed learning top-of-mind when designing content:
1. Perform a Needs Analysis.
When thinking holistically about your academy, return to your desired outcome. Start by conducting a needs analysis to see what content is best suited to help you achieve that objective. Ask yourself: What do our learners need to know? What problem are we solving for them?
Together with your team, list the core competencies you’d like your audience to develop through your academy. Map those competencies back to your content design needs — complete with an outline of the courses, certifications, and smaller articles and/or videos that would supplement your core curriculum.
2. Scope Out Your Timeline.
After conducting your analysis, scope out the level of effort, resources, and time commitment you need to meet those needs. Your timeline will help inform which types of learning to invest in for your academy, and when.
Formal learning paths require more time, effort, and intention. You’re not just looking to achieve a learning objective or two, but a series of objectives that help learners develop a broader range of competencies. This takes time to develop—especially if you’re looking to create a credible, high-stakes certification that extends beyond a basic certificate.
Informal learning content, on the other hand, tends to require less lead time and can be produced much faster. From a standalone knowledge base article to a lo-fi video explaining how to navigate an area of your product, how you create self-led learning is flexible. You could start with a basic certification and create supplemental pieces as needed, or you could create modular content and build up bigger courses as your timeline allows.
3. Identify Your Subject Matter Experts.
Time is a big part of your resourcing, but so is expertise. Developing a massive certification doesn’t just require hours of effort; it requires a set of SMEs who are knowledgeable about the subject and available to help you create and validate content.
Take inventory of the people on your team—and elsewhere at your organization—who are available to help you with your academy. If you’re strapped for resources and operating with a lean team, now might not be the right time to design a large piece of structured learning. If you have access to just a handful of SMEs, you might decide it’s better to create one-off videos or blogs where they can provide value for learners in the interim.
4. Deploy, Learn, and Iterate.
Your team doesn’t create content in a vacuum. Remember that your greatest testers—beyond your SMEs—are the learners who regularly engage with your academy.
Align internally on the ideal education metrics to track, then launch your new content and see how it performs. Especially if you’re tight on resources, use this opportunity to observe user behavior and develop a list of learnings. That way, when it does come time to iterate, you’re ready to do so.
Build a Truly Personalized Academy With Intellum
When you’re ready to take the next step with your academy, make sure you’re leveraging a learning management system that supports your content needs, no matter what balance of learning you seek to strike.
Intellum’s LMS lets educators design and deploy various learning—ILT, VILT, videos, courses, certifications, and more—all from one cohesive platform. Use our Creator Agent to draft and polish structured content faster, or create smaller content blocks to repurpose as you see fit.
Personalizing content has never been easier. Our Learner Agent helps each individual determine what to learn next based on their unique learning history and objectives. Whether a learner’s developing a new skill or completing various milestones on the way to their next certification, your ideal academy is always in reach with Intellum.
