The blended course by itself isn't the problem, it is how the NRA has implemented it.
Training is a grass roots process led by instructors. For instructors that plan relatively small classes, it is impossible to schedule a class and hope that their students sign up and complete the on line content prior to the phase II.
The process should continue to be instructor driven whereby students sign up through their instructor who would continue to set their own course fee structure. Instructors would set up each student on the NRA website and pay the student online fee and then activate the students online phase I account. This would be no different than instructors buying course booklets and packets as was traditionally done. The instructor when logged in should be able to see all students accounts and have access to the progress, status and all test and quiz results.
There should only be one course certificate and it should only be issued by the instructor at the successful completion of both phase I and phase II.
Well NRA did suggest that we buy computers and outfit classrooms for our students. NRA would be fine with us paying for our student's Phase I class, as long as they get the money they don't care who it comes from.
Problems with this:
- Absolutely NEGATIVE ROI,
- Cost of computers to outfit classroom,
- Most of us rent space for a given class, don't have permanent facility to leave outfitted with computers,
- Online is too long and intense. As an instructor they gave us free access to Phase I, I couldn't do more than 1 or 2 lessons/day, only an hour or so at a time. Can't imagine forcing someone to sit there ~8 hrs to go thru all the Phase I lessons.
- Too many instructors wrongly interpret this change to only involve them for the shooting portion. My read of the course is that we will still spend 3+ hrs with the students teaching as well as shooting (and this doesn't include the MA law non NRA portion).
- Too many instructors feel the need to significantly reduce or eliminate our fees to "compensate" for what NRA takes.
Personally I see no advantage of teaching the course as currently designed and think that modifying the HFS course (mod is to include live fire) is a much better tool for the student, still has us doing the training and you can still cover our costs and make a few bucks if so inclined (although many instructors think it a sin to make money teaching).