Technology is increasing in importance in the training environment. Companies are trying to get people trained faster and with the most cost- effective methods. Whenever I facilitate our instructional techniques course, more and more people make the comment, “Well, that’s good when you’re in the classroom and you can see all of those non-verbal cues, but what happens when you are doing something virtually?” In addition, I recently did a consulting skills class for a company that does everything virtually. So I began to think about what is really going to be different in a virtual classroom. Specifically, what can we do to engage the learner? How can we create an active environment so they don’t check out? (Text messaging, emails, extended breaks, etc.). Actually, there are several things that we can do both before and during the virtual classroom experience to encourage interaction.
BEFORE
One area that we can look at is pre-work. Pre-work can take different forms. It can be a preliminary survey, similar to what we do in a traditional class environment. The survey asks the learners to identify some key points related the topic to be covered that they would like walk away with. It can also ask them to identify questions they have about that topic to ensure that they are covered. (You can point them out during the class.)
Pre-work can also be a reading assignment. For example, we can assign a section of reading to a group of learners. The group can be organized by work group, by division, by region, or whatever makes it easier for the learners to contact each other. Let them know that they will be responsible to answer two questions related to the assigned section. We can have them read an article based on the topic and post their response(s) online to specific questions. As the instructor, we should review the responses prior to the session so we can reference them in class. If we do not check/reference this information, we imply that the pre-work is not important. People will stop doing the pre-work.
When I work with instructors in distance learning, we have live classes or we have pre-recorded classes that students can review at their leisure. In live classes we have students either in rooms or on campus with press-and-talk microphones or they bridge in from home using the telephone. We need to find ways to have that human touch. Part of the registration process includes each person’s sharing three things about themselves. This allows the instructor to make a personal connection during the introduction of the class. (Example: “We have a group of world travelers with us today. This group has traveled to over 8 countries.”) The instructor can then share three things about him/herself either in his/her bio or at the beginning of the session.
DURING
There are several things we need to consider to keep the learner engaged. Since we don’t have the eye contact that we have in the traditional learning environment, we need to be more dynamic with our delivery. Our voice – intonation, pitch, volume, enunciation, etc., becomes more important. We should also examine our facial expressions, mannerisms, and gestures to see if they’re going to help engage the learner or become a distraction.
Having effective visuals, while always important, is critically important in a virtual environment. Slides need to be very visual, contain graphics, a punch of color, and should not be crowded with text. Here, less is more. The objective should be to have slides that are clear, concise, and to the point. And, keeping our delivery moving at a fairly brisk pace is key to engagement.
To make the session a little bit more interactive, we can set up an opportunity to do several Q&A sessions. This can be done electronically or structured as part of the pre-work. When there is a demonstration that is live or video-recorded, we can follow it up with Q&A to clarify the understanding of the demonstrated process. If we have an additional person working to support us, we can set up a blackboard, open a chat room so that there could be an ongoing discussion around the information, or use email to address additional questions. The support staff can be monitoring these methods and answering the questions directly or sending us the most frequently asked questions. If there is not enough time to address all the questions, we can create a FAQ page.
When lecturing, we can use a lecture method that creates an exchange of information between instructor and learner. For example the instructor can ask, “When conducting a needs analysis the most common data collection method is: A. interviews, B. Surveys, C. Records, or D. Observation.” The learners either respond via an electronic poll or write their answer on a sheet of paper. After the poll has finished or the time to write it down is over the instructor can respond, “The correct answer is B. (transition to content). Let’s look at some of the criteria for creating a valid survey.” This can be an opportunity to use any pre-assigned reading for this topic.
As the use of technology in training increases, we are challenged to make our training dynamic. Based on the tool(s) that we use, this can be lots of fun and a great way to let our creative juices flow. In this blog I highlighted some of the ways to engage the learner in a virtual classroom (synchronous) environment. The next time I will address some methods for online tutorials (asynchronous training).
What have you done in the virtual classroom to involve your learners? What is the average length of your virtual classes? We’d love to hear from you.
Martha
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Comments RSS
No matter what the environment is bad training is bad training.
I’ve been in classrooms where an instructor has droned on and on with boring slides. I’ve had one-on-one sessions that put me to sleep. I’ve been in webinars where the speakers voices are boring and just checked out. I’ve taken boring eLearning courses that told me a bunch of stuff I didn’t need to know then gave me a multiple choice quiz. It’s all bad training.
Good classroom training encourages exploration and discussion.
Good webinars are given by people who use their voices well, smile, gesture and move around like they would in a classroom – it does come across on the phone. Whatever technology you have there are ways to get people collaborating, discussing and problem solving.
Good eLearning is based on the test-then-tell model where individuals can problem solve and find the information they need. If you have a rich environment that includes bulletin boards you can encourage even more discussion.
The medium doesn’t matter – we need to use all of our training, communications and interpersonal skills to create a warm, welcoming and positive environment in any venue.
I use pre and post cousre assignment to involve learners.