From the course: Converting Face-to-Face Training into Digital Learning

Development tips: Virtual instructor-led training

From the course: Converting Face-to-Face Training into Digital Learning

Start my 1-month free trial

Development tips: Virtual instructor-led training

“

- [Instructor] Let's say you're training new managers for a large department store chain. Each of the managers work in a different region of the company. In your analysis of the job, you discovered that new managers often struggle in their first six months, and so a lot of them quit. Because of these factors, you want learners connecting with each other, collaborating, so that they feel confident and can develop a support network when they return to their regions. In this case, virtual instruction or a webinar-type format is a good one to choose and lucky for you, I just happen to have five tips here on how you might go about designing it. Tip one: create activities that encourage participation. Participation is key to a successful virtual session. Tell a story related to whatever it is you're teaching. At the beginning, you might tell a story about when you were nervous starting a new job and what you did to overcome it. Then ask participants if they've experienced anything similar. Or set up a scenario and ask them what they would do in the situation. For instance, a new manager who is quite a bit younger than the people she manages is struggling with a particular employee who isn't respecting her authority. What should she do? Tip two: break participants into small groups. Small group discussions and activities are great. They're often more intimate, they create some variety and the students learn from each other. Most virtual learning platforms have this functionality built in. If the one you're using doesn't, create a workaround. Tip three: regularly check in with participants. You don't have the luxury of having everyone in the same room, so you're going to have to check in with students a bit more than normal. Call them by name, ask them to turn on their webcam when speaking, encourage them to respond verbally or through the chat. If you want to check in with all students to see how well they're understanding things, offer up a poll. Tip four: include additional resources that complement the session that learners can check out on their own. This might be material from LinkedIn Learning, online modules, blog posts from leaders in the field. This will give you stuff to talk about during your next session. And tip five: keep sessions on the shorter side. The longest you want to go is 90 minutes. It's way better to have multiple sessions per week than one long honking one. Keeping them shorter will also make recording and uploading the sessions easier. We've covered a decent amount of ground there, so let's sum up. Virtual instruction is effective when students need immediate feedback and the chance to collaborate. When you design them, remember to: create activities that encourage participation, check in with students often and keep sessions on the shorter side.

Contents