Remote work is the talk of the town these days. Ever since different countries started imposing lockdowns, the web has been flooded with articles talking about better management of remote employees, about boosting productivity while working from home, and about everything in between.
While employees and their managers have an abundance of resources to help them get used to the 'new normal', teachers and trainers have no such luxury.
Overnight, trainers were expected to be prepared for continuing their curriculums with their learners.
However, anyone that has conducted even one online class, or even has hosted a webinar would tell you that teaching virtually is radically different than teaching in a traditional classroom setting.
It is time to adapt for L&D professionals.
Thankfully, the employee training industry had already been undergoing a shift from traditional training techniques to virtual training when the pandemic happened.
This means, trainers and learning administrators have all the necessary tools to deliver an immersive and effective training experience to the screens of their learners.
All that is needed is a bit of preparation to make sure the lessons being taught online are 'learner-friendly'.
In this article, we will be talking about the steps that trainers and L&D professionals can take to successfully complete their shift to an online training environment and deliver an impactful training session.
Without further delay, let us begin:
Pre-Session Prep
Just like with an offline session, preparation is required to conduct an online session as well.
To begin with, it is important to prepare for the subject you are going to teach. Revise the concepts and go over the lessons multiple times to ensure you don't hesitate. This is also a good time to think of the possible confusions and queries your learners may have and prepare their answers. You can also consider creating a document containing all the FAQs related to the concepts you plan on teaching and share them with your learners during the training session.
Until this point, preparing for an online session is very similar to preparing to deliver a classroom training session. However, in the case of virtual training, a few extra efforts are required from the trainers.
Besides preparing yourself for the training session, it is also a good idea to prepare your learners for the same. To do this, you can share additional reading resources or videos with your learners a few days before the training session. This way, your learners will have the chance to get introduced to the concepts that you will be teaching them.
It is also important for trainers to familiarise themselves with the video conferencing solutions and other technological tools they will be using to deliver training.
In fact, it is advisable for trainers to learn about the learner side interface of the video conferencing software so that they can help out the learners that may face issues with connecting to the online class.
Pro Tip: Online training tools and internet connections work fine until they simply don't. That's why, it is advisable for online trainers to be prepared with a backup plan in case one of their tools or their internet connection malfunctions.
Introduce Intention To Your Training Style
In an online class, the learners usually have access to the feed of their trainer explaining the concepts to them. However, the key difference is that the trainer cannot see the faces of the individuals they are training.
This small difference can dramatically change the learning experience for your learners. Without access to facial cues, it becomes very difficult to realise if one or more students are not able to grasp the concept that you are explaining. Add to this the various challenges that a learner will face in concentrating on the lecture and it becomes easy to imagine how unengaging an online lecture can be from the learner's perspective.
To address this gap, trainers must take intentional steps to make their training experience more engaging.
You can do this in a number of different ways:
● In the beginning of the training session, hold a short ice-breaking exercise that involves each learner introducing themselves. Moreover, at this point, tell the learners what the session is going to be like, what topics, will be covered, and make sure everyone is on the same page regarding the flow of the session.
● Call out participants/learners by their names and ask them direct questions. Moreover, try and make sure that most of the questions that you ask are not answered with a yes or no.
For instance, after you explain a process, ask the learner "
● You can also make use of the tools offered by the online training platforms and programs that you use. For instance, most video conferencing solutions offer the ability to conduct tests and polls. Similarly, you can use the screen sharing feature to better explain the concepts and use the virtual whiteboards to explain processes.
It is also important to make sure that your learners are aware about the tools and features they can utilise to participate in the training. For instance, the 'raise hand' feature that is offered by many video conferencing tools is super-handy when it comes to answering student queries. Similarly, you can ask your learners to post their questions in the chat room so that the training session can progress uninterrupted. Then, at the end, you can address all the questions and queries one by one.
After The Session Is Over
Just like with traditional style training, engaging learners in post-training exercises that reinforce the information shared in the training is critical to ensuring success in online training sessions.
For this reason, it is important for online trainers to be prepared with some sort of revision material that will help learners better grasp the concepts they are taught.
This material can be in the form of short quizzes or in the form of additional reading material that can further their understanding of a particular concept.
It is also important for online trainers to have a well defined process for online learners to ask questions and queries that may arise after the training session is over.
While you can do it over email, you should also consider creating an online question repository that your learners can refer to. This way, you will be reducing the frequency of queries that you have to personally deal with.
Conclusion
With enough preparation, effort, and innovation, trainers can make sure their online training sessions are as engaging (if not more) as traditional classroom style training sessions.
Did we miss out on a technique that you employ to make your online training more engaging? Share them with us in the comment section below!
