Make your Virtual Instructor Led Training Interactive!
As the last 18 months have taught us, change in the workplace is never ending.
Our workplace environment continues to change and technology brings us new methods of meeting, working and learning. Because of this, many learning leaders are rethinking how they train their employees.
Don't panic, the traditional classroom training environment isn't dead, but learning leaders may need to reconsider or revisit learning plans it pertains to upcoming learning initiatives. Many companies are now focused on delivering a hybrid training plan with both in person and virtual training, with many wondering how can we make our Virtual Instructor Led Training more engaging and interactive?
When working within a vILT environment, instructional designers are faced with the task of looking at ways to keep engagement high without being physically present with the class and one of the best ways to do this is by ensuring a high level of interactivity.
Here are 5 ways to bring an interactive approach to your next vILT initiative from the global training experts at TrainingFolks.
Let Learners Discover More
Learners are curious and may want to know more about the subject matter that is being delivered. Get interactive by including a number of visual components that are linked to more about a topic. These can take them to additional articles, other areas of your course, connect them to vILT trainers, a chat room or play a video. The more they can find and the easier it is to click through, the more engaged they will be in the content.
Make It Real
A surefire way to lose your learners is to create the feeling that what they are learning is all theory and not really applicable in reality. With vILT there are unlimited possibilities to showcase real life application and results from the learning that is included in the course. Creating videos that learners can watch at specific points in the course will allow them to see how the content worked to solve an issue and again, create a higher sense of engagement.
Test Retention
Creating short quizzes or assessments throughout the program will not only allow virtual instructors, virtual producers and learning leaders to gauge the effectiveness of the program but will also give the learners an opportunity to see what they’ve retained. The interactivity comes in with the way in which these short test points are designed. Think about using gamification, social media or videos and apply the questions to actual issues that they will or have faced versus keeping it theoretical in nature. Remember, the more real, the more engaged they will be!
Make it Collaborative
Although learners may be on their own during the course, you don’t have to make them feel that way! Creating interactivity through encouraging collaboration is a great way to make the group feel like a unit and also to increase overall learner engagement. Depending on your course design, having learners break off into groups for smaller group discussions from which information will be shared with the larger group is one way to create interaction. Virtual instructors can also open up a separate online forum for questions, as well as chat amongst learners as things come up. Social media is another way to get interactive and collaborative with learners.
Pleasing to the Eye
You may have incredibly interesting content and have included opportunities for learners to get interactive throughout the entire course but find that due to poor aesthetics, your engagement levels were well below expectations.
It may seem like a no brainer but many courses are designed with the content in mind but little attention to the overall look and feel of the visuals that are being presented. The more interesting and appealing the content looks and flows, the easier it is for the learner to be engaged and to navigate through.
When designing or approving your next vILT course take a moment to ask yourself if you’d be engaged and interested in the content if you had to take the course. If you’d be hesitant, it may be time to revisit the design and find ways to get your learners more involved to ensure a higher rate of success.
Want to get started with Virtual Instructor Led Training, but not sure where to begin? Start with our FREE Download!
'Planning for Virtual Training'
