Interview with Darlene Christopher, author
the-successful-virtual-classroom-book-cover
The Successful Virtual Classroom by Darlene Christopher
What motivated you to write this book?
I think that delivering training via virtual classrooms offers so much potential to organizations in terms of the ability to scale the delivery of training to dispersed audiences. The books I found on virtual classroom training focused on the "what" of virtual classroom training but I felt there was more to be explored in terms of the "how" so I decided to write about it.
I also included a chapter focused on delivering virtual training to global audiences since globalization is a growing trend affecting many organizations, yet little has been written about it.
If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?
Delivering training programs in a virtual classroom requires adjustments in two key areas in order to engage a live online audience: content and facilitation. Adjusting your content and facilitation techniques takes some time, but in return it saves travel time and cost for both the enterprise and learner.
How can trainers use this book to assist them in the work that they do?
The goal of this book is to provide facilitators and other training professionals with the tools and techniques to confidently design and facilitate engaging virtual programs. A supporting framework - the PREP model (plan, rehearse, execute, and post-session review) - is covered in detail.
The book is also filled with tools, checklists, and worksheets-as well as case studies from Oracle, UPS, and more. I aimed to make the book as practical as possible and I hope that training professionals will find the tips, sample exercises and icebreakers and real-world examples directly applicable to their work. 4
Darlene Christopher, Senior Knowledge & Learning Officer. World Bank
You're Probably Wondering Why I Invited You To This Training
As our newsletter subscribers know, one of the services The Training Doctor provides is "Training Triage," that is, helping companies to redesign training they already have in place, but which doesn't hit the mark, for some reason.
One of our more recent projects highlighted one of the more typical situations we encounter: there was not much point for the trainees to be there. It was a three-hour class - delivered online - which was strictly lectured. This approach violated a number of learning principles - both general, classroom principles, and more specifically, online learning principles.
One of the easiest ways to determine if you are designing a quality learning experience is simply to ask yourself: What is the audience doing during this class? If the answer is "nothing," then you really have not designed a class at all!
One of the wonderful things about technology is that it freed us from having to bring people together to simply transmit information. We now have the ability to create e-Learning, podcasts or videos which allow for self-study.
So, if your audience is truly doing nothing during your class time, then you need to take "classtime" out of the equation. Look to an alternative means of relaying your content. The adult learning principle that was violated in the course that we were assessing as that it was strictly lectured and there was no purpose to having the learners gathered together. The online learning principle that was violated was that live and online learning should be reserved for those topics which truly benefit from having "minds together."
The benefit of bringing people together is to achieve more creative ideas and benefit from the collaboration and synergy which results from having many thoughts on one topic. A simple question to answer, but a hard objective to achieve: What is the audience doing during this class?
WebEx Tip: Pop-Up Note
If you'd like to have a pop-up welcome note as people join your WebEx Session, you can program it when you schedule your class, OR if you are opening a session spontaneously, go to the menu bar: Meeting > Welcome Message. It will open a new browser window and you can type your message. Be sure to check "Display this message when attendees join the meeting."
The result: As each new attendee joins, this message window will pop up over the WebEx interface. Useful for introducing yourself, giving instructions (e.g. "Be sure to close down your email."), or providing alternate call-in numbers, if needed.
Adobe Connect Tip: Polls and Chat Pods
If you are setting up your classroom in advance, and you'd like to bring in a poll or chat pod to place over a share pod (rather than going to a new layout), you can open, size, position and then hide all your pods in advance. When you then again pull them up from Pod > type (e.g. Chat) they will appear where you "last left them" - avoiding you having to maneuver them around the screen while learners are watching.
Online Collaboration MUST be Designed
One of the most wonderful things about the online classroom is the ability to bring learners together who may otherwise be geographically separated. If one individual in New York and one individual in Arizona need the same training, the virtual classroom not only allows them to partake in that training without travel, but also to take that training with fellow learners.
Too often, however, the virtual classroom is used in presentation-mode rather than in collaborative-mode.
All virtual classroom platforms pledge that their product enables your organization and your learners to work collaboratively. And it is true. All virtual classroom platforms allow for learners to interact verbally, via chat or instant messenger, through the use of feedback symbols or emoticons, and often through breakout rooms which enable smaller discussions and group activities to occur.
This doesn't just happen spontaneously, however. It is imperative that the training be designed to be collaborative.
One of the basic tenets of adult learning is that adults prefer to learn collaboratively; in other words adults prefer to learn with others. Therefore, it is imperative that the focus of the learning process is on the learners working together, discussing, questioning, problem solving, and in general, contributing to the learning process and the learning content.
As Instructional Designers, we must put quite a bit of thought into how we can ensure the learners work together to achieve the learning outcome, rather than sitting at their individual sites being passive recipients of a presentation.
The "Problem" With Virtual Learning
We recently read this blog post which really made our blood to boil!
In a nutshell, the writer, a college professor, finds himself stranded at the airport and decides his situation should not impede his regularly scheduled class. He can simply use the virtual technology his college supplies, to fulfill his teaching obligations.
After experiencing an unsuccessful "class," he wrote a lengthy diatribe about how virtual technology will never replace face-to-face teaching. Here are some things he failed to consider (and, quite frankly, most people who are new to virtual technology or use it occasionally, also fail to consider):
1. Choose the right technology for the job and be sure you know how to use it. We recently received a directive from a client telling us to not use the highlighter tool to highlight text on the slide because "it doesn't work, it scribbles all over the slide." In fact, the "breakdown" was with the Bamboo tablet in our office.
2. You cannot decide, on the spur of the moment, that you will teach using virtual technology. A delivery of this type must be planned for (see next article). The writer bemoans: Tonight was going to involve role playing, discussions, presentations, and even interactive trivia.
3. If you have a limiting belief that you can only "lecture" while using virtual teaching platforms, and that cannot be as successful as you would have been in the classroom - you will be correct. His sentiments exactly: Tonight I am subjecting my students to this hollowed-out lesson. I do so out of necessity. I know it is not the best experience for my students, or for myself..
The server and the virtual platform have little to do with one another other than being the "power cord;" would you say that your electric company was horrible if your lamp shorted out? We'd be frustrated too: I am now on my third attempt at uploading the lecture. During the two previous attempts a prompt came up, saying "server failure." The program crashed and nothing was recorded or could be recovered. An hour lecture up in smoke - three times over, but it has nothing to do with the virtual classroom.
Virtual classrooms ARE the training room of the future. We recognize that not everyone will be comfortable there, and that's ok (not everyone is comfortable standing in front of a room speaking, either); but don't blame the technology for a lack of forethought, planning, or skill on the part of the human.
The Most Important Key to Facilitating in the Virtual Classroom
We all know good facilitation skills: ask don't tell; encourage discussion among participants-not just between you and the participants; play devil's advocate to challenge people's thinking, etc., but when we move from the classroom to the virtual classroom we seem to revert immediately to lecture and presentation mode.
If you think straightforward lecture is a snoozer in the classroom, it’s ten times worse in the virtual classroom when the only thing participants have to keep them engaged is the sound of your voice. In order to deliver online classes that are engaging, facilitation skills are more critical than ever.
A common complaint of new online facilitators is that the participants aren't paying attention and are frequently multitasking. That is only true if you are not facilitating. If you are facilitating, your participants would be too involved with the learning process to have the time or the inclination to multitask.
According to Wikipedia, a facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them in planning to achieve them. Another definition, also from Wikipedia, states that a facilitator is a person who makes it easier for other people to accomplish their objectives by offering advice and assistance. A common theme here is that the facilitator is not the focus of the learning event, the facilitator brings the learning about through the training participants.
The best virtual classroom learning experiences put the dialogue and the learning process firmly in the hands of the participants. If you're bringing people together online in order to simply make a presentation - don't. Record the presentation and let your participants view it on-demand. Bring people together online for the kind of interactive and collaborative outcomes that can only be achieved when we bring people together.