When Cindy Huggett envisions a great online trainingfacilitator, she’s thinking about Oprah.
A key skill is “building rapport with an audience that youdon’t have visual contact with. People do this all the time. Think of atelevision personality like Oprah. She’s the master of creating thatconnection. And how many of us have ever met her in person? But we feel like weknow her. She just draws us in,” said Huggett, a virtual training consultantand a dynamic, experienced presenter.
But being a great presenter is only a starting point; onlinetraining is very different from presenting information, Huggett emphasized. Intraining, facilitators—instructors in the virtual classroom—should engage withlearners every few minutes.
That’s a far cry from a lot of learners’ virtual classroomexperiences, where a facilitator drones on … and on, and on, maybe grudginglysqueezing in a poll question or two.
In a recent conversation, Huggett emphasized the need forfrequent, varied interactions—every three or four minutes. She gets pushbackfrom instructors on this; people say they don’t have time to do that muchinteraction, or they ask a question and get no response.
Huggett’s response is to tell facilitators to look at the designof their virtual class session. “A presentation is different from training. Apresentation is not the same thing. It’s not the same thing in person, and itis not the same thing online,” she said.
“If you have a design or you have a facilitator or deliveryperson who goes 15 minutes of lecturing and then asks a question—of course they[learners] are not going to respond,” Huggett said. “You are thinking of it as,‘I need to fit this into mypresentation.’ But really, it’s about engaging them from the start.”
Set expectations for learners up front
When designing training, Huggett emphasizes thatfacilitators have to let learners know that they are expected toparticipate—even before they enter the virtual classroom.
“It’s a little bit of an art, when you think about how tosculpt a class or design an online class so that the interaction is natural andit feels like a collaboration, instead of feeling forced. A lot of it goes backto setting the expectation that this is going to be interactive,” she said. “It’slearning—it’s not a meeting, it’s not ‘Let’s hop online for a conference call.’”
She advises facilitators not to send out the standardplatform-generated messages to announce a session. They always say, “To jointhe meeting …” she says, which sets up an expectation among learners of apassive experience. Instead, she encourages facilitators to “create your own messagethat says, ‘I can’t wait to see you in our online class,’ or ‘Here’s the linkto join us in our online classroom’ and ‘We want you to be engaged.’ Just addthat in; I think that’s important.”
Setting the expectation of an interactive session alsorequires jumping right in with an activity. “When they log in, what do you doto engage them? Do you have an activity right there, ready to go? Somethingthat is welcoming and greeting and engaging?” Huggett said.
Suggestions:
- Encourage learners to use the chat box to introduce themselves or chat about their experience with the platform
- Put up a poll question and have them respond using chat or a status indicator
“Right at the beginning, it’s not five minutes of ‘Let metell you what we’re going to do today’; and it’s not ‘It’s going to beinteractive, but let me read to you these 10 bullet points that are on aslide,’ Huggett continued. “It’s constant engagement at the beginning, to setthe stage.”
Variety is essential to engaging learners
Facilitators must be familiar with the platforms they use sothat they can incorporate a variety of interactions.
“Some designers or facilitators get comfortable with chat,or get comfortable with polls, or get comfortable with raised hand. By thetenth time somebody’s done that in an hour…” Huggett trailed off. She suggeststaking a hard look at the design and asking yourself:
- Is there a good mix of discussion andinteraction?
- Is there time built in for learners to processinformation?
- Is social interaction built in?
- Does the session use a variety ofinteractions—chat, polls, discussion, sharing the whiteboard?
Instructors should plan the interactivity and build it intothe design, rather than expecting it to happen organically. “I script it out. Idon’t script out word for word what I, as the facilitator, will say, but Icreate, just like I would for an in-person class, facilitator guides,” Huggett said.The guide includes information for both the instructor (facilitator) andproducer, if there is one, on when in the session to present a poll question, whento place learners in breakout rooms, when to solicit questions via chat, andmore.
“Don’t do chat after chat after chat. Have interactivity inother ways: We’ve got a poll question and then let’s talk about it, or we’vegot a mixture—a variety,” Huggett said. “It’s not about the facilitator or thepresenter being focused on themselves; it’s about getting the learners talking.Let’s go into a breakout room and get them talking about this issue and thenget back together and debrief; here’s our next topic—who’s experienced this?”
This level of focus helps create sessions that flow well,address learning goals, and engage learners. “So, just like at the beginning ofthe design, you look at it holistically or big picture—before you finish adesign, it’s good to step back and look at it that way as well: What does thisflow feel like, start to finish?”
