How to Make Virtual Training Interactive
It can be challenging to keep your team actively engaged during virtual training sessions. But there are plenty of techniques you can incorporate to ensure each participant engages with the content, even through the screen. Read on to learn how to make virtual training interactive.
HRDQ offers a fully customizable virtual training library, so you can provide specialized training content to your team no matter where they are. Explore the Reproducible Training Library.
Designing Virtual Training Sessions
Engaging your audience begins with designing a virtual training session that grabs their attention. Keep these tips in mind as you create your presentation:
Include Visuals
Be sure to include visuals such as videos, GIFs, and even slide effects to draw your participants in. These items physically guide participants’ eyes towards the content. Visuals serve two purposes: 1. They help to keep a presentation from being boring (imagine slide after slide of bullet points), and 2. Using strategic visuals can help participants get a better understanding of the concepts you are presenting and improve retention.
Keep Track of Time
Make sure that your presentation is timely. Presentations that are too long are a surefire way to lose your audience’s attention and decrease participation. Before delivering your training, time your session and gauge if you can shave a few minutes off if necessary.
Practice Your Delivery
If you want your employees to interact with and get excited about the content, you need to show them that you’re passionate about the presentation as well. Your virtual training introduction should be lively and provide participants with a clear plan for the session. Starting off on the right foot will set the tone for the rest of the class. Throughout, stay high-energy and enthusiastic so your employees will too.
If you need assistance planning your training session, HRDQ offers training consulting services. Our experienced coaches can help train your instructors or even deliver expert training sessions on your behalf.
Incorporate Interactive Activities
Below are some activities and tips you can incorporate to make your virtual training more interactive:
Plan Time for Discussion
Discussions are an easy, structured way to get people to interact with the content. You can give employees a scenario to work through, ask each person to provide their opinion on the topic, see if people have personal experiences with the content to share, and more. As the facilitator, you’ll be in charge of ensuring the discussion continues to flow by interjecting new questions when necessary.
Use Workbook Activities
You don’t have to do everything collectively. Provide your employees with interactive materials beforehand such as online assessments, reading passages, and quizzes. Once complete, you can regroup to review the results.
Finish Exercises Faster
You can complete exercises faster and maintain the flow of the course by providing a way for participants to indicate they’re done with the activity. Rather than waiting for a set amount of time to elapse, employees can post a fun emoji in the chat to signal the task is complete! This way, you can conclude the activity and move forward with the course more efficiently.
Play a Game
Training games are a go-to interactive activity, and the possibilities are seemingly endless online. Many people recreate “Jeopardy” with their own training content. You could also set up matching games or create a task for participants to complete against the clock!
Ask Questions
Keep your employees on their toes by sprinkling in questions throughout the training session. This will ensure that they’re staying focused and make them more inclined to pay attention. Want to take it up a notch? Call on participants randomly. If participants think that their name could possibly be called, they’ll be more likely to pay attention!
Provide Poll Questions
Polls are a quick way to get an immediate response from your employees. Plus, this method allows you to check that each participant voted or answered the question. While polls are fun to include throughout the presentation, it’s a good idea to do a final poll toward the end of the session to gauge what everyone has taken away from the course.
Make Time for Your Employees
When moving through the content, be sure to take pauses and allow employees to ask you questions. You’ll be presenting a lot of new information, and some participants will likely need additional explanations. You should also give participants time at the conclusion of the presentation to share any final thoughts they may have. This can help to reiterate concepts and allow you to know if you need to provide any further review of new concepts.
Start Virtual Training with HRDQ
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning how to make virtual training interactive. To begin enhancing your team, explore our full collection of virtual training resources in the HRDQ Reproducible Training Library. This virtual library is filled with customizable, easy-to-use assessments and workshops that can help improve many facets of organizational life. Start developing your employees today!
Explore the Reproducible Training Library
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