Pre-pandemic, it was practically a given that important training programs required an in-person classroom experience. Now, as we’ve come to expect that a hybrid workforce is the norm, many organizations are taking a “virtual first” approach — assuming that training will be delivered via the virtual classroom unless a strong business case can be made.

Unfortunately, the virtual experience isn’t always living up to our standards for quality training.

We are still struggling to accept virtual learning as real learning. For good reason — even after more than two decades of using virtual classrooms (I was using LearnLinc in 1997!), we are still subjected to hours and hours of lecture and slides, with some polls and whiteboards thrown in to make it seem interactive. The pandemic, when we were all thrown into hours and hours of virtual meetings and classes, left a bad impression on many of us. “Throw it on Zoom and hope it will stick” just was not a good training strategy.

We need to do better.

Virtual classrooms need to become real classrooms — spaces where individuals are fully engaged and expect to learn. We need to set our expectations higher, and demand that virtual learning experiences are instructionally sound options and provide the opportunity for learning transfer, application practice and true collaboration.

To do this, we need to apply a brain science approach that deeply engages the learner in the virtual classroom. Designing this way will help our programs evolve from informational webinars to training that meets, or even exceeds, the expectations we have for in-person instructor-led training (ILT).

Webinars and Virtual Training: What’s the difference?

Here’s a quick litmus test for determining if a virtual session is a webinar or training program.

Critically consider the last virtual program you attended.

Ask yourself, “If I had watched a recording of the session, would I have had the same experience as if I had attended the session live?”

• If you answered, “yes,” that session was a webinar. It may have been a super interactive webinar with meaningful content that captured your attention, but it wasn’t training.
• If you answered, “No, I would not have gotten the same result viewing a recording of this session,” then you have attended virtual training. You got beyond transferring knowledge and ensuring comprehension, started to apply what you learned, and left being able to analyze your own performance.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a webinar, but you and your learners need to be clear as to the intent of the program. If it’s training, then learners need the opportunity to practice and apply what they have learned, and that learning needs to be measured.

Designing for these types of training outcomes, especially after years of webinar-style data dumps, can be challenging — and we need to convince our learners that our new approach to virtual training is worth their time. Using a brain science approach that focuses on engagement makes positive outcomes much more achievable.

Why Should We Consider Brain Science When Designing Virtual Training?

If you consider the question, “Why is training delivered in the workplace?” your answer should include something along the lines of “the organization wants to change/modify/enhance the workforce in some measurable way.” Take a step back from the specific context of this article and consider training in the professional learning and development (L&D) environment — training is an intervention to bring about change.

In broad terms, brain science seeks to predict outcomes based on prior research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology and then validate those outcomes with measurable effects. Brain science is, in part, why using The Kirkpatrick Model’s Level 1 reaction data tells such an incomplete story about training effectiveness — those surveys are not meant to measure anything but how the learner reacts to the training. If we go back to our reason for training in the first place — the change desired by the organization — what data do we have (and what can we infer from it) around that?

As a training manager, you must measure the effectiveness of your programs to gauge their impact on business outcomes. Lastly, don’t take this to mean you need to test learners at every turn — the good news is that in the context of virtual training and the digital workplace (and pandemic-driven hybrid work practices), there are ample data sources that don’t require any post-delivery interaction with the learners. Instead, you can seek to develop measures that are populated with data drawn from the digital workplace, and the conclusions you can draw about the effects of your training can be profound.

How Application of Brain Science Ensures Learner Engagement

In brief, using a brain science approach means we develop measures and techniques to ensure learners are measurably engaged in the experience.

Engagement is more than answering polls and watching other people on video —  based on our research, there are three dimensions of learner engagement to consider:

1. Emotional Engagement: How the learner feels about the learning experience. The learning experience is impacted by how learners feel about the experience. Facilitators should strive to enable individuals to feel good about the experience, and even nurture a sense of community.
2. Intellectual Engagement: What the learner thinks about the information presented in the learning experience. Intellectual engagement involves more than learners feeling inspired by training content. We must recognize that the learning environment is changed by how people are learning, and how much they are learning, and manage the class accordingly.
3. Environmental Engagement: How the learner’s interaction with the learning environment changes both the environment and learner’s perception of the experience. Training professionals often think the virtual learning environment exists outside of our control. However, we can positively manage and contribute to the environment to foster strong learner engagement in the virtual classroom environment.

Applying this approach and framework, you develop instructional techniques and measures that cultivate and enhance learner engagement along these dimensions.

Measuring Engagement

Engagement doesn’t automatically mean that meaningful learning is happening, nor does it mean that training outcomes will be what the organization desires (that’s a function of good design). Rather, engagement is a means to end — if we go back to the desired change sought by the training, we can infer that the change associated with the training intervention is more likely to come about if the learner is engaged. Put another way, the training is much more likely to be effective (as measured against the desired outcome) for an engaged learner as compared to a disengaged learner. Measuring engagement during is an opportunity to proactively “intercept” a learner who may otherwise become disengaged and prevent the training from achieving its desired results.

Conclusion

As an industry, L&D has done a great job of pivoting from face-to-face to the virtual classroom. With literally no preparation, we went to 100% virtual delivery. Now, it’s time to go to the next level. Virtual training is here to stay, and we can all do better. By actively designing with the intention of engaging learners using this brain science approach, and measuring the results, you’ll see your virtual training evolve to be a critical and valued part of your ongoing learning strategy.