VALIC, a member company of SunAmerica Financial Group and market leader in group retirement savings plans achieved great results using a virtual classroom.

It started as a necessity: The economic slowdown drove the need to develop new skills among leaders, while also decimating the budgets that enabled them to attend much-needed training. Organizations the world over turned to virtual classrooms in the place of traditional, live get-togethers. A virtual classroom is a synchronous learning environment using a web conferencing platform for a highly engaging and interactive classroom experience. In tackling some of the challenges faced by this new technology-driven approach, many organizations found that a virtual classroom offers unique benefits, too.

VALIC, a member company of SunAmerica Financial Group and market leader in group retirement savings plans, tried - and really liked - a virtual classroom approach. The company offered a virtual session on coaching to about 60 sales leaders working all over the United States, managing teams of about 20 financial advisors to drive sales. "It's opened up our thinking about training," says Ronald Reeves, director of manager education for SunAmerica Financial Group. "Virtual classroom is an opportunity to use a blended learning approach to reach every employee. We like the variety of tools: virtual table teams and breakout rooms, polling questions, quality instructors and materials. It keeps learners involved and engaged."

Coupling advice from Reeves with experience gained from facilitating for a number of clients, we offer the following to help any organization get the most out of virtual classroom training:

1| Ditch the webinar mentality

"The feedback we received from leaders was that they were pleasantly surprised. Originally they thought it was going to be like a typical webinar, that it was going to be a download of information and data and wouldn't be interactive so they would be able to multitask," Reeves says.

Webinars are an important tool to bring people together and disseminate information, but the webinar mentality is not a good fit for virtual classroom. VALIC, like most organizations that use VIRTUAL CLASSROOM, had a specific goal to develop their leaders - to improve their leader's approach to coaching. Changing behaviors to improve management capabilities can't be done without interactivity, behavioral modeling, and skill practice. It's important to prepare participants to take part with a clear message about the expectations of a virtual classroom course.

Tools, like the virtual breakout rooms and polling questions Reeves lauded, provide participants the ability to have small group discussions and skill practices. Leaders enjoy the chance to interact. It takes them from being in a classroom of 15 or more people to being in a quiet chat room with two or three of their peers, able to discuss and learn from each other.

"We were eager to see if they'd open up and share what was and wasn't' workingwe wanted to see the seeking and telling dynamic at play," Reeves says. "I was impressed - I observed four of the five sessions, and checked in on the virtual breakout rooms. Leaders took the coaching exercises seriously. They gave each other good feedback and were open to the feedback they were receiving from their peers."

2| Minimize sources of distraction

Creating a safe learning environment that allows for open sharing as well as encouragement to put aside the PDA and other reading materials are all important pieces to creating the optimal learning environment. But when the facilitator can't easily see or control the distractions that may be present in his or her participants' cubes, how can they be fully engaged?

Here are some tips:

  • Before the session, be sure to clearly communicate to both learners and their leaders that the level of interactivity in a virtual classroom will make it impossible to multi-task. In other words, even though the learner may be sitting at their desk, consider them unreachable and unable to respond to emails and phone calls.
  • Speaking of sitting at their desks, ask participants to do a quick audit of their workstations. Do they have the equipment they'll need? Will their participation be distracting to those who sit near them? What can they do to make their environment conducive to learning?
  • Finally, provide easy access to materials so that learners can have them printed and available during the session.

Ronald Reeves was surprised that distractions really weren't an issue at all. "We were prepared to see multitasking" he says. "Our facilitator told participants that we had a tool [as part of the virtual training technology] and could see if they were multitasking. If it became an issue we'd address it. But it never did. Every once in a while we'd see someone briefly deal with a distraction, but they'd close it quickly and return their attention to class. I think it helped that we offered several different sessions, and allowed leaders to pick the time that worked best for them."

3| Go above and beyond to engage learners

As a facilitator, how often do learners say they enjoyed a course and they also gained a great deal from meeting and learning from their peers? This is a very common occurrence in the traditional classroom and a very important one. How can this continue and even be enhanced in the virtual classroom? Most web conferencing platforms provide multiple ways to engage a learner in the form of tools such as chat, whiteboards, polls, and feedback options. Here are two best practices to maximize these tools:

  • Respect different styles to connect. Some learners love the chat feature that is available in web conferencing systems. A facilitator may never hear a person speak but that participant will answer questions through the chat feature and they will note that they appreciate that option.
  • Teach learners to use the tools. Like anything new, these tools may seem a bit intimidating at first, and participants need to be shown how to use them. A 'technical check' prior to class time is a good way to avoid problems. It's also good to think through in advance how to handle technical glitches or learners who struggle to pick-up how to use the tools. This is why at DDI we utilize a producer. The producer can assist a participant if they are having difficulty with the tools or technology without holding up the facilitator and the other learners.

At VALIC, Reeves and his team found another way to engage learners: using the case studies embedded

in the coaching course curriculum. "We used expertise from the sales managers who would be in training to build VALIC-specific case studies," he says. They weren't generic and even used their lingo. And the case studies varied, so there was not a way to opt out and say 'that's not really my world.' That went a long way to make them feel we understand their world."

4| Leadership of virtual classroom sessions is important

At VALIC, Reeves engaged the organization's senior leadership in the virtual classroom implementation. "In certain sessions they were observing, which showed commitment to training," he says. He added that he demonstrated how the course supported the strategic priorities that senior leaders identified as critical to success in the marketplace. "It addressed the issues they felt drive their business."

Just as important as who leads your organization is who leads your virtual classroom - not all facilitators are created equal. Good facilitators create a safe learning environment, enabling learners to share their experiences, learn new skills and begin to practice those skills before taking them back to the workplace. Great facilitators do all these things with an engaging style and presence. They use their voice with animation, change the pace of their speech and, overall, engage using tone of voice. The use of questioning techniques to gauge understanding and acceptance of concepts is also an important skill for virtual facilitators. Finally, make sure your chosen facilitator is motivated - not intimidated - by virtual classroom technology. As in any facilitation scenario, a confident, comfortable facilitator is a much more effective facilitator.

Once you've selected your facilitators, plan to ramp them up for the experience. Allow time to explore the web interface, and set up some "dry runs" so they can practice using the tools. Co-facilitation is a wise investment. It allows one facilitator to sit and record feedback for the other and then switch roles.

Another Good Option

At VALIC, Ronald Reeves is glad he went for it. Ratings have averaged '4' on scale of 1-5, with good anecdotal feedback as well. "We will do this in the future if the opportunity arises," Reeves says. It's not going to replace traditional training at VALIC, but it's another good option.

When done well, virtual classroom can be an incredibly effective alternative to traditional classroom training and development, and could well help your organization increase the reach of your programs. Recognize how virtual classroom is different from webinars and traditional classroom training. Set clear expectations with participants. Work to create an environment conducive to learning. Appropriately use the platform tools available to engage your audience. Engage your senior leaders, and choose and train the right facilitators. In the end, you'll find your learners can enjoy the virtual classroom as much as the traditional classroom, it just takes a different kind of preparation; it's not difficult, just different.

Annamarie Lang works in DDI's Leadership Solutions Group as a senior consultant in the product line to develop innovative leadership solutions, such as traditional and virtual classroom courses, sustainability activities, and other new products. Annamarie was a core member of the team that developed DDI's own virtual classroom offerings.