Facilitating Synchronous Learning Certificate Program
More and more, organizations are using synchronous training platforms such as WebEx, LiveMeeting, and others to deliver live, online learning to remote groups of participants. This program, presented by ASTD in partnership with synchronous learning experts InSync Training, provides ten hours of live, online instruction along with opportunities for application. Participants will learn to maximize the engagement of remote participants and manage the logistics of facilitating synchronous learning.
Audience
This program is for professionals who want to build their skills in delivering effective synchronous (live and online) training, including engaging remote participants and techniques to take your online training sessions to the next level. Instructional designers who develop programs for this medium will also benefit.
Course Description
The term synchronous means happening at precisely the same time, and refers to an online learning experience in which an instructor and a group of participants speak and interact in an online classroom. Delivering training in this environment requires a facilitator to engage their audience and create interactivity in non-traditional ways, be sensitive to how they use their voice, and be comfortable multi-tasking in a new technical and logistical environment.
This online program, presented by ASTD in partnership with synchronous learning experts InSync Training, provides ten hours of live, online instruction. Participants will learn to maximize the engagement of remote participants and manage the logistics of facilitating synchronous learning. The workshop also includes a two-hour practice facilitation session where each participant, along with an assigned partner, is given a piece of content to deliver live via the virtual classroom using the techniques that were modeled during the previous synchronous sessions. Participants will leave this program with the skills and confidence to successfully facilitate synchronously learning events.
By the end of this program, participants will be able to:
- Apply proven techniques for maximizing learner engagement, energy, and motivation in the online learning environment
- Use their voice as their most powerful instructional tool and read the non-verbal “body language” cues of participants
- Leverage the support of a producer or assistant facilitator to ensure seamless, stress-free sessions
- Manage the various technical and participant difficulties that can and will occur in synchronous learning
- Prepare themselves, prepare their learners, and prepare the technology via rehearsals, participant communication, logistical set-up, and post-session follow up.
How Does the Course Work?
Online sessions: Live online sessions will be conducted once a week for five weeks. Each session is two hours in length. You'll participate via the WebEx Training Center platform plus a teleconference for audio. Special software is not required. All you need is a standard web browser and a telephone to participate!
Discussion Board: A discussion board will be available as a support tool throughout the program. The instructor will post information and discussion topics. Participants may post questions for the instructor and topics for discussion as well.
Resource Materials: Participants will receive a downloadable participant guide to accompany the online sessions, as well as a copy of The Synchronous Trainer's Survival Guide: Facilitating Successful Live and Online Courses, Meetings, and Events by Jennifer Hofmann to serve as an ongoing resource.
Learning Objectives
Week 1: Creating Audience Engagement
This two-hour session explores how the role of facilitators has changed with the introduction of learning technologies. Participants will learn proven techniques for keeping learners energized, focused, and motivated. Best practice tips and guidance for facilitating in the synchronous medium will be explained, modeled, and reinforced.
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Describe the job description of an online facilitator
- Identify the steps necessary to prepare to be an online facilitator
- Identify key techniques for engaging participants without the benefit of body language and eye contact.
Week 2: Being a Broadcaster
In the synchronous environment, voice is the most essential instructional tool. Interactivity and learner engagement are driven by the facilitator’s and participants’ voices. This two-hour session will uncover how synchronous facilitators can use their voice and questioning techniques to maximize engagement in the audio environment and read participants “body language in bandwidth.”
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Use their voice to effectively engage participants
- Create an effective audio environment
- Craft questions to which participants can effectively respond
- Identify participant cues that take the place of body language and eye contact.
Week 3: Synchronous Team Teaching
A producer, or assistant facilitator, can help transform synchronous programs into trouble-free, fast moving, interactive events that keep learners involved and facilitators on track. Through numerous practice exercises, this two-hour session provides insight on how facilitators can stay focused on content while the producer takes care of everything else.
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Define the producer’s role
- Demonstrate and practice how the producer can support the synchronous facilitator
- Identify ways to create a more interactive session when a producer is not possible (which may often be the case in the real world).
Week 4: Disaster Recovery
In the synchronous environment Murphy’s Law applies! What do you do when things start going wrong? This two-hour session covers live techniques for effectively addressing and recovering from participant issues, audio problems, and hardware/software trouble shooting.
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Discuss various ways to manage audio issues
- Solve a variety of technical issues that may occur in the virtual classroom software
- Manage disruptive participant behaviors before they turn into disasters.
Week 5: Preparing and Practicing
As with physical classroom training, preparation and practice are the keys to successful learning events. In this two-hour session, participants will discover the numerous off-line activities that need to be completed before and after an online learning event, including marketing and communication, participant preparation, technology considerations, logistics, rehearsals, and post-session follow up.
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Create a checklist to manage the planning, production, and follow-up of an online learning event
- Communicate with participants, managers, and other parties about their roles in supporting the successful online event.
If you are comfortable facilitating learning in the virtual classroom environment or want to focus on design rather than delivery, we recommend our Designing Synchronous Learning Certificate Program.
Facilitators
For more information about this course's facilitators, click here.
Registration Fees
ASTD Member: US $995
Nonmember: US $1,295*
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The registration fee includes all course materials.
Attendance Requirements
ASTD is pleased to offer a Certificate of Completion and 1.2 Continuing Education Units (CEU) to successful participants of Facilitating Synchronous Learning. Participation in all live online sessions during their regularly scheduled day and time is mandatory in order to receive the certificate and CEUs. This program consists of six online sessions. The first five sessions cover the workshop curriculum (and are reflected in the published delivery dates) and the sixth session is a practice facilitation workshop during which participants and an assigned to deliver an existing piece of content. This final session will be scheduled by your facilitator during the workshop and every effort will be made to accommodate participants’ schedules. All sessions will be recorded and available for participants to review. One missed session can be made up by listening to the session recording and completing the appropriate coursework; however, session six, the practice facilitation workshop, cannot be missed. Participants who miss more than one live session will not be eligible to receive the certificate.
On-Site/Private Offerings
ASTD can make arrangements for the Facilitating Synchronous Learning Certificate Program to be offered to your team privately online or in the form of a classroom-based workshop. If you have a group of individuals who would benefit from this program, you might find it easier, and more cost effective, for a dedicated facilitator to deliver the workshop online or on-site. Your attendees receive the same content offered in the public online version, but have the convenience of being at your site and the benefit of covering the material with their company peers. For additional information or to have this program delivered privately, please contact Amanda Miller at amiller@astd.org or 703.683.9215, or request information through our online form.