Lesson plans (or session plans) guide your design and instruction.
The United States went into lockdown mode as it responded to COVID-19 back around St. Patrick’s Day of this year. It’s been about 6 months since the world of learning and development has gone almost exclusively to virtual design and delivery, and there’s really no end in sight.
Are you still able to come up with original virtual training activities to keep people engaged?
Continue readingVirtual training delivery has always been tricky, but since COVID-19 basically eliminated business travel, just about everyone has made a push to convert existing training programs to virtual.
Sometimes converting programs to virtual can be fairly simple, but usually, the best results come from keeping your learning objectives the same, but starting from scratch when it comes to activities. Virtual training programs and in-person programs are simply two different experiences, and retrofitting in-person programs to fit into virtual delivery may have been appropriate when we were desperately looking for quick ways to continue offering professional development, it’s certainly not the best long-term solution.
Virtual programs and in-person programs are simply two different experiences, and retrofitting in-person programs to fit into virtual delivery may have been appropriate when we were desperately looking for quick ways to continue… Click To TweetWithin the next week or two, Soapbox will be updated to allow users to choose whether they’d like to create an in-person or a virtual training program. Here’s a closer look at how you’ll be able to generate an entire training lesson plan, with activity instructions customized to your virtual delivery platform, in about 10 minutes.
Simply begin by entering the name of your presentation, the amount of time you have to deliver your presentation, whether your presentation is to be delivered in-person or online (this blog post focuses on online delivery), the approximate number of people who will attend, the type of presentation and your virtual platform.
The amount of time you have to deliver your presentation, the approximate number of people who will attend and the platform will all impact the actual activities that are generated for your presentation. You’ll be given different activities and instructions if you have 4 people attending than if you have 400 people attending. Similarly, you’ll be able to use different features of a virtual platform to engage your audience if you’re using a platform like Zoom that has breakout room capabilities compared to if you’re using a platform like Microsoft Teams which does not allow for breakout room discussions.
There are about 30 different choices for your learning outcomes. The key question here is: given the amount of time of your presentation and the goals of your program, what is it that your learners will realistically be able to do by the end of your presentation?
Some people contend that they can cover 6-10 objectives during a 30 minute presentation. While those people may have 6-10 talking points they’d like to cover, those aren’t learner-focused objectives.
Soapbox will limit the number of learning outcomes you’ll be able to select based upon the amount of time you have available for your presentation. This will ensure a presentation that stays focused and offers participants an opportunity to find ways to practice using your content.
Once you’ve made it through steps 1 and 2, you’ll have a presentation with activity instructions that connect to your learning outcomes and that is customized for your delivery platform. Most users have suggested it takes less than 10 minutes to get to this point.
There’s no need for you or your team to spend time thinking through the best combination of activities that align with your learning objectives and that will keep your learners engaged. In this final step, you can now invest your time in making sure you have the right activities and talking points for your presentation.
You can drag and drop activities to re-arrange the sequence and flow of the presentation that’s been generated.
You can swap out a suggested activity for one that may better suit your facilitation style, your comfort level with the virtual platform and your learners’ needs.
You can edit the activity instructions and add talking points that are important to cover during your session.
Some Soapbox users find the PowerPoint file generated to be a time saver, and they modify the slide deck with some specific talking points, diagrams, illustrations or other key visuals. Others find that they will use their own slide templates, but copy some of the content from the Soapbox-generated slides. Either way, you have a visual resource that can be downloaded and used as you see fit.
Many Soapbox users like to have a hard copy instruction guide at their fingertips, so they’ll download the Facilitator Guide that can be generated. This guide offers step by step activity instructions and reflects any edits and talking points you may have made to each activity.
That’s it. If you think Soapbox could help you generate better virtual training sessions, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial here.
You can also sign up for a brief demo to have someone walk you through Soapbox by selecting a spot on the calendar below.
Here in the United States, our Spring of COVID-19 has turned into the Summer of COVID-19, and soon, we’ll have the Autumn of COVID-19. It doesn’t appear that we’ll be coming together to deliver in-person training or in-person conference sessions any time soon. So how can organizations best help their presenters convert their programs from in-person to virtual delivery?
Retrofitting your existing programs to try to do the same thing, just in a virtual environment is tempting. Keep in mind, however, that virtual delivery offers opportunities for which in-person instruction doesn’t allow… and there are some things you can do in-person that you just can’t do online. Below, you’ll find a lesson plan that we’ve created for a 90-minute session that you can use to help educate your staff, co-workers or clients on ways to think through the conversion from in-person to online instruction.
Retrofitting your existing programs to try to do the same thing, just in a virtual environment is tempting. Keep in mind, however, that virtual delivery offers opportunities for which in-person instruction doesn't allow. Click To Tweet Continue readingOne of the most-searched-for blog posts on Train Like A Champion has been my post offering a Train the Trainer Course Outline. At 6.5 years old, this post is begging for some updates, and so over the next several weeks, I’d like to not only update the actual outline itself but also offer some specific examples of how to actually facilitate sections of this program.
Continue readingHave you ever wished you could reduce the number of hours (or days) it takes to come up with engaging ideas for your training sessions?This morning my company, Endurance Learning, launched an online tool that can help you generate a facilitator guide, a complete set of activities and a PowerPoint deck – all in under five minutes. The tool is called Soapbox. Here is how it works:
Continue readingHappy Halloween. Fun scary days call for spooky stories…
In a dark room, a visage is backlit by a square projected light. Ghost-like and monochromatic the visage speaks, is he speaking directly you? Should you answer his indirect questions? No, the words are abstract and generic, almost as though he is reciting an old childhood adage he has recited over and over before he has brought them before you today. Continue reading
When you are asked to give a presentation or a workshop, it is likely because you are a decent presenter, a content expert, or both. As a person with this skill set, it is likely your only job is not giving presentations on this subject and presentations take time and money to develop. Maybe you should just wing it. Continue reading
Systems training can be really hard to design in a way that’s engaging for both the presenter and participants.
On Friday, I had about 5 minutes before I needed to jump on a call, so I decided to see if I could generate something more interesting for a 2-hour Salesforce Basics training session. This is what I came up with:
Continue readingIn about a month, my team will be launching a tool we’ve developed to help create better presentations, faster. Our original concept was to dramatically reduce the amount of instructional design time spent on developing training sessions.
I’m currently working with several clients on facilitating strategic planning sessions, which got me to wondering: would our tool be useful in helping to design elements of strategic planning sessions?
After three or four minutes of playing with the tool, here is the lesson plan it generated for me Continue reading
We recently wrapped the first round of beta on our new presentation creation tool, Soapbox. A piece of feedback that we received quite often was that people were excited about all of the fresh activities that Soapbox provides. Beta users were energized at the prospect of trying out new activities suggested by Soapbox to add depth and engagement to their training. Chances are that if you’re tired of your learning activities then your learners are too. Here are four application activities straight out of Soapbox to try as your next problem-solving activity. Continue reading