Let us count the ways!

Valentine’s Day encourages us to fill our hearts with love and our bellies with chocolates. Not a team to ignore tradition, InSync, hit by cupid’s arrow, considered all the reasons we adore the modern blended classroom.

Whether a learner or learning industry leader, a facilitator or designer, manager or new practitioner, we can all find something that gives us training butterflies.

Designing and delivering an engaging learning experience is an effective way of keeping people in the virtual learning experience once they've started, but getting people to enroll and attend in the first place is a matter of motivation.

Motivation is an entirely different animal than engagement, and as learning professionals, it's our responsibility to "set the stage" such that learners show up ready to engage. 

You just became a virtual learning facilitator or your organization has made the leap from face-to-face learning to the blended virtual classroom.

So now what?

The live online training environment does not provide a carbon copy instructional experience to the traditional classroom. Oftentimes, you cannot “see” the learners. You have to contend with technology, and sometimes decision makers did not invest in content redesign. Add to these factors the angst associated with assuming new responsibilities and getting started as a facilitator can feel overwhelming.

Very often you will read or hear about “learner-centric” learning methods.  These articles stress techniques that accommodate the learner’s needs and address expectations of the learner in the learning experience.  One commentator I heard recently likened this to “putting yourself in the shoes of the learner in the learning experience.”

Fair enough as a start – certainly we need to understand how the learning experience is perceived by the learner, but I would argue that in lieu of trying to put yourself in the shoes of the learner you should instead provide a learning experience where everyone’s shoes already fit. 

This month, we spent a lot of time addressing how your organization can implement a global learning initiative. We discussed that the winning formula for going global is finding the right balance between content and people, and then identifying how to connect content and people throughout instructional design and training delivery processes.

Learning how to take your training programs global isn’t easy. It takes personal evolution from instructional designer or project manager to becoming a learning experience architect. And this change requires an investment in your own professional development. You need to understand the business of learning, modern design technologies and strategies, and be able to identify opportunities for collaboration that make sense.

Virtually There Session Recap

More likely than not, your organization now has a global component. Whether you work for a Fortune 50 company with regional offices all around the globe, or a small startup with a single team in a different country, the demographics of your training audience have changed.

How do you adapt to this new modern workplace reality? Jennifer Hofmann, President of InSync Training, recently answered this question during her Virtually There session, Implementing a Training Program Across a Global Organization – A Practical Guide.

Before you start transitioning your training to support a more diverse learner group, answering a more fundamental question will put you in the right mindset: Why do we need to change our training programs at all?

Going global is a big job.

Before you volunteer to lead a global training implementation, it might be time to inventory your own skills. 

Chances are, you are not an expert at every piece of implementing a global project. (If you are, feel free to drop me a note!)

Our learners face a chaotic, complex, and overloaded world. They can (and do) access information immediately when they need it, and often dread training because they see it as a distraction from their pressing responsibilities.

So how do we encourage enthusiasm and participation in formal learning programs? Through contextualization and authenticity.

Ultimately, it comes down to strong instructional design.

Okay. Not really. Leading a global training project takes more than being an instructional designer or a trainer or even a project manager. I've identified three critical steps to leading a successful global training project:  

1. Evolving your role into a learning experience architect. 
2. Mastering how to connect people and content in a way that meets the needs of the business and the learners.  
3. Creating a plan that addresses the complexity of a global rollout. 

Should you add “content strategist” to your modern learning repertoire? Learning and Development practitioners hear about emerging trends and “mission-critical” professional development regularly.

New design methodologies, exciting EdTech options, cutting edge learner engagement approaches pop up on a daily basis, all claiming to cure common training challenges.

However the idea of including one more responsibility to an already full roster of responsibility likely won’t wind up on the top of your to-do list.