What makes a virtual classroom facilitator good at what they do? Clients and learners ask us this question regularly. Heck, we ask ourselves this question regularly since it speaks to the fundamental value we deliver through our work! Because facilitators deeply impact the overall blend, our answer addresses technical expertise AND those fuzzy soft skills. 

In our experience as both learners and experts, good virtual classroom facilitators….

• Demonstrate virtual classroom literacy.
• Are digitally literate.
• Manage time well.

In practice, these skillsets focus on the learner first, while the technology offers a way to achieve their goals.

Labor Day weekend in the United States has come and gone. While the sun still shines in many places, most people have put summer behind them and gotten back to the grind of “real life.”

With overflowing inboxes, looming project deadlines, and the holiday season in the near future, how do you fall back into a professional development routine?

I’m in the middle of my second (and last!) summer of my MBA candidacy. After work every weekday and on Saturdays, I commute 40 miles to class. There I learn about finance, accounting, and leadership – all topics critical to my future career success.

But, as I get into my car and drive in the exact opposite direction of the beach in the pursuit of perpetual learning, I feel a little sad. Even with my goal defined, my forward momentum falters as I think about the missed opportunity to lounge in a cabana instead.

And while I face an extreme version of summer school, everyone struggles with their personal professional development during peak vacation season. So, what can we do to keep learning, even when the summer sun calls our names? I turned to the InSync Team for advice, and, as always, their wisdom proved illuminating and practical.

Coaching involves two very important parties:

• The coach
• The coachee

The relationship and interaction between these two individuals impacts the overall success of the process. Recently, the InSync team shared what skills make coaches effective: thoughtful questioning techniques, foundational models, and a personalized approach.

Professional development doesn’t get more personalized than one-on-one coaching.

According to the International Coaching Federation, professional coaching is a “thought-provoking and creative process that inspires [people] to maximize their personal and professional potential.” This definition reinforces two key ideas:

• Coaching encourages creative thinking. Through the process, coaches encourage participants to think outside of the proverbial box in order to identify improved ways of doing things.
• Coaching requires personal assessment. Coaches don’t necessarily tell participants what’s wrong with their methodologies. Instead, they offer opportunities for pointed personal contemplation about their current approaches and areas of potential growth.

Virtually There Recap

Did you know that you have stories constantly running through your subconscious mind? It’s true! Without realizing it, you frame every interaction through narrative, creating underlying bias. Good, bad, or indifferent, your bias influences how you navigate the world.

This fundamental brain biology impacts professional relationships, too. Before every conversation or task, you anticipate how it will unfold.

Virtually There Recap

Think about your day-to-day role. Do you host meetings? Facilitate training? Give presentations? Whether you run these events or not, they represent an important part of our professional lives. Often, we see these events as time wasters, rather than important investments of our focus.

As learning professionals, team members, and managers, we strive to engage and involve our audiences so that they can remember the information we share with them. We hope to take them beyond listening and towards true learning. With the right approach, we can achieve that lofty goal.

Brain-based learning expert Sharon Bowman shared her presentation model and guided our Virtually There participants through a process for getting the brain to pay attention.

As learning and training professionals, our job is to continually think about the learning needs of others. It can be tough to make time for our own learning, yet we know that our own professional growth depends on it, and we crave it.

How many times have you scanned through a learning blog and thought “I’d like to learn more about that.” And then what happens? Nothing. We get caught up in all our to dos and requests from other people, and we don’t carve out time for our own learning.