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Virtual reality
Financial and environmental concerns are causing more pharmaceutical companies to question the add-on costs of face-to-face training projects. Travel, accommodation, food and off-the-road time also have to be taken into account when assessing the total budget for a training programme: it is little wonder then that there is unprecedented interest – and in many cases hype – around the concept of the virtual classroom.
Yet the very use of the term 'classroom' highlights a common misunderstanding as to the purpose of virtual training and a narrow vision of what it can achieve. Many of us find it difficult to imagine a virtualised learning environment; often we find it hard to envisage anything other than a simple learning event that takes place when a trainer meets a class of students. This is the context in which straightforward e-learning has gained a foothold in the past decade.
Yet the virtual classroom is much more than that. Virtual training can deliver broader behaviour change, as distinct from the mere one-way imparting of knowledge. As a result, we have already started to move much further still, to the wider and more ambitious concept of the virtual campus.
A two-way street
The idea of people undertaking some learning outside the traditional classroom has, of course, been valid for decades. Most recently, corporate audiences have become familiar and comfortable with various forms of e-learning, blended learning, webinars and webcasts.
Yet these have all been limited, in a critical way. They are all channels for giving information in a more or less 'push' style. The main way instructors generated a response from the unknown, unseen, unheard and potentially infinite audience was in the form of completed exercises or, at best nowadays, instant messaging.
As any trainer knows, education also requires an element of 'pull'. In putting together a convincing and lasting model that actually works, the trainer draws answers out of the pupil, rather than just cramming their heads full of facts.
Until the advent of the virtual classroom, true 'pull' style skills training has never really been possible without the physical co-location of trainer and learner. Since its arrival, much of the evidence to date suggests that trainers, unaware of its true potential, tend to use this as another means of force-feeding information to their audience.
This is critical, as non-attendance and non-co-operation can be more prevalent in the virtual world, if the delivery team is not highly skilled and the programme design is not appropriate.
Backed by heavy R&D investment, there is no doubt that the best examples of the virtual classroom will assume a prominent place in the world of sales training. These systems have moved well beyond simply text and audio communication, to include interactive trainers, plenary sessions, virtual syndicate rooms, private and public messaging, freehand whiteboards and flip charts that can be "carried" from room to room.
New teaching skills
To make this environment work well, the leader of any virtual session must be familiar and competent with the subject matter, without which no trainer can achieve success. This should, as with more recognised forms of training, be backed up by an engaging and interesting delivery.
It may seem obvious to restate these traditional skills. Yet the danger is that, in jumping aboard the fast-moving train that the virtual classroom has become, these essential elements of successful training and development can be easily forgotten.
Facilitators must not be seduced by new technology and ignore the need to engage their audience fully with whatever it is they are there to learn. It is equally important to contextualise content for your delegates.
This is not to deny that among the completely new skills now required mastering technology is an imperative. While it must be the servant of the content, it must also always work flawlessly.
During the development of the technology and design of the programmes, it has become clear that you need two people to run an event in real time – a lead trainer and a producer. Critically, this enables a number of key tasks to be managed seamlessly, including the ability to:
• switch between delegates on different continents
• bring up flipcharts from previous sessions
• display specific information on the screens of some of the delegates while putting something different on others
• ensure that the (physically remote) role play pairings or groups are correctly dialled-in while the other groups do their preparation off-line
• spot delegates who wish to say something either privately or publicly
• line up a PowerPoint slide set for the next session.
And all of this must happen while at the same time ensuring that the learning and responses are maintained at a good pace and in an attractive, engaging style.
These are new skills. So is the ability to adapt the traditional habits of the classroom trainer – particularly the tricky task of including all delegates in the discussion – to a setting where the participants are visible neither to the trainer nor to each other, and where they are only audible if they choose to be.
Ensuring that they are not quietly doing their emails, disappearing periodically for a break or, perhaps worst of all, sitting there feeling left out and bored, is critical to a successful learning outcome. When you can't actually see the participants, how can you tell if they are fully engaged, all the time?
Larger classes?
All our extensive experience to-date strongly points to the fact that class sizes should certainly be no bigger, and indeed should often be smaller, in the virtual world than face-to-face. In this way it is easier to guarantee individual attention and maximise learning.
This may come as a surprise to anybody used to thinking about virtual learning in the established 'push' style of a webinar, where potentially the audience size could be infinite. However, the more truly interactive a training programme seeks to be and – thanks to better technology – can be, the smaller the class may become.
In our experience, the ideal non-virtual face-to-face class size is 12. This is small enough for the trainer(s) to give individual attention to everyone's views and role play sessions, yet large enough to create a dynamic environment in which ideas can spark and develop within the group.
In the virtual world, where there are no non-verbal clues to catch the trainer's eye, what might be termed the 'span of inclusion' is necessarily limited and an ideal class size would therefore be eight. To counter this, there are icons on the screen to indicate somebody wishing to contribute, as well as live audio and instant messaging, so the producer can always spot proactivity on the part of delegates.
By contrast, loss of involvement – for whatever reason – is not so easy to identify. In a small virtual class size, the training team can avoid this by asking questions and seeking views from each of the delegates, ensuring that nobody's attention can wander too far for too long.
As the concept of the virtual classroom advances, so best practice has started to emerge in deriving the full benefits highlighted by its proponents. As part of this evolution, a number of common misconceptions are being successfully challenged, including the myths that virtual training can't develop interactive skills, and it only works with physical contact and is likely to fall victim to greater distractions for attendees.
A complementary tool
So, which is it to be, the marker pen or the mouse? The answer, in short, is that there will continue to be a key role for both training environments. The reality is that it depends on whether, for a given piece of training at a given time, the value of having a physical learning community justifies the cost and logistical complexity of creating it.
Where highly visual or 'hands-on' content is involved, in first-aid training for example, this will undoubtedly continue to require a physical venue. More technical or academic content, such as product briefings, may not. The key in each case is always to make sure that the content and people involved are totally appropriate to whichever medium is selected.
The wider virtual campus
Why stop there though? There is more to the training experience than the classroom alone, so there should be more to the virtual training experience than just the virtual classroom.
We have seen how tools such as e-learning support are already helping the training room. However, as with any campus, there is already much more available to enable the broader delivery of virtual training, such as the inclusion of blended face-to-face interventions. Further, in addition to the list of online tools with which we are already familiar, such as webcasts and web-based library articles, we can now add forums, networking sites and Twitter.
Looking ahead, who knows what will be possible when bandwidth allows? Stored video can be available as part of a campus today: it may not be long before live video can be incorporated into the virtual class itself in some organisations.
In short, all the signs suggest that, not only is virtual training set to accelerate but also broaden. The key is to make sure that users' early exposure to a virtual world is positive, effective and enjoyable.
Looking ahead, employees in pharma will still have a need to learn, discuss and practise new skills. The difference is that, from now on, those responsible for developing the salesforce will have a greater choice of how, where and when that development can take place knowing that, if appropriate, virtual learning can provide an effective alternative to the classroom-based approach.
The Author
Alison Morris is business director for healthcare, Huthwaite International
To comment on this article, email pm@pmlive.com
