Collaborative Learning in a Virtual Workplace

We all know what constitutes formal education and we have all been hearing about “informal” education or collaboration, but what is it really? Recently, CLO magazine (www.clomedia.com) had an article on just this topic.

Most office workers are quite familiar with the variety of online communications tools available, from e-mail to instant messaging to social networks. Over the last decade, the merging of phone and Internet services has led to easily available and often inexpensive technologies for video and audio conferencing, webinars and shared desktops, surveys and instant polling. Unfortunately, as training programs move online, they tend to lose many of the collaborative components that have made these new technologies so effective in other domains.

According to CLO Magazine there are four proven strategies to create more effective collaborative learning sessions with a distributed workforce.

1. Apply Successful Tactics From Face-to-Face Events

The need to transition from face-to-face to online events often brings up a sense of fear. While comfort with technology and the Internet is generally high, instructors fear the loss of competency and control when they are no longer at the front of the room, and they miss the visual cues they rely on to sense the levels of attention, engagement, understanding and agreement.

Collaborative learning can happen both synchronously in real time and asynchronously in multiple increments. Create a variety of ways for participants to interact that do not require everybody to be on a teleconference at one time. This opens up many possibilities for one-on-one interaction, small group activities, and individual research and reflection. Asynchronous collaboration also helps the team manage the difficulties of multiple time zones and provides additional insight or on-the-job practice time between real-time sessions. This blended learning approach can improve the quality of the interaction and tailor the content to each participant’s work environment.

2. Build Trust to Create Readiness for Collaborative Learning
Time spent prepping the group will pay off in a more effective learning experience. One of the most common complaints from instructors is that virtual meetings lack visual cues and don’t allow for interaction among participants. This makes it difficult to build rapport, as well as to know whether participants are engaged and paying attention. One of the most effective ways to mitigate this problem is to get to know participants in advance of the session. Rather than waiting to see who shows up, reach out and build connections first. A bit of advance phone and e-mail work will put both the session leader and the participants at ease and help create a more productive and supportive learning environment.

Another effective way to link participants is to build a group identity. For a one-time webinar, this might be as straightforward as asking participants to post a photo and introduction to a shared online agenda or social networking site. For longer learning programs using learning pairs or small team exercises, having participants call each other or exchange introductions by e-mail can help build rapport within the group.

3. Leverage Technology to Create Interactive Environments
Shift course delivery away from one-way presentations to collaborative learning environments. Webinars and virtual instructor-led events tend to be dominated by slide presentations with a very limited amount of group interaction. The main challenge to running effective virtual meetings is keeping participants engaged. While video conferencing can provide visual stimulation at first, it typically fades after a few minutes.

Often, the technology is driving the process rather than the other way around. Even more than with face-to-face learning events, virtual learning begs for highly participatory exercises in which everyone can be actively involved, rather than passively listening. While most Web conferencing tools have some interactive components such as audio, video, shared whiteboard, simple polling and chat, none of these elements is as effective as what people can use when they are together: flip charts, sticky walls and colored dots for voting and prioritizing.

4. Enable an Environment of Continuous Improvement

Virtual events tend to be most effective when broken up into a series of short events spread out over a period of time, with participant engagement in between. Building learning circles for sharing and interaction over the length of the learning period is a great way to keep participants engaged and help them apply what they are learning. As with facilitators shifting from in-person meetings to virtual meetings, the role of instructors shifts as they move into a virtual environment. Virtual instructors need to devise ways to keep the group engaged and on track between real-time meetings and conferences. This includes creating small learning circles to foster continuous learning and adopting the role of a coach rather than an instructor.

Virtual learning works best with small teams organized around clearly defined activities and deliverables, such as action research, case studies, discussion materials, problem solving and feedback. Rather than struggling through a long exercise on the phone or with a Web conference, give teams tasks to work on together offline so they can offer relevant feedback during the next online session.

Virtual instructor-led training is the way of the future. While virtual training events are already common, the predominance of same-time, one-way push technology offers limited options for collaborative learning.

Lessons from online facilitation have helped identify technologies and strategies that improve group participation, interaction and collaborative learning.

Do you want to know more about informal learning and how to blend informal learning with formal learning? And more importantly how to create the best mix of the two for your organization? If yes, join us for a free informational webinar:

Register for a session now by clicking a date below:

Collaboration Shift – what is it and how to make it work for your organization

Wed, Apr 7, 2010 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Jodi Harrison

Vice President, Business Development and Affiliate Partners
Interactyx Limited

jodi.harrison@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

Social Learning Blog

Collaborative Learning in a Virtual Workplace

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