Is your organization ready for virtual training 2021?

Online collaborative innovation will continue to have a defining role in organizational success. Over the last year Learning Path, LLC has helped many organizations successfully preserve the delivery of collaborative learning sessions, transform face‐to‐face content into online learning and communities of inquiry, and helped build virtual communities of practice to improve team connectivity and growth.

Organizations rapid adaptation to remote learning and team collaboration was both a testament to our collective ability to pivot and keep our families, businesses, and lives going and misses due to lack of planning and process. Organizations found that rapid necessitated responses can have unintended consequences

Many organizational emergency responses did not align with the construct of meaningful, structured online experiences. The ideas, the wisdom, the innovation, and the power lies with your people. Widely held theories of collaboration include the integration of activities and knowledge that require a partnership of shared authority and responsibility.

Collaborative expertise can easily be explored within the realm of learning and development. As a learning consultant and instructional designer, I encourage my clients to create online learning structured for collaborative learning. Creating cohorts that work together, learn from each other and hold each other accountable. Where media supports collaborative knowledge acquisition. Where presence, practice, and community facilitates learning and application.

Within these cohorts there are three domains of learner interaction or types of presence.

Social presence – something that was abruptly taken away at the beginning of the pandemic. Leaving us hungry for connection and “zoomed out” at the same time. To create meaningful online social presence, learners’ need identification with the community. Identification is built through:

a. Open communication,

b. Affective expression – observable tone, demeanor, emotion

c. Group cohesion – processes that pull the group together

Cognitive presence - ways in which learners create ‘meaning’ through reflection and discourse. Teaching presence – This encompasses the design and facilitation of cognitive and social processes. No matter who may be facilitating the need for sound design is constant. Frequently, it takes a skilled facilitator to facilitate these processes. Not to say SME’s, and peers can’t play a role. We partner with you to ensure teaching presence supports the learning.

Lastly, nothing sticks without practice, accountability, and feedback. At Learning Path, we help you create “communities of practice.” through mutual engagement, in alignment with your business goals and within organizational capacity and budget.

Learning Path, LLC where collaborative learning theory meets application and technology. Reach out today. We are here to help.