How to Overcome the Most Common Virtual Classroom Training Challenges

By: David Hand, VP of DevOps Sales at Orasi Software

Whether we think of it as virtual or corporate learning, or training in the latest software application features and solutions, the virtual training platform market is exploding. From being an exception, a luxury, and a contingency plan, virtual classroom training has now become a fundamental fixture in organizations’ learning and development roadmap.

Today, many organizations are figuring out the practical side of a virtual classroom training effort. They realize both the advantages and challenges now that virtual training platforms have achieved at a specific scale and penetration.

This is a good time to consider the unique challenges that may stop you from embracing the real potential of virtual classroom training.

Here are a few common challenges that you could come across or are already dealing with and how to overcome them.

1. Infrastructure: Virtual classroom training sessions depend on reliable tech infrastructure. There can be many struggles here – on both the trainer side and student side – like bandwidth, network coverage and speed, device compatibility, integration, and access issues. Because solid virtual training programs offer reliability and scalability through a cloud-enabled model, many of these problems are solved at the onset. Use reliable virtual tools to ensure your training sessions are not stalled by common obstacles.

2. Bridge the gap: Students and instructors not being in the same room can be an impediment. Creating a deep affinity and collaboration between students and instructors is one key to the success of a virtual training program. Features and practices that encourage engagement, participation, interaction, and the same-page effect that can be found in traditional training scenarios also matter in a virtual training environment. That is why excellent solutions offer many features like design templates, intelligent content creation, course mapping, over-the-shoulder-instruction, and engaging platforms to address these gaps proactively.

3. Adopting a virtual training platform: Adapting course content created for traditional classroom training to a virtual training environment needs a host of functions to be addressed such as scheduling, time management, peer-to-peer interactions, course assignments, workshops, personalized training, and the concept of self-paced learning. Again, this is where we recommend you consider some proven solutions that provide many features that deliver these capabilities.

4. Hands-on experience: Virtual training program success relies on how well students learn and retain knowledge. They depend on the strength of training in delivering a near-real life environment so that the student can gain experience in many scenarios and get answers to their questions quickly. If a virtual training platform offers hands-on training and accurate real-life scenarios – that’s the tool that might be best for you. In short, your training endeavor should be frictionless, but it should also deliver highly on injecting real skills and confidence in the student. This will reduce resistance to moving to a virtual training platform, minimize missteps, and result in better ROI for the enterprise investing in a virtual training platform.

Also, an excellent solution solves for many adjacent but equally significant issues like digital literacy, data privacy, IT reliance, legacy hurdles, and training fatigue. These may not seem like obstacles, but they can cost a lot of time and money to the entire learning program. They must be taken into consideration and addressed.

Try to make hands-on virtual training fun, collaborative, and easy for all stakeholders. They will enjoy it and find it more effective and better time spent than in traditional classroom training.