Lesson 1: Overview of Effective Webinar Training

6. Summary

Although webinar participants should take some responsibility for paying attention, it is ultimately the presenter’s role to maintain their attention.

A teacher-focused teaching approach:

• Focuses on the transmission of information to students who passively receive it.
• Leads to students taking a surface approach to learning. 

A student-focused teaching approach:

• Focuses on engaging students with what is being taught.
• Leads to students taking a deep approach to learning.

A deep approach to learning results in better learning outcomes. The goal of instructional delivery is to facilitate understanding (deep learning) over rote memorization (surface learning). Deep learning leads to the information being transferred into long-term memory where it is permanently stored (i.e., it is learned).

Using webinar best practices, interactive webinar tools, and instructional design principles can enable a student-centered teaching approach for webinars.

• A common characteristic of webinar best practices is their focus on engagement.
• Interactive webinar tools can be used to cultivate a sense of social presence.
• Instructional design principles provide guidance to help choose appropriate strategies to facilitate learning.