Lesson 1: Overview of Effective Webinar Training

What happens during many training webinars is illustrated above. The presenter talks, and participants listen. Even if useful information is presented, participants may feel like they are being bombarded and tune out. Instead of learning from it, the information goes right to the trash. 

Teaching Approaches and Learning

A teaching approach focusing on what the teacher does and the transmission of information is called teacher-centered. In contrast, a teaching approach focusing on engaging students with what is being taught is student-centered.

Studies show that a teacher-centered approach results in students taking a surface approach to learning, whereas a student-centered approach leads to a deep approach to learning. These differences are significant because deep approaches to learning lead to better learning outcomes.

Read the section 'How do people learn?' on page 147 of the paper Applying learning theories and instructional design models for effective instruction.

Student-Centered Webinars

Webinars often use a lecture-style format where the presenter transmits information and participants passively receive it. This teacher-centered approach puts the webinar's effectiveness in question. This doesn't mean that a lecture-style format is bad for webinars. What it does mean is that you should incorporate student-centered strategies in your webinar. This is backed up by evidence showing that students have fewer attention lapses during lectures around times when student-centered teaching approaches are used, and they maintain this attention for a time following their use.

In the video "How to Pay Attention to a Boring Presentation," the speaker effectively used strategies to maintain viewer attention. For example, he informs viewers up front what he will present, establishes why the information is relevant to them, uses examples, and offers approaches for implementing each tip. He also stays on topic and keeps it short. While the video does not include direct communication with viewers, it is still an example of student-focused teaching. It uses strategies that keep viewers engaged with the content rather than being passive recipients of the information. You will learn more about how to do this in the following lessons.