Virtual training is live, instructor-led learning delivered online instead of in a classroom. Also called virtual instructor-led training (VILT), it happens in real time: a trainer and a small group of learners, in separate locations, connected through a platform. Learners spend the session practicing a skill and getting feedback on it, so they leave able to do something new.
People often treat “virtual training” and “webinar” as the same thing. Training has three components (presentation, application and feedback), and a webinar delivers only the first, because an audience of hundreds or even thousands leaves no room for each attendee to practice and hear how they did. Without that practice, you can’t expect attendees to perform to standard back on the job.
Virtual instructor-led training keeps the class small so that practice fits in. We recommend 12–15 learners per virtual class, and our own live online workshops cap enrollment at 15. At that size every learner gets to answer questions and work in breakout rooms, and the trainer still has time to correct mistakes as they happen.
Hybrid training mixes the two settings, with some learners in a physical room and others joining remotely while one facilitator runs both groups at once. Of the three formats it asks the most of the facilitator, mainly because the remote group is so easy to forget.
| Virtual training (VILT) | Webinar | Hybrid training | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audience size | 12–15 learners | Hundreds to thousands | Small group, split |
| Direction | Two-way, interactive | Mostly one-way | Two-way, in two places at once |
| Practice & feedback | Built in | Not realistic at scale | Built in, for both audiences |
| Best for | Building skills | Spreading information, marketing | Teams split between office and remote |
| Are people trained after? | Yes | No, they leave informed | Yes, if facilitated well |
Webinars are an efficient way to get a lot of information to a lot of people in a short time, and they give an audience a taste of your facilitation style that can build interest in a topic. When you need to reach a big audience and live virtual classes aren’t an option, blend the formats. Present the content by webinar, with polls and a video debrief to keep people thinking, then have a manager or coach observe each person on the job and give feedback afterward. For the full argument, read Are Webinars the Same as Training?.
A lot of virtual training goes wrong before anyone logs in, when a classroom deck gets delivered over video unchanged and the trainer ends up facing a screen of silent black squares.
Build in interaction every 3–5 minutes. Plan it into the structure of the course so that learners are regularly typing in chat, marking up a whiteboard, answering a poll or talking with another learner. A learner with nothing to do for ten minutes is a learner answering email.
Cut the text-heavy slides. A slide that served as your script in a classroom turns into a block of text on a learner’s screen. Swap it for a visual, and use a story or a short video clip where you would otherwise lecture.
Keep sessions short and breaks frequent. Plan for about three hours per session, with a break at least every 60–90 minutes. Our own live online workshops run about 2.5 to 3 hours a day.
Design practice around scenarios. Scenarios carry over to the virtual classroom for the same reason they work in a room, because learners practice the decisions they’ll make back on the job. Start small with a linear scenario aimed at a single outcome, set in a realistic context drawn from your needs analysis. Then present a challenge and let learners decide how to resolve it, with feedback at each step.
Count pre-work and follow-up in your timeline. A virtual session may be shorter than the equivalent classroom session, yet total training time can come out the same once you add the activities before and after it. Because the time saving is small, choose virtual instructor-led training for its audience reach, when the learners who share a performance gap work in different locations.
If design is your job, our Instructional Design for the Virtual Trainer workshop takes you through the whole process. For the scenario method in depth, see 6 Key Steps to Structure and Design Scenarios to Support Adult Learning. The interaction rule comes from the adult learning principle of active participation, and How to Incorporate the Principles of Adult Learning into Your Virtual Classroom Training gives a virtual classroom application for each of the seven principles.
In a classroom, social pressure keeps learners present. Online, their inbox sits one click away from your session, which is why the design rule above asks for interaction every few minutes.
Online, you have to tell learners how to respond to each question. An open question like “Who’s used this technique before?” gets you silence, or a jumble of raised virtual hands and people talking over each other. Say instead: “Give me a thumbs up if you’ve used this technique,” or “Everyone answer this one in chat.”
Other guidelines that hold up online:
7 Guidelines for Asking Effective Questions in the Virtual Classroom has the complete list with example wording. Answering the questions learners send back at you takes its own techniques, covered in 6 Techniques to Answer Questions Effectively in the Virtual and Traditional Classroom.
Breakout rooms let everyone interact at the same time (five groups of three working in parallel, where the main room would have fifteen people taking turns). That makes room in a session for case studies and brainstorming, or any group project that would take too long as a main-room discussion.
Before you send anyone off, give each group roles such as scribe and spokesperson, which saves them the first minutes of deciding who writes on the whiteboard. Once the groups are working, move between rooms as you would circulate in a classroom to check progress and give feedback on the spot, as The Benefits of Using Breakout Rooms in the Virtual Classroom explains.
A session that ends mid-thought (“okay, we’re out of time, see you tomorrow”) wastes the energy you built over the previous three hours. Our trainers treat each session like a chapter in a book that ends on a complete thought, with learners reflecting on what they’ll do with what they learned.
The closing techniques we teach in Maximizing Engagement in the Virtual Classroom include 3-2-1 (three things you didn’t know, two that surprised you, one you’ll implement right away), Pack Your Bags, where everyone names one thing they’re “packing” before the session can end, a 45-second countdown in which two teams race to list every concept they can recall, and Takeaway Tag, where each learner shares a takeaway and tags the next person. In a multi-session workshop, close with a “trailer” for the next session to build momentum. Top 5 Strategies to End Your Virtual Sessions on a High Note describes how to run each one, plus two more.
Each workshop below runs live online, with a maximum of 15 participants.
To get certified, the Certified Virtual Instructor/Facilitator path starts with The Virtual Trainer (5 sessions, mandatory) and adds at least 3 more session credits from Facilitating Training for a Hybrid Workforce, Maximizing Engagement in the Virtual Classroom, How Adults Learn or Facilitation Skills, for eight live online sessions in total.
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We deliver our virtual courses with two people, a facilitator who teaches and a producer who runs the platform and the logistics around the teaching.
During a session, the producer:
With the platform and logistics handled by someone else, the facilitator can give full attention to teaching and to reading learners. Our article on the producer’s tasks describes this team approach as “four eyes watching for feedback and two minds concentrating on the process.”
The role comes at two levels. A technical producer works behind the scenes as an extra pair of hands. An instructional producer handles the same tasks and co-facilitates as well, which gives learners a second voice to listen to and gives the trainer’s voice a rest. Producing is also a good way to train new virtual facilitators, because they see the inner workings of a course before they run one themselves.
8 Benefits of Having a Producer in Your Virtual Classroom Training makes the case for the role, and Top 5 Tasks of a Virtual Classroom Producer describes the job itself.
Your virtual facilitation gets tested when someone dominates the session or comes across as hostile on camera, and you can’t read the room the way you would in person.
Ground rules make disruptive behavior less likely. At the start of every course, show learners how the raise-hand button and chat work, and tell them what the session will look like. A learner engaged every three to five minutes has little time left to be disruptive. When someone does act up, step in early, because ignoring it hurts the other participants and your credibility with them.
When a behavior starts, ask yourself why the learner is doing it before you react to what they’re doing. Our trainers call this separating the “what” from the “why.” The learner may want to be recognized as the expert in the room, or may be frustrated with the technology, and naming that need out loud (“You’ve clearly got a lot of experience with this”) usually takes the edge off. If webcams are off, watch your tone even more closely, because a voice without a face can sound more aggressive than you intend.
Challengers often just want attention in front of the group, so thank them for the point and park it: “That’s a good point. Let me capture it on the parking lot and we’ll come back to it.”
Your producer can mute a noisy line or talk privately with a disruptive participant in a breakout room without stopping the class. If nothing works during the session, speak with the person one-on-one afterward.
Langevin has two articles on this: 7 Strategies for Coping with Challenging Participants in the Virtual Classroom and 6 Simple Ground Rules for Facilitating in the Virtual Classroom.
Every workshop includes hands-on exercises with personalized feedback from master trainers.
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Retake any workshop once for free to reinforce your skills after your workshop.
Submit your course materials for expert review for a full year after your workshop.
Hybrid training puts part of the group in the room with you while the rest join remotely. It usually fails when the facilitator plays to the people they can see and the remote learners end up watching someone else’s class.
Facilitating it well means running one class for two audiences at the same time.
Our workshop Facilitating Training for a Hybrid Workforce covers the 4 types of hybrid training approaches.
Virtual facilitation is a performance skill, and it improves when you practice it in front of someone who tells you how it went.
Get the fundamentals of facilitation first. Everything in this guide sits on top of core facilitation skills: questioning, listening, managing a group and staying neutral while steering it. Start with our guide to what facilitation is and how to build the skill.
Set up a workspace for three-hour sessions. Use at least two monitors, one for the classroom and one for your lesson plan (most Langevin instructors and producers add a third as a backup), plus a headset with a mic instead of computer speakers. Get a chair that supports good posture, because a virtual day often runs well past the three hours on the schedule. A Virtual Trainer’s Domain: The Perfect Office Setup covers the rest of the setup, down to monitor height.
Prepare your first session well ahead of the start time. Log in at least 30 minutes early so you have time to test your audio, and keep your lesson plan on the second screen with a drink within reach. Before you start, know which platform features each activity needs. The first-timer’s checklist is in Quick Tips for Facilitating Your First Virtual Session.
Then practice with feedback. In The Virtual Trainer, you use the platform tools in each of the first four sessions and your final teaching session is recorded so you can review it afterward. Every Langevin workshop also carries our guarantee, which refunds your course fee plus $100 if you’re not fully satisfied.
No. Training needs presentation, application and feedback, and a webinar (one-way delivery to hundreds of attendees) only covers the presentation. Webinars are good for spreading knowledge and building interest in a topic, and attendees come away better informed. To actually train a large group, pair the webinar with practice and feedback on the job, or run virtual classes of 12–15 learners.
Virtual instructor-led training is live training delivered online, with a trainer and learners in separate locations connected in real time through a platform such as Adobe Connect. A well-run session is highly interactive, with learners answering questions and practicing skills in breakout rooms while the trainer gives feedback, so the experience comes close to a traditional classroom. VILT is distinct from webinars, which are one-way and can reach thousands of attendees, and from e-learning, which is self-paced with no live instructor.
We recommend capping a virtual session at about three hours, with a break at least every 60–90 minutes. A classroom day therefore becomes several shorter virtual sessions spread over multiple days. Counting the activities learners complete before and between sessions, total learning time can match the classroom version.
You need a virtual training platform with chat, polls, whiteboards and breakout rooms (our workshops run on Adobe Connect), plus a headset with a microphone, which blocks outside noise better than computer speakers. Add at least two monitors so the classroom and your lesson plan each get a screen. A stable internet connection and a producer who can back you up when the technology fails complete the setup.
The most direct route is The Virtual Trainer, five live online sessions where a Langevin master trainer gives you feedback on your delivery. Or browse all workshops and dates to find the right fit for your role.
