5 Training Delivery Methods for Digital Learning

Digital learning has been used more frequently over the years because it’s more accessible, cost effective, and provides a more tailored learning experience. But as working from home becomes the “new normal,” digital training delivery methods have gone from a luxury to a necessity.  

Digital Training Delivery Methods for the Virtual Workplace 

To help you adjust to this new normal, here are five trends in training delivery methods for digital learning in a virtual work environment. 

Virtual Instructor-led Training 

As organizations transitioned instructor-led training to a digital format, the easiest solution – though perhaps not the most effective – was to recreate lecture content in a digital format. Virtual ILT is designed to offer remote-classroom experience similar to that of ILT or traditional higher education lectures with some enhanced features to get learners more engaged in their training program.  

The benefit of delivering training by VILT is in the simplicity of content creation or training content modality conversion. This format allows learners to ask questions, interact with other trainees, and get immediate feedback on their work, but the technical functions and features can be limited.  

Podcasts 

Over the past few year’s podcasts have become an increasingly popular medium for taking in news and entertainment. But podcasts aren’t only used for entertainment these days. Even without high-speed internet podcasts can be accessed easily, so they are a great way to reach people anywhere. So, using podcasts as a new training delivery method has become more common as learning and development teams mirror the platforms in their employees’ daily lives.  

The same theories that dictate the length and scope of training content for microlearning applies to podcasts. The content should be broken down into smaller chunks or episodes, each tailored to specific learning objectives. However, this learning burst training delivery method works best when paired with other assets like training videos and eLearning activities to provide more detail on ideas or reinforce concepts. 

Virtual Mentors 

Using a similar training delivery method as VILT, virtual mentoring facilitates one-on-one interactions between new hires or developing employees and more experienced employees. Considering the current challenges with face-to-face interactions, creating a virtual environment for mentoring is the next best thing. Depending on the formality of the training, virtual mentorships can take place over video-calls, emails, or even texting.  

The shift toward work-from-home models have put a strain on new hires; however, continuing a mentoring program with the virtual work environment will drastically improve their experience. 

Video Training 

Video has been a staple of training delivery methods for decades, and today training videos are even more accessible and engaging than ever before.  A majority of educators find video learning extremely effective. Videos are a great way to engage learners through interesting storytelling and visuals, but what’s great about delivering training through video is its versatility. In addition to traditional storytelling and learn-by-example scenarios, video training can now include: “choose your own adventure” or first-person style narratives where learners can navigate their training based on their knowledge, rewind tools that can go over information as much as the learner needs, and feedback straight from experts when needed.  

Learning Portals 

A learning portal (or LMS) is a training delivery platform that acts as a repository for teaching and learning materials. When considering training delivery methods for digital learning modalities, a learning portal is vital to effectively delivering learning experiences to your employees. While the use of hosting platforms isn’t new, the increase in personalized user interface, functionality, diverse asset types to enable learning certainly is. 

One of the biggest appeals of delivering training through learning portals is that they are easily personalized to meet the needs of various learning styles. Moreover, learning portals can enable social learning, cohorts, and forums in an entirely virtual work setting. For instance, most learning portals use discussion, blogs, and sharing buttons to encourage a sense of community between learners. 

Adapting Training Delivery Methods to Virtual Work 

As employees adjusting to a new virtual workforce, employee training teams and the training methods they use to deliver training are changing as well. Training trends that were already shifting have accelerated, while others came to an abrupt halt. It can be hard to know which to implement. But, carefully designing your digital learning experience with these five training delivery methods in mind will make the employee experience a whole lot easier and effective.