How inclusive is your online training?
During the pandemic, we saw a sharp rise in online training. Continuing professional development needed to be delivered remotely. However, I think it actually is best when delivered remotely. The reason — it can account for more people’s needs. It is, in many ways, more inclusive.
I deliver a lot of training, but I’m a lawyer by trade, so obviously I love a definition. So what do I mean when I say inclusive? And how can “training” itself meet this definition?
First off, it’s is inclusive around people’s lifestyle.
- It accounts for people’s time needs. If you can’t make it every week because you have other commitments, work, family or otherwise, catch up on the recording!
- It is location agnostic. Are you stuck at your kids swimming lessons wondering what to do? In a café or on your sofa? You can join in. No commute required.
Secondly, its inclusive around people’s learning needs.
Since my own diagnoses of dyslexia, I have become more aware that there are certain ways I take in information better than others. However, this isn’t something that is just the case for people who are neurodiverse in some way.
Everyone learns better in some ways and not others. Whilst I don’t have any definitive statistics, I have never heard someone say that their favourite type of lecture is one where they are talked at for an hour, with no interaction, looking and slides of almost solid text whilst being stuck in a physical meeting room. No thanks.
Remote training, however, can meet a lot of needs. It can include:
- Screen sharing options which allow for more in depth training, for example, allowing you to zoom in on a peice or text one minute, and go back to the slide the next.
- A visualisation of the topic discussed — either by slides or using live updating features such as online whiteboards, helping more visual learners like myself.
- Text captioning. If you learn better looking at text that audio, a lot of video conferencing software lets you read the talk as well as listen.
Finally, it is also inclusive around interaction and participation (provided it doesn’t pressure everyone to have their camera on). People who are just not feeling it that day can stay quiet, that’s ok. There are ways to participate collectively e.g. polls and questionnaires and if someone doesn’t have confidence to talk out loud, there is a chat function, which also allows more members of the group to be involved.
This isn’t the case with in-person training. You can only interact in one way, with all of your piers listening to your question. By all means, I don’t mind this personally, but I can see situations where this can be off-putting and might not suit every personality or learning style, or even just take account of where you are that day, from a mental health perspective.
All in all, I think remote training has a lot of ways to meet a diverse set of needs. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
About me
In my day job, I am UK qualified lawyer and work as a knowledge lawyer for Stephenson Law supporting the legal team advising technology start ups and established businesses. You can find me on LinkedIn at here.
This article does not contain legal advice and only my personal opinions .
