Making your large online trainings engaging

Have you ever noticed that large online trainings are often less engaging than smaller online groups?  Two key principles of engaging an online group are to engage frequently and in a variety of ways. These principles are even more important when you are working with a large group online.  Where multitasking and distractions are a challenge in all online spaces, they’re actually even more of a challenge in large online spaces, where people may (rightly) feel that it will not be noticed if they are disengaged.  

We define “large” online spaces as those where the group is too large for you to track the engagement of each individual.  That varies, but for you could be a group of 40 to thousands of participants. 

For maximum impact of your large online trainings, don’t just lecture and Q&A.  Instead you can… 

Use engagement methods that don’t require technology

There are a lot of ways you can engage your group without requiring them to push any buttons in your online platform.  When you use no-tech tools you can make engagement more accessible (even to people watching the session as a recording) and minimize what your team has to do to manage it.  For example:  

• Guided reflections or visualizations  (“Close your eyes or lower your gaze.  Think of a time…”)
• Journaling (“Write down one idea you want to try from this brainstorm” or “Reflect and journal about a time you tried something new.  What happened?”)
• Body-based activities like stretching, dancing, breathing
• Scavenger hunt (“Find something near you that reminds you why you care about this issue.”)
• Drawing (“Draw a moment from the last event that stood out to you.”)

Use the chat box in a variety of ways

The chat box is often our top tool for engagement in large online trainings.  It’s easy to train people how to use, and it’s available in just about any online meeting platform (including livestreaming platforms).  The higher the frequency and variety of ways you direct participants to use the chat box, the more you’ll keep the group focused on your session, and the wider the range of people in the group you’ll get participating.  Plus, the more folks you engage and the more often, the better sense you’ll have of the group along the way: Are they with you? What are they feeling? Are they ready to take action?

Here are several ways to engage your group in the chat box:

• Elicitive questions (“What stood out to you from the story we heard?”)
• Sentence completion (“One thing I commit to do within one month is ___.”)
• One word answer (“In one word, how are you feeling about the action next week?”)
• Poll (“Which are you most interested in doing? A. Canvassing B. Phonebanking C. House party”)
• Spectrum (“On a scale of 1 to 5, how ready do you feel for the next stage of the campaign? 1 = totally unprepared, 5 = ready to go”)
• Image spectrum (“Which image best represents how you’re feeling about this campaign? Type the number in the chat box.”)
• Emojis (“Add one or more emojis in the chat box to show your reaction to this plan.”)
• List building (“What would you add to our list of tips for volunteer recruitment?”)

Line up chat moderator support

When you’re effectively engaging a large online group in the chat box, it’s too much to keep up with everything coming in and also lead the group.  Line up one or more people to be your “chat moderators”.  They can keep track of what’s happening and be the voice of the group for you. For example, your moderators can:

• Summarize: After you ask the group to engage with a prompt in the chat box, ask your chat moderator to summarize what they’re seeing. (“I’m seeing a range of responses to the spectrum.  A few 1s and 5s but mostly people are in the middle.”)
• Quote: Invite the chat moderator to share out a few things people have shared during an activity, naming the people who shared them. (“Sean raised a great point.  They said…”)
• Alert: The chat moderator could raise their hand or come off mute to let you know if there’s an important question or trend in the chat box.  (“I’m noticing a number of requests for you to define that acronym you’re using.”)
• Respond: Without having to bring questions to the facilitator, your moderators can answer questions directly in the chat box and offer technical support.  With especially large groups, it’s best to have a different person responding than summarizing. 

Chat moderators summarizing and quoting not only helps the facilitator but also participants – if you can’t keep up, they can’t either!  Remember that the act of engaging in the chat box helps your group get the most out of the training, even if each response isn’t read.

Use voice tools – selectively

Participating out loud is going to be helpful for some participants, but of course with large online groups you won’t have time to do activities like go-arounds where you hear from everyone.  Here are some options:

• Keep microphones off when you’re not using them to cut down on background noise and disruptions. Check with the features of your platform.  In Zoom Meetings, for example, you can use the Security menu to disable participants’ ability to unmute and then enable it when you get to an activity where you want to hear from some people out loud.  In Zoom Webinars, you can temporarily promote someone to a “panelist” when you want to hear from them out loud.  In Google Meet, use Host Controls to turn on/off “Audio lock.”
• Raise hands to share.  At a point where you want to hear from some people out loud, explain how they can raise their hand to show they want to speak.  Alternatively, let them signal in the chat box with an asterisk *.  Prepare yourself and the group that you won’t get to hear from everyone.  Remember that listening to someone else talk for a long time can lead to tuning out – whether it’s a trainer or other participants doing the talking!  Tip: direct a question to the whole group between hearing from people out loud, for example, “Show us with a reaction or emoji if you’ve ever had a similar experience.”
• Breakouts. Depending on the size of your group and your platform, breakout activities may be an option.  With larger groups the setup can be more demanding, so make sure you have tech support lined up. When setting up breakouts in large online spaces, it’s best to make the breakout groups larger (like at least 5 people) to account for more people not participating when they get to the breakout room. 

Use asynchronous tools

Extend your connection using asynchronous or “self-paced” tools.  For example, for list-building, start your list before a session and/or continue it after a session using tools like surveys, collaborative documents, etc. The same applies for voting. The key here is that it takes the pressure off of resolving all technical challenges during a session or having enough time for everyone to input during a live session. This is also a way to invite in more engagement from people watching via recordings.

Prepare for challenges

Large online spaces are more challenging to lead effectively than smaller groups.  Here are some additional resources:

• Dealing with Disruptors in Zoom – Don’t let concerns about disruptive participants stop you from creating an impactful session for everyone else! This handout helps you prepare for what can happen and how to regain control FAST.
• Facilitation and Roles Prep for a Large Online Training – Having a team to run a large online space is essential.  This guide talks through how to “shift gears” for large groups and gives examples of how to divide roles. 
• Making the Call: Large vs. Small Online Trainings – A large online training is not necessarily going to be higher impact than a smaller one.  This guide helps you sort through whether going large or keeping it small is more strategic for your training goals.