How to Use training course materials for teaching online in virtual classrooms

Page Updated on February 3, 2023

Originally, our courses were mainly designed only with person to person classroom teaching and training in mind, but in recent years many of you have been asking us if you can use the training materials for online teaching.

The answer is yes! We have now adapted all of the training course materials packages that we offer on this site to be suitable also for online teaching, with all training activities and games also explained for online virtual classrooms.

What We Have Added to the Training Materials to Make Them Also Adaptable for Online Teaching

Apart from the obvious physical difference between classroom teaching and teaching online, in that you are standing in front of your participants, whereas with online teaching you are teaching on a computer, there are also some differences regards the training materials.

One of the key differences in how you use the training course materials is adapting training activities and games so that they can be used for online teaching.

In a classroom setting offline, putting participants into groups is very easy in that you can simply point to people and allocate them into a group. You can then ask each group to find a space in the training room and to start the task.

It is actually just as easy online as you can allocate participants to what are known as ‘Breakout rooms’. We have written a detailed post on:

How to Run Virtual Activities and Games for Online Teachers

Inside every one of the training materials packages we sell, we also include the following to help you if you wish to teach online.

1. PowerPoint PPT Example – with ‘Teaching Online’ Notes Included at the Bottom of Slides with Activities

There are many activities in the training materials we sell so we have made sure that these also include information on how to adapt the activities if teaching online.

Example of where the notes are for online training activities — **Example from our Unconscious Bias materials of where the notes are for online training activities**

So, in the notes of any PPT PowerPoint slides that involve activities such as icebreakers or team-building games, instructions on how to also do this activity if you are teaching online are included.

You can find them at the bottom of the teacher notes section below the slide (see the image above).

2. Teacher’s Handbook Example

With each training materials package, there is always a teacher’s handbook as a digital document.

Online teaching lesson plans — Example page from Students’ Handbook from Our ‘**Dealing with Difficult People’ Training course materia**ls.

Inside the Teacher’s handbook documents (there is always an MS Word version and a PDF version included in our training course materials packages), and included in this handbook are the notes for teaching any activities in a virtual classroom.

Which Online Teaching and Training Platform Is Most Suitable

In order to run group activities when teaching online, the easiest way is to use ‘Breakout Rooms‘.

Not all web-conferencing platforms online have ‘Breakout Rooms’ so you might want to use Zoom, Webex, Adobe Connect, or GoToTraining. We will update this table below as the platforms change.

	Whiteboard	Breakout Rooms	Chat	Screen Share	Poll	Quiz
Zoom	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Webex	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Adobe Connect	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GoTo Training	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Teams			Yes	Yes

(This table is correct to the best of our knowledge – if we are wrong on any feature you can let us know)

Additional Guides for Teaching Online

These guides might be extremely helpful for you for teaching online:

What equipment do I need for online teaching and tutoring?
What are the best online tutoring and teaching tools and software available?
Tips to be a good online teacher or tutor.
Advice on using Zoom for online teaching.
How to use Breakout rooms on Zoom

Customizable training course materials — **View Our Training Kits for Freelance Trainers**

What’s Included in the Training materials packages?

Our training packages are all:

Designed both for classroom teaching and also ready to use for virtual and online training. We did all the hard work researching and designing, so you can focus on delivering training online.
Fully customizable. You own the rights to edit and reuse them as you wish for your own use.
Instantly downloadable. You will have access to the packages as soon as you purchase them.

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Dr Paul Symonds

Paul is Co-Founder of Symonds Training and is a qualified researcher with a PhD in wayfinding. Paul helps the team at Symonds Training build and focus on providing high-quality training materials packages and programs for trainers, classroom teachers and HR departments.