Synchronous Learning: The Key for Maximizing Engagement in Professional Training

In today’s knowledge-defined economic landscape, investment in professional training and evolution is a strategic imperative to keep businesses on the competitive edge. Continuously teaching employees new skills helps organizations to adapt and respond better to shifting market dynamics and allows them to retain their most important resource: a motivated and talented workforce.

Virtual learning has made professional development easier to access, but unfortunately, much of it takes place in an asynchronous, or one-way, environment via on-demand video cources. This lack of real-time student/teacher interaction and feedback leads employees to zone out, multitask, and ultimately get less benefit out of any given course.  findings indicate that static online training formats often leave the participants bored and uninspired majorly as a result of the lack of teacher-learner interaction in real-time, leading to low course completion rates, premature dropouts, and hence, less-than-ideal knowledge uptakes.

In contrast, a synchronous, real-time mode of instruction facilitates live interactions between the trainer and the students, making learning fun, engaging, and of course, more impactful. Such an approach provides enough scope for a real-time exchange of ideas, and cohort-based activities ensure deeper immersion in content, sustained interest, and easier recall of concepts for the audience.

If your learning platform values deep engagement as much as content quality to enforce better learning outcomes, here are three compelling reasons to embrace synchronous learning:

1. Real-time collaboration & feedback loop
   The synchronous approach adds a degree of immediacy and tangibility to the learning process, encouraging participants to be inquisitive and innovative and test the rationality of their thought processes. Unlike pre-recorded sessions, a synchronous learning environment is a two-way street where both the teacher and the students can engage in discussion, leading to much greater clarity and perception.
2. Personalize courses to the learner
   Synchronous learning permits your instructors to be agile in practice. They can plan lessons in real-time, adjust focus on topics and adopt a pace of teaching that best suits the students. Today, synchronous learning environments incorporated with innovative digital teaching aids are making it easier to provide personalized care and attention for learners over the web.
3. Conduct group studies and live discussions
   Synchronous learning prompts your students to engage in discussions, learn from each other and solve problems collaboratively. For instance, UpDuo, an industry leader in peer-to-peer coaching, has capitalized on this fact to develop a powerful learning platform, allowing business teams to share, learn and grow together without external interventions. Unsurprisingly, the solution provides an excellent tool for self-nurturing human capital by businesses.

At Agora, based on our experience working with global EdTech learning platforms, we see synchronous learning as the future of professional training. Our portfolio of real-time EdTech solutions is committed to helping you maximize engagement, retention, and revenue. From live education and class management to collaboration tools to analytics, Agora has everything you need to build a highly engaging platform for synchronous learning. Interested in learning more? Read our latest e-book to discover how Agora is helping EdTech innovators build the live professional training classrooms of the future where trainers and students are never out of touch.