What do we mean by rapport and is it really needed?
Learning through online platforms is increasingly the approach preferred by learning providers and students alike. It is cost-effective, flexible and, when properly crafted for virtual environments, comparable to co-located learning experiences.
However, the important dynamic of rapport must be quickly established by the instructors. When rapport is present, there is trust and mutual respect between parties. At School of Babel we believe that establishing and building rapport is a vital component of creating effective training sessions. As such, it needs to be rapidly established by the trainer. Indeed, we believe that a trainer’s competency should be partly measured based on their ability to create comfortable and trusting learning environments, and therefore on being able to build rapport. It is evident that when individuals are at ease, they have a greater ability to receive and digest knowledge.
If rapport is so vital, can it be established through on-line mediums? The good news is that we believe that it can! We have created a quick guide for trainers which can help you to establish rapport and thereby create absorbing learning sessions.
- Awareness: Be continually on the lookout for non-verbal clues- be fully aware of your audiences attention and energy levels at all times. You can test this by making your sessions interactive, by having frequent breaks, and through checking for understanding within your cohort.
- Authenticity: Be yourself, albeit perhaps a somewhat ‘larger’ version of yourself to compensate for the virtual environment’s mediating effect. Your course will come across as genuine which will help to engender trust and promote engagement with your students.
- Safe spaces: The creation of a non-judgmental environment, where individuals can feel able to ask any question, is essential. You want your students to be able to call out ‘the elephant in the room’. We have created an Elephant in the room ‘Ice Breaker’ which you can find here. Whilst it is used most commonly in team building, you can use the techniques in your on-line training sessions. If people are willing to ask what they think are ‘stupid questions’ you will get a much better quality of debate and discussion, which again will help to deliver a good experience for your learners. Delivering these safe spaces can even sometimes be easier through virtual environments as people’s inhibitions can be somewhat muted.
- Camaraderie: Using ‘team-building’ techniques to create camaraderie between your students is also a great way of building rapport. You can use some other of our ice-breakers for this, such as ‘What’s your attitude’ or ‘the Agree/Disagree game’.