Immersive Learning Experience

Situation: A Deeply experiential journey of personal discovery and growth, facilitated by two applied behavioral scientists, reached a dead end in the face of COVID pandemic.

Context: This much sought-after program usually spread over 3-6 months entails a human process laboratory style exploration followed by intermittent experience sharing and reflective sessions.  The entirely in-person program (other than the tele-coaching component) was now at the mercy of coronavirus.

Solution: Our  platform became a solution that ended up providing even deeper experience for the participants with greater insights.  12 participants enrolled from different parts of India, not only zoomed in to connect with one another, the two-way communication, instant sharing of reading material (just as in class-room), assignments for individual & group, reflective individual logs (encrypted to honor confidentiality), and gamified learning (e.g. instant affinity grouping of ideation, instant polls) made the program deeply experiential. The program ran over multiple sessions. Participant submission of assignments and after class sharing of information/ reference material occurred seamlessly.

Outcome: Besides rich learning for participants, the facilitators derived much higher satisfaction. The paperless swift exchange was not only cost effective but just-in-time.  The coaching discussions were richer with all the work being available at fingertips for both the Coach and the Protégé.  Participants were thrilled with the documentation including their private notes being available on the cloud, long after the program was over.

Buoyed by the ease and participant feedback, the practitioners had conducted two more batches even before the 2nd wave of pandemic was over.

Backdrop: One of the fastest growing conglomerates launched an initiative to boost up the capability of senior HR functionaries during the pandemic.  This 6-month program covering over 40 managers (2 batches) entailed multiple modules such as Emotional Intelligence, Strategy, Business excellence etc.

Challenge: The modules warranted plenty of pre-reading, highly participative sessions, post program assignments – individual and subgroup, and 21-day Behaviour modification reminders as alarm for participants to carry out neuroscience self-experiment.

Solution: V-Connect combined with seamless API connected Leadership Compass to meet the rigor of program.  The highlights of the features leveraged include:

• An extensive to-and-fro communication between the facilitators and participants
• Just in time pre-session video films
• Reflective assignments with voice recorded responses from the participants
• Collaborative work among members of the same SBU and cross SBU ideation for Strategy and Business Excellence modules
• Read only sensitive reading material and view only videos protecting the intellectual property

Payoff:  In multi-modular multi-faculty program, the facilitators and participants found it easy to track the due dates for assignments.  The pre-scheduled activities ensured automatic notifications and timely sharing.  Gamified activities like card sort and magic wheel brought alive the deep experience and take away of the emotional intelligence module.  From fun-filled videos to private journal and notes kept participants engaged and energized.

Participants celebrated the secure private journaling space and facilitators the ease of conducting immersive activities.  Facilitators were delighted with features to reuse their content for other programs as well as options to listen to participants voice-recorded responses and view submitted assignments.