Bringing the Friendly Small Classroom Experience Online with an Intensive Community-Centered SOLIDWORKS Blended Learning Experience.

​It is already becoming clear to everyone the substantial impact the COVID-19 Pandemic has had on everyone in the world. One major impact the world has had is on people's learning habits. Online learning took a steep rise in demand replacing the traditional classroom experience.

Online learning has mainly consisted of one-direction webinars with a presenter and participants can ask questions. Another common form is self-paced online learning in which the learners go over pre-recorded learning elements.  

While both experiences are sound with their advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness and fixability, they both miss the coziness of the small classroom. They miss the small talks that take place between classmates, the ability of classmates to directly help and support each other throughout the learning experience and being able to get in touch with the facilitator for the same.  Most importantly, they miss the formation of lasting connections that drive more friendships and more opportunities.   
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This posed the question “how might we bring the positive elements in the cozy classroom to be online?” This led us to develop a new learning experience that is rolling out for one of our in-house subjects, SOLIDWORKS. What does that look like? ​

The New Learning Experience:

Our newly designed learning experience is centered around 6 pillars: 

• A small cohort of students starting and finishing at the same time. This is to add the feeling of being part of a small progressive learning group with a clear end goal.  
• Open community for learners to freely post on forums and directly have chats or calls within the same platform. This is to allow for the community to support each other as well as build mutual connections.  
• Organizing regular video meetings for discussions and learning during the program duration. This is to strengthen the human-to-human interactions between the different learners.  
• Open direct chat available with the session facilitator and classmates. This is to make it easy to have small talks as well as get assistance in a direct and fast manner between learners and the facilitator.  
• Organizing challenges for classmates to both learn and have fun. This is to further strengthen interaction among classmates.  
• A collection of precise self-paced videos. This is to add flexibility in learning as the different learners  are in different locations and also have different personal commitments. 

Balancing the 6 pillars will both maintain the advantage of flexible online learning and also have the emotional feel of the small cozy classroom experience. A result that can only be made with this unique blended approach. This is all in addition to our well-established excellence in developing high-quality training materials proven during the last 5 years.

If you have getting started with SOLIDWORKS in your development plan, you can now sign in to this unique SOLIDWORKS learning experience.

​Registration closes on Thursday 28th May 2020 and the first cohort will start on June 1st.  You can also reach out to us if you are looking for help designing your organization’s learning experiences.  ​

By Tayseer Almattar, TforDesign Founder

Tayseer is the founder of TforDesign.  He has a passion for learning design and making all learning digestible and exciting.  ​​
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tayseer-almattar-design-innovation