Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

How to design interactive activities for virtual classroom sessions

Virtual classroom sessions earn their place when participants make decisions, practise behaviours and receive feedback rather than simply watch slides. Knowing how to design interactive activities for virtual classroom sessions means balancing participation with momentum, especially when cameras are optional, work is hybrid and learners span Australian cities.

A strong activity is not an entertainment break. It translates a learning objective into an observable task, gives people enough time to think, and produces evidence that can guide facilitation. Activity selection, transitions and evaluation should all support that purpose.

Start with the business outcome

Begin with the performance change required after the session, then work backwards to the activity. If the objective is to improve coaching conversations, a poll alone will not create that capability; participants need to practise a conversation and compare their approach with effective examples. Aligning objectives and KPIs helps connect the learning design with measures that matter to leaders.

Write each outcome as an observable behaviour, such as “construct a feedback message using the SBI model” or “identify two risks in a project plan.” Avoid vague goals such as “understand” or “appreciate”, because they provide little direction for choosing an activity or assessing performance.

Decide what participants should produce before deciding which digital tool to use. A completed decision, recommendation, response or short explanation provides stronger evidence of learning than a reaction to a question.

Build participation into the flow

Interaction works best when it has a purpose, a time limit and a visible outcome. Short polls can confirm understanding, chat prompts can surface reasoning, and pairs or breakout rooms can turn abstract principles into practical decisions. The facilitator should explain the task, allow individual thinking time, set expectations for sharing and then synthesise the responses.

Participation does not always mean speaking publicly. Silent voting, written chat responses and private note-taking create alternatives for people who are joining from a shared office, travelling, caring for family members or simply processing ideas more slowly.

For organisations developing a blended learning journey, Dave Basarab’s training service overview illustrates how custom instructional design, leadership development and facilitated delivery can support a consistent learner experience across online and in-person settings.

Match activities to the learning goal

The best format depends on what participants must learn. A knowledge check requires retrieval, while a skill needs rehearsal and feedback. More complex decisions may benefit from a scenario in which participants must defend a choice rather than select an obvious answer.

Activity	Best suited for	Participant action	Facilitation focus
Poll	Rapid knowledge check	Vote and explain a choice	Compare differing responses
Chat	Reflection and idea generation	Post a concise response	Draw out underlying reasoning
Pair work	Dialogue and practice	Discuss a scenario	Collect representative examples
Breakout room	Applied problem-solving	Plan and present a solution	Assign roles and structure reporting
Scenario branching	Judgement and decision-making	Choose a path and defend it	Debrief consequences and alternatives

A 60-minute session might combine a poll for context, pair work for practice and a breakout challenge for application. Include short transitions between formats so the session feels like one coherent learning journey rather than a collection of disconnected exercises.

Provide enough background before an activity begins. If participants need customer data, workplace rules or scenario details, distribute them in advance. Otherwise, the breakout exercise will measure how quickly people can interpret instructions rather than how well they apply the intended skill.

Facilitate for Australian distributed teams

Participants may join from Sydney and Melbourne alongside colleagues in Brisbane and Perth. During Australian daylight saving, Brisbane is one hour behind Sydney and Melbourne, while Perth is three hours behind them. Rotate who reports first and avoid scheduling every discussion for the eastern states. Capturing chat responses can also prevent faster locations from dominating the conversation.

Hybrid work is routine across Australian organisations, with some employees learning from regional hubs, customer sites or shared homes. Shared bandwidth, background noise and unexpected interruptions are practical realities rather than exceptions. Design activities that do not depend on constant video, use headphones where possible and provide downloadable worksheets for participants who lose connectivity.

Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse workforce benefits from plain instructions, examples that avoid workplace idioms and time for people to formulate a response in English. Australian workplace discussion is also often direct and egalitarian. Invite participants to challenge assumptions and distinguish disagreement with the idea from criticism of the person presenting it.

Measure use, behaviour and value

Measurement should extend beyond attendance and completion. Participants may finish every module while rarely applying the learning at work. The journal guidance on behavioural data refinement shows how observed behaviour can reveal whether a virtual classroom activity is influencing real performance.

Separate three levels of evidence. Participation measures show that people responded to the activity. Behaviour measures show that they used the skill afterwards, such as holding a coaching conversation or escalating a risk correctly. Business measures connect those behaviours to indicators such as quality, productivity, retention or client outcomes.

Predictive Evaluation can help forecast adoption before a program is fully implemented and then measure its impact and return on investment. Use this evidence to refine scenarios, coaching prompts and debrief questions. It also helps learning leaders identify where a low completion rate reflects poor timing or unclear expectations rather than resistance to the subject.

Make practical design choices

Before building the session, apply these practical design choices:

Write one observable outcome for each activity.
Match the activity method to the capability being developed.
Give every participant a role, even during plenary discussion.
Set clear timing rules for discussion and reporting.
Explain why an activity matters before asking people to begin.
Capture one piece of evidence for later evaluation.

The strongest sessions use activity as a bridge between knowledge and workplace behaviour. The practical takeaway is a session built around one meaningful action, a clear role for every participant and evidence that shows what happened next.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.