A talent development (TD) professional works at a small Internet-based company.

A talent development (TD) professional works at a small Internet-based company. The TD professional is tasked with training a group of customer service representatives to process refunds in a new software application.

The TD professional is creating the training plan for the new software and wants to develop the learners' troubleshooting skills by incorporating unexpected complexities that staff might encounter.

The training plan is created and approved, and the TD professional develops the training materials.

The TD professional starts the training session with a short lecture, but the learners are being fairly quiet. The TD professional is worried that learners are not understanding the material but are too afraid to ask questions.

What should the TD professional do to encourage learners to ask questions?