Earlier this week, I mentioned that I had powered through some online training courses that I needed to complete by the (rapidly approaching) beginning of my academic term. In that post, I voiced my worries about how well I’d be able to retain the material I took in (and, one hopes, absorbed to at least some extent) in one long sitting at my computer.
As it happens, I am spending today and tomorrow at full-day training sessions (about nine hours per day, including breaks) covering related material at much greater depth and breadth. Obviously, this affords me the opportunity to compare the two modes of content delivery.
One thing I’ve noticed is that I seem to have retained substantial chunks of the material presented in the online training. (Sure, retaining it for two days is maybe not a huge accomplishment, but these have been subtle details — and I’m pretty sure I have students who can forget material more rapidly than this once the quiz on the material is behind them.)
It’s possible, though, that my retention of that material will be better because I’m using it in this live training. I’ll really have no way to tell which bits of the overlapping material stick in my head because of the online training and which stick because of the live training since I’m doing both in rapid succession. (Too many variables!)
The live training has so far been more interactive during the presentation of material, with speakers taking questions and asking us questions. (They’ve also distributed clicker-like devices that we’ll be using during the presentations after lunch.) There haven’t been any quizzes on the material (yet), but there will be breakout groups in which our active participation is required.
We’ve also been presented with gigantic binders containing handouts with slides for each of the presentations (complete with space for our own notes), related articles, and extensive listings of additional resources (including online resources). These binders have been adding to my sense of actively engaging with the information rather than just having the information wash over me. Plus, my binder will now be my first stop if I need to look up a piece of information from this training, which I personally will find easier than digging through my Firefox bookmarks.
A disadvantage of this training is that it eats up two calendar days set far in advance by the trainers, in a particular location far enough from most of the participants’ home bases that they need to book lodging for a couple nights. As well, owing to the A/V needs of the presenters and the aforementioned gigantic binders, the cost per participant of the training session is significant.
Why, you might ask, am I doing both of these overlapping training programs in rapid succession?
Strictly speaking, the live training sessions I’m doing today and tomorrow are not required of me. However, given responsibilities that stem from my committee appointments, this training is a really good idea. It will help me do my job better, and I’m bringing home resources I can share with other committee members who can benefit from them. The training may be taking up eighteen hours of my life right now, but I anticipate what I’m learning may save me at least that many hours of spinning my wheels just in the coming semester.
The online training was something I was required to take, but it strikes me as the minimal amount of information adequate to prepare someone for my committee duties. Plus, the online training is being required of a larger population at my university than just members of my committee, so we committee members are also doing the online training to ensure that we understand how well it’s working for the other people taking it.
One thing I’m thinking in light of this week of training is that my committee might want to find a way to offer periodic opportunities for live training on campus (at least as a companion to the online training if not as a substitutable alternative). If we want the people who are partaking of the training to have more than a minimal grasp of the material on which they’re being trained, recognizing different learning styles and building in more open-ended interactivity might bring about better results.
Hmmm. I’d like to submit that what you have here are two very differently *designed* trainings, and thus trying to compare them by mode of delivery is a non sequitur. You’ve pointed out several of the design differences. The ‘simple solution’ of more f2f training may not entirely accomplish what your committee wants. When we keep the design of the learning the same, results are comparable.
I’ve been following your reflective posts on learning for a while and find them fascinating. I ‘do’ training strategy as a job and am constantly having to wrestle with both the cost-benefit trade-off between online vs F2F training and the fact that I have completely hated all the online training I’ve ever done.
It’s trendy (on Twitter at least – I’ve not yet worked out how to insert a smiley emoticon into brackets, so you’ll just have to imagine one here) to highlight the downsides of F2F training at the moment. And they are significant; taking people ‘out’ of work is expensive, the learning is rarely delivered at the right time, many trainers labour under misapprehensions that they learned/acquired in school/training and just aren’t very good at their job etc etc
But I think you hit on something in your reflection with your comment:
“. . . and I’m bringing home resources I can share with other committee members who can benefit from them.”
I wonder if ‘leaders’ benefit from F2F training because it gives them a chance to rehearse how they’re going to explain/share the information with colleagues?
You’re absolutely right about ‘open-ended interactivity’, I think. I’ve always wondered why higher education institutions didn’t have the basic Knowledge Management strategies that you see in modern enterprises.