Training Talk: Hard-Hitting Articles on Computer Training, Management, and IT-related Issues.

The very word “lab,” when discussed in conjunction with computer training, sounds so flabby, boring, and unproductive. It’s hard to imagine a more boring scenario: a bunch of people quietly muddling through an exercise or two while the instructor just “lounges.” What a waste of training dollars and time! Right?

Wrong!

It is not possible for an instructor to actually teach a student anything. The best the instructor can do is present the material as clearly, and engagingly, as possible, and the student must assimilate the information and teach themselves.

What? Don’t believe me? When was the last time you successfully taught a stone to operate a computer? I guarantee you, no matter how dynamic, interesting, factual, concise, and efficient an instructor you find, you will not be able to teach a stone to do anything (well, other than fall, which they already do exceedingly well!).

Point is, no matter how good the presentation, the employees have to process the data, understand it, and make it theirs, and the only time this really begins to occur is while they are trying to use the program without help.

Think of a lab like training wheels on a bicycle. It’s a whole lot easier to learn to ride a bike when you try it out on your own, with a little help from the training wheels when you need it, than starting right in on trying to ride a two-wheeler all alone!

Yet this is exactly what many training sessions are like, and why they are not effective. Imagine simply telling a child, “start pedaling, keep the handlebars pointed straight ahead, and pull this lever to stop.” That’s the upshot of so many training sessions. This is why labs are extremely important to the overall success of a training session.

Now, let me be clear. I am not suggesting that the whole class suddenly grind to a halt in the middle of a training session, and take 30-45 minutes to do a lab on a single concept. Labs can be smoothly, subtly, integrated into a training session, as easily as offering 4-5 minutes here and there for students to try out a concept on their own, take notes, or replicate a previous exercise.

For your next training session, insist on labs throughout, to reinforce and solidify key concepts.

Everyone wants to get the most bang for the buck, so scheduling the longest possible training sessions for the money seems to make the most sense. The longer students are in the classroom, the more they’ll learn, right? Well, yes—to a point.

Think back to the last super long movie you watched. Think, “The Green Mile” or even “Gone with the Wind.” These are seminal, classic works, and anyone watching them wants to be there, right? Yet how many of you have rented a long movie and broken it up over at least a couple of nights? (Come on now, be honest!)

If you’re like most people, even with material you actively are enjoying, there is a limit to how much you want and are able to absorb at once, and this is especially true in your corporate training sessions. Having taught many a course that lasted 7-8 hours, I can tell you that students turn off after about 5 hours. Oh, they’ll sit there politely while the instructor barrels ahead, but the glassy-eyes and slow moments indicate their lack of involvement (and I’m a dynamic teacher!).

My conclusion is that training sessions are better kept to shorter lengths overall, such as a maximum of 5-6 hours. Better still, allow at least 1-2 breaks in the morning and afternoon, or schedule training as half-day sessions over several days. Nothing beats a fresh student, a fresh teacher, and plenty of time—spread out over time—for a successful training result.

Any successful learning involves feedback: knowing if you are on the right track, and if not, taking action to get back on track. Yet this key aspect of feedback, which I am calling follow-up and follow-through, is rarely if ever implemented.

In all of the 16 years I have been training, not once have I been called back for a follow-up session to reinforce concepts, offer lab time, or simply entertain questions students may have. Yet without follow-up and follow-through, your training sessions will be hit and miss at best.

What I am saying is, you need to communicate with your employees and colleagues about recent training, discover if their needs have been met, and if not, find a way to meet their needs. Maybe it’s just a matter of purchasing a reference book, or having the trainer back for general questions, or to consult on a particular job-related issue.

An easy way to accomplish this is to use surveys for your training sessions. One client I know uses a company called SurveyMonkey to accomplish this; it makes it easy to create and send out surveys electronically. You can also use paper surveys that you design, but if you have a lot of training, the tabulating of the data can be quite work-intensive. However you choose to do it, take the time to survey students following the course to discover if they got what they needed from the session, how well they felt the instructor met their needs, and what could be done to improve a future session.

Even better than just a survey following the class is a survey preceding the course, called a pre-survey. You can use pre/post surveys to really zero in on the effectiveness of your training efforts, and ultimately improve your dollars to sense ratio dramatically.

In this article we have touched on some of the key elements you need to consider when trying to translate your training efforts into real-world results. We discussed the power of customized training, hands-on training, instructor “entertrainment,” labs, shorter training sessions, and the importance of follow-up and follow-through with pre- and post-course surveys.

I hope you use the techniques to make your next training session much more powerful than the last, and have your employees raving about the quality and effectiveness of your training sessions.

Until next time, we’ll solve our problems Bit by Bit!