As the world transitions to more virtual or remote work and training, it seems that more organizations look to the ability to perform training online. Not with an instructor, but just the class or lab.
While it is true you can follow along with a course online, you cannot ask the course questions and get answers live, and the question you type in will likely only get a direct answer (if any), not an in-depth assessment of the question and other considerations that could arise. Having an instructor-led course makes sense for the same reason there is a Human Resources department in each company: they are in charge of onboarding and touching base with new employees as they transition into a company and its culture. Sure, the tasks of onboarding can be done online, but who would be there to answer questions or concerns of the employee without a team dedicated to making each employee successful in a company? Instructors have the same drive, which is to make not only the training successful, but to ensure each person successfully learns the program.
Personal interaction and adjustments to the class can be very important, and are not easily done through online-only learning. Instructors are able to give students the experience and anecdotes they have learned while using the product. They are not only able to clearly answer questions and point the person in the right direction, but they can also teach some of the 'tricks of the trade' they have learned throughout the years. This can help people retain the information as it is a personal story to connect the person and the instructor.
Interpretation of body language or inflection in a voice is something that once again can only be done with human interactions. The ability to listen to a person's question and read them or their voice allows for a better set of answers given to questions. An instructor can not only give the answer to a specific question, but also understand if that answer is what the person was truly looking to understand or is now just accepting that answer and hoping they will learn, later on, what they wanted to know. This also allows instructors the ability to ensure they have clearly understood the question and, in turn, clearly provided the right answer to the question. The minimal interaction an instructor allows is for clarity and answering of questions to be focused to each person.
Finally, when you have instructor-led teaching, the instructor is able to understand the different levels of knowledge/experience in a class at any time. This allows the instructor to help with "extra" learning by being able to teach different levels of information. This ability is important not only for the instructor to ensure they are communicating at the correct levels to people, but also it helps to drive the most fulfillment from the training. As instructors adapt to the classes, they can still go over the information, but at times may go a little deeper into a demo if the class is showing they can handle the learning, thus giving them more value to the training and the time they are willing to invest in the class.
Instructor-led training is not necessarily essential to learning how to use a system, Atlassian or others. Yet without an instructor, the value of the course is minimized and relegated to only the material on the screen. Instructors are able to not only lend their experiences and learned knowledge, but also allow for different individuals to get more out of the training as they may be able to handle more advanced information.
Interested in getting your teams the tools they need to reach their maximum potential? Contact us, and one of our Atlassian experts can talk you through our training options.
