In Ireland, there was a recent court case about the lack of instructor-led training where the plaintiff won compensation of €82,000!
The case involved an incident in the Dunnes Store, where one of their employees suffered an injury while lifting a box. The employee argued that she had not received proper safety training. Dunnes countered by providing a DVD and a slide deck that provided the relevant safety training.
Dunnes lost the case because the judge believed that self-paced training was insufficient.
Certain skills require instructors to explain the process and check that the learner has understood the process.
This means it’s incredibly important to design instructor-led training in a manner that is engaging to the learner.
Designing effective instructor-led training can be tricky and time-consuming, but there are many tricks and tips that will help design great instructor-led training experiences for your learners.
Here are our 10 Tips For Instructor-Led Training
1. Set your rules at the beginning
Set the ground rules at the beginning of the instructor-led training. Communicate how much participation is expected. Discuss certain classroom etiquette rules that you expect the learners to follow.
2. Avoid killing people with boredom
Don’t design presentations loaded with text and numbers. Instead, consider using pictures, videos, scenarios, stories, activities, and real-world examples. The more the learners participate in the activities, the more engaged they are and the more they learn.
3. Create a collaborative environment
Learner participation is the top most priority. If it is a one-way lecture, you can be sure that you have lost the learners after the first ten minutes. So, include a lot of activities in your instructor-led training courses!
Start with an ice-breaker activity. Then go on to divide the audience into groups and provide them with case-studies, games, scenarios etc to keep them enthused.
4. Encourage employee participation
Encourage learners to ask questions and voice their opinion. Using the seating plan, write down each person’s name and use it as often as you can. Remind each person that their participation is important for the learning process.
5. Do not underestimate the power of social media
Social media can be a powerful learning tool, even for instructor-led training. You can consider creating a community for the training event. Use pre-work activities like reading, watching a video, or answering a pre-course questionnaire using a system like Prezentt.
You can even use the Prezentt discussion forums to allow participants to get to know each other and post their queries. The forum and community can also be used to share assignments and other learning collaterals.
6. Vary your tone based on the audience
When delivering instructor-led training, you need to fine-tune the pace and tone of your voice based on the participants. The audience should not feel that you are rushing. On the other hand, they shouldn’t find you slow, either.
7. Use technology to enhance, streamline & supplement your delivery
There are various tools available to enhance your training. You need to familiarize yourself with them and make use of them in the training room. Prezentt is one such training delivery platform that makes instructor-led training courses cheaper & easier to run, more engaging and more interactive.
8. Restrict the class size
It is ideal to keep the number of participants limited. If you wish to provide equal attention to each participant, you should avoid enrolling in large numbers.
9. Make it relevant
You need to ensure that the content is relevant for the audience. A snazzy presentation with lots of frills is nice, but at the end of any instructor-led training course, your learners should feel that they have achieved their learning goals.
10. Provide takeaways
Provide materials and resources that will help your learners even after the session. Make the presentation and other materials like white papers, background articles, templates, case studies, and solutions available online via a system like Prezentt.
As Prezentt automatically distributes everything to all your participants, you don’t need to waste time distributing slide handouts or other materials at the end of the class.
Keep these 10 Tips For Instructor-Led Training handy and you are sure to design a winning instructor-led training course.
