What makes effective ILT?

I am attending a deep dive training for the product I work on, and this is probably one of the first detailed internal trainings that I'm attending. I have a lot of observations and learning from the way the training has been designed. In effect, attending the training gave me a much deeper perspective into what goes on in the learners mind during a class. I recommend that all IDs attend trainings sometime, just to get a better insight into the learner's mind.

When creating training for complex and advanced products, learners benefit from having a greater number of hand-on exercises and demos. They help in improving a learner's confidence on the subject tremendously. Such cases call for classroom training. Here are some of my insights...

Examples and scenarios
I think the instructor needs to be loaded with relevant real-world examples to help learners grasp the concepts better. Examples help build the connections that learners are looking to make. As you delve deeper into a subject, learners benefit from scenarios that make sense to his job, rather than random analogy. The examples should also keep in mind other systems interacting with the product in question. Thankfully, our instructor is not short of examples when somebody asks a question or he explains a concept.

Hands-on exercises
I must say that in the specific case of the training I am attending, the product is really complex and we are working on exercises that are over 3 hours long. So how does an instructor address such a challenge when it cannot be avoided? I think such exercises should be chunked down to no more than 20 high-level steps, and the task and concept explained before beginning each part. Our instructor is doing a good job with that.

The other thing with exercises that I realized is, how important it is to have standards and be consistent in your way of referencing things, in order to enable students to see exactly what they need. Some suggestions:

• The classroom setup needs to be detailed and communicated to the class prior to starting the session.
  
• For each exercise, ensure that you mention the prerequisite requirements.
  
• Give a short summary of the task and objective that will be achieved using that part of the exercises, just before it.
  
• Have standards and be consistent in your way of referring to components that repeat.
• Group instructions of one screen or component under a high-level instruction.
• Write short sentences that start with where the object of action is located.
  
• Emphasize the button/option where the action needs to be performed and the value that needs to be entered/selected.
  

Overall, I think the class also needs to be very interactive and solicit participation from learners. But you really need to plan your time well so you can cover everything needed, and also have the class contribute to the learning.