What Is an ILT? Advantages & Benefits of Instructor-Led Training
Highlights:
Considering that all modern industries are becoming increasingly competitive, companies must explore new ways to ensure their workforce remains well-equipped in all fields, especially learning. Instructor-led training has been a part of humanity for hundreds of years and, despite all technological advancements, seems to have stayed with us for quite a while.
What Is an ILT?
In simple terms, it is a conventional in-person education and training style in which an instructor leads sessions, conveys knowledge, and interacts with participants. If you wish, you can imagine this as a school teacher educating pupils. Yet, in this case, we are talking about adults and professional knowledge instead of general knowledge.
On the adult level, ILT is also instrumental in settings necessitating in-person connection, fast response, and hands-on experience. Additionally, while it's one of the oldest training methods, it remains relevant, especially in specific scenarios.
Is ILT Right for My Company?
Yes and no. There are too many factors to cover to give you a plain answer. However, I can help you end up with it yourself with a simple guide. First and foremost, you need to access your learning objectives, then pay attention to what content you already have, and finally discuss with your workers how they want to learn.
Yet, there is also a list of situations in which ILT can be the best choice:
Complex and Hands-On Skills: learning directly from a professional is the best-case scenario for these types of skills. For example, technical skills, medical procedures, and certain manufacturing procedures can hardly be conveyed via text, pictures or even videos. A qualified instructor will give hints right on the go, being far more flexible than even the most advanced AI.
Interaction and Engagement: LMS offer a vide array of engagement features and allow learners to interact with content, making it more interesting. Will it be suitable — in most cases yes. But active interactions, conversations and human-to-human engagement are only possible with trainers who know how to facilitate them, including spontaneous questions, debates and group work.
Compliance and Certification: Many industries require employees to meet specific compliance standards and certifications. In such cases, ILT solutions can provide a structured and accountable approach to ensuring participants meet these requirements.
Customization: Instructor-led training can be tailored to meet your company's and employees' needs. Instructors can adapt content, pacing, and examples to suit your organization's unique requirements.
Networking Opportunities: In an ILT course setting, employees can network with their peers, fostering community and collaboration that is lacking in purely online training.
Yet, even despite ILT can be efficient and useful, it requires certain conditions to be possible. The simplest example of when this approach falls short is a large international company with distributed across the globe workforce. Good luck assembling everyone in one physical location. Needless to say, even if one manages to do so, the costs would be astronomical.
Benefits of Instructor-Led Training (ILT)
ILT training offers a range of benefits, especially compared to simple LMS solutions that come with limited sets of features.
Personalized Learning
Human-to-human interactions are completely about personalization opportunities and interactions. Professional instructors can adapt their training content to the audience on the go. No online LMS platforms can offer such flexibility as human adaptation.
Yet, this still arises concern that you need to hire a professional trainer who will meet requests and demands from your audience. At the same time, when done right, it will get the biggest results — the workers will be much likelier to stay engaged through the whole learning session, making it into an effective and enjoyable experience.
Immediate Feedback
In ILT, immediate feedback is a priceless asset. Since the human instructor can swiftly react on the go, they can adjust their session and respond to the learner's knowledge. This response, apart from adjustments to trading materials and learning style, will also include giving immediate feedback.
This fosters a better understanding and teaches workers quicker problem resolution techniques. The ability of a person to address misconceptions in real time won't be (if ever) beaten, or at least matched by any AI.
In the ideal case-scenario, the professional educator will make sure that no one is left behind. It up to them to ensure that the training remains effective for everyone, regardless of their starting point. Thus, the key to success is to get a highly professional trainer.
Hands-On Experience
Some skills and competencies are best acquired through hands-on experience. From this perspective, ILT training is well-suited to provide this kind of training. Whether it's the operation of complex machinery, software applications, or medical procedures it may simply not be possible to master the skill of operating them alone or with an instruction. An experienced instructor will be invaluable source of information and example in these cases.
The instructor can help people to apply the theoretical knowledge that they got via an LMS to practice in a controled environment, supporting them with advice and ensuring safety.
Low Fixed Costs
This may sound strange, but it is quite possible. You see, an LMS requires regular payments, usually monthly ones. In turn, if its just sufficient for your company to host a single ILT even a year, even though it will come at a price of running an LMS for several months, in total it will become cheaper in the long-run.
Networking
In-person training sessions offer a convenient opportunity for employees to network with their peers in instructor-led classroom training. For the majority of people, building relationships with colleagues from various departments will foster a sense of community and make them feel a part of something bigger. The effect can go even further, moving from small talk during breaks up to valuable collaborations, encouraging people to share ideas and solve problems together. However, its worth noting that not everyone feels comfortable around people, especially younger generations after COVID-19 still have difficulties socializing. Thus, fostering a comfortable environment is a must.
How Can an LMS Facilitate ILT
So, first, is ILT a good tool? Yes, absolutely! Should you use it? Yep. Can it be improved via an LMS? Yes, and now you are going to learn how a Learning Management System can be a valuable ally. Here are two ways an LMS can facilitate ILT:
Blended Learning
Blended learning combines the best of both worlds: traditional ILT and modern online training. You see, LMS allows you to create a blended learning environment to integrate ILT sessions with digital resources seamlessly.
Here is a simple example how other companies do that: use the LMS to distribute pre-reading materials, quizzes, or surveys before the in-person training session in ILT solutions. Thus, you give your workers a chance to get prepared beforehand, and this will maximize the value of ILT, as it's much easier for instructors to work with knowledgeable audience.
After the ILT session, the LMS can host post-training resources, such as additional reading materials, videos, or discussion forums. This is the most efficient and convenient way to help people update their knowledge. At the same time, you can also use an LMS to assess how good people understoon the information from the ILT. Creating multiple quizes, collecting feedback and creating custom analitic dashboards is where an LMS trully shines
Webinar
Webinars are a popular tool for modern training, and they can be seamlessly integrated into an ILT program through an LMS. Thus, you can reach wider audiences with your ILT training.
An LMS can schedule and host webinars, providing a platform for live online training sessions in instructor-led training ILT. This is particularly valuable when physical gatherings are not feasible.
Webinars also allow for interactive elements, such as Q&A sessions and polls, which mimic some of the engagement features of in-person Training in ILT training courses. Participants can still ask questions and interact with the trainer in real time. Finally, webinars can be recorded and stored within the LMS for future reference in ILT solutions.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, Instructor-Led Training remains a valuable and practical approach to training. Even though it has existed for years, it still holds its positions. The new technologies such as AI-LMS aren't here to fully substitute it, but to supplement each other. The best way to build a proper training is to use an LMS on regular basis and host ILT whenver you need to broaden or deepen certain knowledge.
