The Truth About Retraining Yourself for a New Career in Technology

Turn on the television or browse the internet and the bombardment of retraining services and schools begins. Everyone wants to sell you something. There are two general types of training delivery: self-paced and instructor-led. Which is preferable?

Self-paced training is delivered through an multi-media presentation. Instructor-led training represents the typical classroom environment with a live person presenting material at a pace that (hopefully) is comfortable for every student in the room.

Self-paced training can be delivered at a site provided by the training company, at the home of the student, or at the job site of the student. Experience demonstrates that students fare much better when outside distractions are removed and they have the opportunity to focus completely on the content being presented. For this reason, self-paced training at a site provided by the training company is preferable. Each student receives a set of headphones, a computer workstation, and an interactive multimedia presentation.

If the training is held at the vendor's classroom, the student will usually be assigned a specific training schedule. This schedule is significant; students understand that they are expected to attend 'class' according to a schedule to which they agreed. They are much less likely to slack off or skip school if they are on a hard and fast timetable.

The multimedia presentation typically includes videos, reading assignments, and evaluations. Modern training programs are adaptive and leverage centralized reporting to track all students in the program. Adaptive training programs might provide a pre-test to assess the skill level of the individual student, then tailor the material appropriately.

Instructor-led training makes students feel more comfortable since a real person is present to help them through the material and interpret it as necessary. The pace of an instructor-led classroom may vary as a function of the skill levels of the students in the class. In some cases the least-knowledgeable student will determine how much material is covered. The instructor may elect to adjust the content or pacing of the class to accommodate the needs of the less competent students. On the other hand, the instructor may proceed at a predetermined pace in order to present all the material in the allotted time period. In either circumstance, some students may be either bored or overwhelmed.

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