RodeWorks

I’m off taking a week-long SQL server course this week, which provides a good opportunity to reflect on technology training. The course is a traditional lecture/hand-on type of Microsoft training class. The funny thing that always strikes me about these courses is their relatively slow pace, and gradual delivery of information. The information is also somewhat general, with the expectation that the student has the experience to make it relevant to their needs. In fact it really needs to be this way — the concepts are pretty big, and the human brain needs a certain amount of space to absorb and process the information. The class is filled with technical people, who I assume are used to this type of thing.

But this experience contrasts with the reaction I normally get from a group of non-technical people taking a technical course. The two most common complaints are that the class moves too slowly, and that the information isn’t specific enough to their needs. Well if the class is designed by a technologist they’ll most likely model the delivery after courses they’ve taken and found valuable. Which I think is at odds with what the non-technical learner is expecting.

So where is the balance? I’m not sure I’ve found it yet in my own teaching. It is certainly possible to up the pace of information delivery, but the students quickly get overloaded. If the content is too specific for one person’s needs someone else is left out. You can try to focus on the big picture/big concepts but the users end up feeling like they didn’t do anything. You can make it really detailed, hands-on focused, but then they lose the big picture view.

All of which leaves me with two thoughts — I find the traditional IT training style effective, and I guess that’s why I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t agree with me. Now to do some more exploring as to what type of training is effective for non-technical folks. And I have some ideas — look for those in a future post.