This Tip explains my reasons why we need to go back to in-person training for social and interpersonal skills training and practice.
“ILT learning can adjust to the needs of the learner. It helps build personal relationships and dialogue, and develops collaborative learning.” AllenComm
I recently read a comment that in-person training is never coming back. To me, that’s like saying in-person communication is never coming back.
We are social beings. We need and use social and interpersonal skills, whether it’s:
- having a conversation,
- resolving a conflict,
- making a presentation,
- helping a customer,
- running a meeting,
- giving performance feedback, or
- asking for help.
Yes, Zoom and other virtual platforms make it relatively easy to have one-on-one conversations. However, our verbal and nonverbal communication is much too complex and nuanced to completely capture it through a screen.
We know that email is easily misunderstood because it is so difficult to determine the sender’s tone of voice. There is also much that is lost or hard to detect when people talk to people in boxes on their computer screens. This is true whether one-on-one or in groups in breakout rooms.
Research shows that we learn more easily together than apart. And let’s face it. We don’t live in two dimensions. There are certain social skills and abilities that we need to nurture and test in three dimensions in order to learn effectively. VILT can approximate real life, but it isn’t real life. We need to be able to hear, see, interpret, and react to tones of voice, body language, gestures, and facial expressions.
It’s hard to learn how to manage a meeting and facilitate the group process without actually practicing it with participants in the same room. I’ll go out on a limb and say that interpersonal skills are face-to-face skills that need physical, hands-on practice with real-life simulations.
We also know a lot of learning happens during classroom breaks. This is when participants reflect on their new learning and discuss it among themselves. We can’t easily replicate this period of informal socialization in VILT. Classroom training also offers less opportunity for participants to multi-task than VILT.
I’m biased because I am a classroom trainer. I’ve revised my programs to work in the virtual world. In addition, I enjoy the interactive options that the different digital platforms provide. But VILT does not provide the same rich learning experience provided by a classroom that engages most of the senses. Our focus needs to be on the learners, not on the technology.
This is why I believe that in-person training programs are necessary and will continue to be alive and well.
May your learning be sweet- and safe.
Deborah
#ILT #inpersontraining #classroomtraining
