Presently, with the changing landscape in learning environments, both institutions, be they organizations or institutions of learning, need to seek methods that best will train individuals and arm them with new skill acquisition. Two of them are pretty popular: instructor led training content and eLearning. The difference depends on what the learner wants and what kind of material is involved. What’s important here is to establish which is more suitable in terms of your objectives and learning set-up.
Why Compare ILT and eLearning?
Both ILT and eLearning are potent learning and development tools, but their selection depends on other factors, including the type of content, the learner’s desire, budget, and training goals. To begin with, both are certainly not each other’s antithesis, and a combination of the two is sometimes the best way to achieve both worlds.
1. Instructor-led Training Facilitates Face-to-Face Interaction
Participants in instructor-led training can also have direct, live interaction. Whether in a classroom or virtual classroom, learners may air their concerns, opinions, and insights with the instructor and receive immediate feedback.
This personal contact makes the learning environment more engaging and interactive, which can sometimes be very effective for complex or on-the-job situations. For instance, instructor led training content on technical skills, leadership, or communication typically prefers this real-time exchange for better understanding. Moreover, learners who are fond of collaborative groups will find the ILT training material to be of their taste.
Key Benefits:
- There is real-time feedback with clarification
- Personal contact through lecturers or peers
- Class discussion and team-based learning
2. Accessibility and Flexibility
This is the best advantage eLearning has in terms of convenience. Accessing ILT training material, as well as all other information by learners, works efficiently for somebody scheduled busily throughout the day and also one whose place is spread wide and involves distant time zones. A good thing in eLearning is letting participants learn as long as they feel. If he likes to visit, he goes; whenever ready, they take an assessment.
This means that eLearning is cost-effective for organizations because it reduces the need for travel, accommodation, and other logistical considerations. It also scales well, meaning it can be used to train large numbers of employees or students without having to have multiple sessions or instructors.
Key Benefits:
- Flexibility to learn at your own pace
- Accessible from anywhere, anytime
- Cost-effective for organizations
3. Learning Retention: ILT vs. eLearning
The retention of information determines the effectiveness of the training approach. It is a high-quality one because it is interactive in its sessions. Visual aids and live examples, along with collaborative activity, help enforce most of the key concepts, which implies greater retention.
One of the benefits of eLearning is that one can access the content to reflect on it, reading over it as many times as needed. Most eLearning systems use quizzes, simulations, and gamification, all of which lead to retention rates.
Major Differences:
- ILT has an immersive interactive feature
- eLearning encourages repetition as well as self-paced practice
- Both can utilize multimedia to help with retention
4. Cost and Scalability: Which Is Cheaper?
No doubt eLearning has an edge where costs are concerned, mainly with bigger institutions. Once you develop an eLearning course, you can deploy it to any number of learners without having to incur any additional costs. There is also no cost for travel, accommodation, and venue booking.
ILT can’t have an in-person or virtual presence, which increases the cost of instructors, venue bookings, and travel. Therefore, scaling up is more expensive, especially in large groups and for working out in different locations.
Key Benefits:
- eLearning is very cost-effective and scalable
- ILT can become very expensive if one has to pay instructor and travel costs
5. Customization and Personalization
However, personalization choices are also available in instructor led training content and eLearning, though at slightly different levels. While sitting in an ILT session, the instructor can take time to adjust the pace and content according to the learners’ needs and real-time feedback received; thus, it is an excellent tool for offering personalized learning experiences.
While most eLearning modules are designed in advance and do not alter at any given time, eLearning allows for a personalized learning path based on performance and preference. For example, most modules give the learner a choice of what module to focus on; therefore, there is some involvement in the learning journey.
Key Benefits:
- ILT: customizable for the learner in the real-time environment, based on feedback.
- Elearning: a course with a personalized learning path and tracking of training progress.
Conclusion
When choosing between instructor-led training and eLearning, consider your learners’ needs and the type of content you have to deliver. ILT is best for hands-on, complex topics because it involves personal interaction and instant feedback in a collaborative environment. eLearning makes sense as a scalable solution for large-scale or self-paced learning.
Key Takeaways
- Immediate instructor-led training makes for immediate feedback, with sessions being just good enough to provide very complexly designed topics.
- Flexible, convenient, and scalable eLearning is more economical when training large groups or dispersed geographically.
- ILT is better for the immersive collaborative learning experience, where eLearning will allow learners to return to content at their pace
- It is a matter of choice between ILT and eLearning based on budget, preference, and nature of content.
- A blended approach combines both these methods and can, thereby, offer the most full-rounded learning solution.
