Part 2 – Pros & cons with classroom learning

Before I talk about how great the new NCAB Academy will be, let us first look at the pros and cons of our classroom courses that we have now.

Pros with Classroom learning:

1. First of all, internal courses are important for building culture. They define ‘how we do things at NCAB’.
2. Our tutors know what’s going on in the company, so the content is relevant. Also, workshops are completely realistic.
3. Tutor costs are low. Well, this depends on if you consider what they could be doing instead, but the direct cost is for sure lower than hiring consultants.
4. Our internal courses have high quality.
5. The most positive points from our training feedback surveys is that participants enjoy meeting colleagues. Exchanging ideas and feeling part of a global company also supports ‘one way of working’.

Cons with classroom learning:

1. Travelling all over the globe this way is NOT SUSTAINABLE. We have to change this. It’s expensive too.

1. Our tutors are needed in many other places.
2. New employees have to wait until there is a whole group of 10-15 people before they can go on a training – so called Batching.
3. We also have to cram as much as possible into the course, although we know that learning is harder when many things happen at once with little time to reflect.

Let’s have a look at this learning curve.

This diagram shows how participants remember what they have learned. The blue line shows what happens if no effort is made to strengthen the memory of the students – for example with a quiz. After only 1 week, the students remember about 10% of what they learned!

But, as you can see, repeated reminders clearly have positive effects on their memory.

Even small, short reminders will make a difference. The most effective reminder is a quiz – it helps remembering even if you get the answers wrong.

This pattern is even stronger if we try to learn many things at the same time, when we are cramming a lot of new knowledge into a short period of time.

4. The last con is that it’s really hard for participants to bring their new insights into action when they get back home. Also, with classroom learning, it is almost impossible to follow up on each participant.