Online Vs Classroom Training – Which is better?

Every time there is a change in trend, the new takes over the old. However, the old never gets completely replaced. There is a huge change in professional teaching and learning methodologies in today's digital world. Advancement in technology is slowly making online training more popular than classroom training.

Although eLearning and classroom training share many benefits, eLearning comes up with many unique attributes like access to study materials as per user's convenience, online assistance, self-paced learning, low expenditure and comfort, classroom training has its own benefits.

Let's have a look at their pros and cons of both the learning approaches based on different metrics.

1. Social Interaction:
   Interactive sessions between the students through brainstorming and group discussions help learning more effectively. Although this strategy is quite popular in traditional classroom approach, it does not mean this cannot be implemented in online training.
   Unlike hands raised, questions asked and answered, presentations delivered, etc. in traditional classroom training, online training involves social forums, chatrooms, discussion boards, etc.The instructor here needs to take utmost care by giving proper instructions on the discussion topic, answer questions and intervene when the discussion goes out of control.
    
2. Personalized learning
   It often happens in traditional classrooms that a lot of information is presented in few moments, making it difficult for the students to pay attention and retain them. eLearning automatically takes away time constraint from learning process, enabling the learner to decide how much to take in.
    
3. Comfort
   Attending classroom training continuously for hours causes lots of stress and backache. Besides, there is a threat of missing information during a break. Online training gives the flexibility of accessing the study materials from home, which in return comes in handy from the comfort of your home.
   Gone are the days when you had to get dressed, refuel your vehicle and spend time on roads to attend a class. Online training enables the participants to enjoy a hassle-free leaning.
    
4. Costs
   Speed and ease of delivery have a considerable effect on costs, no matter what the mode of delivery is. Online training meets this requirement of professionals and organizations these days, which helps them save some money. The professionals save money in traveling, buying stationary items, accommodation, and so on.
   One of the best example is, McDonald's who saved over £5 millions over 2 years and saw a growth of about 10% in sales as a result of online training.
   Another example is Compass Group, which is said to have experienced a cost reduction of about £495K on expenses related to travel, accommodation and business timeout of trainers or materials.
    
5. Learning Time
   As mentioned earlier, agility is one of the biggest metrics to measure the effectiveness of training. It is estimated that eLearning takes 40% to 75% less time than classroom training for a particular course.
   As the learners prefer to take a small duration of learning over more number of days, it is getting important for the course designers or subject matter experts to frame the content of the courses into smaller 'chunks'. This enables the modern learners to learn in a personalized fashion, with proper feedback.
   Online training comes with this flexibility and hence the most preferred way to learn more.
    
6. Accessibility of Instructional Materials
   Students or professionals who go for classroom training, know that the instructions are delivered verbally, which are sometimes complemented by visual aids. On top of that, often find it hard to take notes on the chapter manually. Online training replaces the traditional classroom instructor with written and visual materials that are well structured in smaller chunks. Those materials are also accessible after the learning period which helps the student to go through once again to understand better and remember more.

Although online training is trending these days, classroom training is also preferred by professionals.
One reason could be the professionals who do not wish to post their questions in a public forum and wait for the answers can speak to the instructor verbally and sort it out. The other reason is to get a break from sitting in front of a computer screen for hours, which could be achieved through classroom training.

The one who is determined to learn can learn from anywhere and by any means.