A colleague commented to me recently that one of my clients needed a “Dinosaur version and a 21st Century version” of a particular ERP softare training course. Indeed, the audience for the course was as diverse as I’ve seen in almost every respect: generationally, culturally, politically, and in their level of computer literacy and years of experience with the organization.

This was an instructor led course and the content was primarily conceptual. The client had tried for a balance between traditional lecture and interactive exercises and games with the intent of trying to address a variety of learning styles during the one day course.

So, combine a widely diverse audience with a course presenting content in a variety of ways and, what is the feedback from the particpants? Overwhelmingly, about half of the particpants wanted more lecture and far fewer exercises and games and the other half wanted less lecture and more exercises and games. Interestingly, (or maybe not) the divide between these two groups was not so much related to individual learning styles as is was to age and years of experience with the organization. So, at least for this organization, the generation gap is the biggest one of all.

Thus the comment about the dinosuars and the 21st century. But here’s the problem, a big part of the reason for making these people sit through a full day course was the get them to interact, share experiences, and learn from each other. Having two versions of the course would not help to achieve that goal. So what’s the solution? How can we avoid a classroom experience where half the class is bored and disengaged from the lectures, and the other half is annoyed at the forced participation in interactive exercises and games, which they see as a waste of time? How do we get to a level of interaction that is reasonably comfortable for everyone? I don’t have the answer yet. But, I’m working on it.