Like Jeremy, I agree any training is good. Hands-on is best if it involves a hands-on type skill. Table-top exercises and thought-provoking scenarios are good. Competition is good, too. The one thing they hate the most is just sitting in the classroom. As training officer I often have to juggle tailor-made lessons for different groups of personnel.
As stated earlier any and all training is good. Hands-on is where the rubber meets the road. We are fortunate to get to use houses that are under construction and not completed. We perform search and rescue, setup different senarios of fire attack, roof ventilation as well as horizontal and we also swap out doing incident command. This gives everyone the chance to see what its like at all points during a structure fire. We try to make it as real as possible without flames. The firemen love doing drills this way and it creates a lot of interest in the department. This also gives us a preview of the layout of the houses as well.