Question about trainer

Question
I have a friend that takes her dog to classes and I was curious about taking my dog as well so I attended a class and was wondering about your opinion.

The class was well structured and the trainer was pleasant using rewards. The only thing that surprised me is that I always imagined a dog training class to be an hour straight of exercises.

This trainer instead did like 15 minutes of training and then told the owners to ask their dogs a command and then release the dogs off leash to play together. So the whole hour was split into about   3 segments of 15 minutes obedience commands followed by several minutes of play. Then the owners called the dogs and rewarded them for coming and then she resumed the session again.

When I asked the trainer she said it is important for the dogs to socialize off leash and that they ''retained'' better what they learned if they were allowed to play afterwards. She also said it was a big reward since they were released to play after asking a command. I was wondering what your thoughts are on this. I am new to the world of training so not sure if this is a good approach. I know there are different training methods but want to make sure I choose a good trainer for my dog.

Also she was keeping the dogs and owners in a semi-circle when training. Is this the best display and why? thank you for your time.

Answer
I can't say whether the trainer is good, but I can tell you that she is right when she says that "life rewards" are very powerful reinforcements for the dogs, and that training sessions are better if they are short but effective.  I train my dogs this way, because not only do I want them to learn well, but I want them to understand that when I ask them to do something it doesn't always mean all the fun is about to stop.  You can see what I mean if you visit a dog park (go without your dog and just observe).  The people who never do what this trainer does will often have the dogs that don't want to "come" to get their leashes put on, because they realize they will have to leave the park.  So the owners try to chase or hunt them down, get frustrated, yell at them, etc.  The owners who played the "Come!" "Go Play" game are those that have dogs that come because they sometimes get to back to what they were doing, and sometimes go with the owner to have a different kind of fun. In other words, they like being with the owner (benefit of reward-based training) and they aren't convinced that "Come!" means all the fun will stop, because it *isn't* always followed by being yanked off the car every time.  Sounds to me like this trainer might be worth a try.