The Shear Angle component will take the x and y axis of whatever plane you are using for the transformations. Make sure you are using Radians for the values of Ax and Ay.
The Shear component makes a bit of sense if you reference point and target point start our close to each other. Make two points at the height of your geometry and begin moving the target point about the xy plane. You will see your object Shear according to the vector created by the points.
I´m not really the person who manage this stuff but I´m pretty close to her. She´s trying to arrange a seminar on September, but there's nothing sure at the moment. And I think the first seminar is only for teachers and research people.