Training Tips #1 Where to Start

This Article is part of a series of Training Tips, intended to help experts without an education background design and teach courses.

#1 Where to Start

#2 Formal Assessment

#3 Finding the Right Level

#4 Creating Exercises

#5 Content Delivery

I have had a remarkable response to my post regarding the topic of engineers learning to train other engineers. It seems there are many people at all stages of their career that do or would like to teach* technical topics. I’m focusing these tips on the most efficient creation and provision of a course. Traditionally, course content is created by an Instructional Designer, with the assistance of a Subject Matter Expert, and then provided by a Trainer. In my opinion, this is seriously inefficient and something close to insulting to the SME. Obviously, the E is ‘expert’. If you are an Expert (or Engineer), you have learned many very difficult things already. I could forgive an SME for not being the greatest teacher much more easily than I can forgive a Trainer for not being able to answer my technical questions in class. And, I know first hand it is painfully slow to explain a deep topic to an Instructional Designer.  

However, the biggest problem for an SME turning over a course to a Trainer is that the SME is out of the resultant learning loop. Imagine: here, perhaps together in a classroom, are a large gathering of potential clients. The exhibit a strong interest in the Subject area. They have un-met needs. They have budgets! They likely have experience. They will have insights. They will make mistakes. They will have feedback. And the SME is out of the room? That is a huge missed opportunity, folks! The way I went from a decent engineer to being recognized as an Expert in a few areas was in part by gathering the needs, experience, and feedback (and budget!) from people I was teaching!

Instead of learning experts ‘using’ the SME, it’s much better to make an adequate teacher out of the SME. It isn’t that difficult, and a little bit of hard-won knowledge will help. So, I will provide some teaching tips to you, Experts and experts-to-be.

Where to Start

The first time I found myself needing to formally teach a class, I found the materials given to me much too outdated. I made a few attempts at patching them up. Then, I did what I have done every time since, I threw them out and started over. Call me a ‘control freak’ (you won’t be the first), I just can’t give presentations using material from others. I learn a great deal while creating my materials and this also ensures that I know enough to present them.

Having thrown out the material and now facing an empty page, I contemplated the universe for a few minutes then started looking around for help. Amazingly, somewhere I found a small booklet and in it there was the advice: “Start with the assessment.” This is a common technique in the education world, but I didn’t know that.  

Why start with the assessment? It is the same as Covey’s rule, “Begin with the end in mind.” Moreover, start by thinking from the viewpoint of the person paying for the training. They will expect a clear demonstration that the course was successful. So, start by visualizing how a successful demonstration would appear.

If you think of it this way, 'assessment' will never be a standard, multiple-question, written test. Instead, an appropriate demonstration to a supervisor would be the student's creation of a work product similar to what will be expected on the job.

So, as a first step in creating and teaching a course, picture the students demonstrating successful training by using your content at work, i.e. in generating work products. Try to break down the work products into ingredients. Write down all the ingredients in a checklist. These will become ‘learning objectives’. Try to start each one with a verb, for example ‘Describe’, ‘Create’, ‘Prepare’, or ‘Recognize’. Here is a handy list:

https://www.utica.edu/academic/Assessment/new/Blooms%20Taxonomy%20-%20Best.pdf

The levels will correspond to the depth of your course. I’m intending to cover the various levels in a later tip.

For example, one of my classes was Gas Lift Design. I pictured demonstrating to my clients’ supervisors that the students could each create an accurate, working gas lift design on paper, or using computer software. To do this they would need to do things such as:

• Identify the information upon which to base the design. I could assess this by giving them a pile of data and they could find the right information in this pile and ignore other information.
• Create a gas lift design using this information. This would be the ultimate assessment. However, there are a number of important points that they would need to grasp in order to do this. For example, understanding how gas lift valves open and close and how to calculate the design values. Actually, I learned that 'understand' is too vague a word to be of use in learning objectives. 

So, more specifically, my assessment would need to demonstrate that they can:

• Explain how gas lift valves open and close
• Calculate the test rack opening pressure for each valve in the design.

This is a reasonable start on the learning objectives for this topic. 

Create and then review your list of learning objectives. Ask yourself, "If my student can do this above, is this an adequate demonstration of what they require from this training?" and "Would their supervisor agree?" If not, expand the assessment and thus the learning objectives. On the other hand ask, "Is this objective directly relevant to their job? To their next job?" The pressure is always to trim down your course to fit the time allotted.

Once you know the learning objectives, ask, "What will the students already know?" Identify the minimum knowledge with which your students start in your course. That is the place you will begin. The difference with your learning objectives yields the gaps that you will need to fill to have them pass the assessment you have created.   

The verbs you selected in your learning objectives will help you create the exercises the students will practice. For example, 'Calculate' indicates that a practice exercise will need to solve some sort of math formulation. Knowing this, you will need to provide data, and a mechanism for calculation, and some formulae. ‘Explain’ indicates that you will expect some verbal response, with more understanding than ‘List’ or ‘Define’, perhaps a paragraph detailing how the mechanism functions. You may need to provide a demonstration or a visual, or provide the device itself to manipulate. An exercise might be to give a short presentation or answer an open question.

Knowing the shape and depth of the exercises should give the SME a good start in visualizing the course contents and flow.

Thus, I suggest the way to proceed is:

Topic --> Assessment --> Learning Objectives --> Exercises --> Course Content

Feedback on this Tip

Now, what do you think about this tip? Was it helpful? Have you done this? Is this too long? Too short? Please let me know in the comments!  

Have you found a way that works better? Please share in the comments!

I’m intending to do some more tips, for example, on creating exercises, on several other preliminaries before creating any exercise or content, on ways to involve other experts in the class, how to handle difficult participants, etc.  

You can also let me know in the comments what would you like to hear about next.

[*I suppose there are fine points between ‘teach’, ‘train’, and ‘instruct’. I think they are distinctions without a difference. So, forgive me while I just use them all at random. Likewise, I will interchange ‘participants’, ‘students’, and ‘clients’.]

I will try to use these hash tags: #trainingtips #training #learning #engineers

Burney is an almost-completely retired global consultant engineer, and Director of Retirement Testing at the Waring Retirement Laboratory