Trainer Re-Education and Preparation – Part Two

In other words, should trainers have to audit a class they intend to teach, audit a class every so often and recertify on products? This will be the theme of the next few blogs as I believe it is germane to quality training!

Should there be some formalized training requirements for instructors or for teaching a new class? The requirements for most certification granting entities vary widely from no mandated requirements to stringent ones. Some training companies also have certain requirements that must be met before an instructor can deliver a class. I once worked in an environment where the training manager would actually tell you that you were teaching a new class next week or just plop a book down on your desk and say you are teaching this next week or the week after (and the quality of the instruction was affected by this, as I am sure you can imagine).

If you are an instructor, most likely you feel you can prepare for a new class on your own. Go through the material, go through the labs, go through the material again now that you know the entire course, go through the labs a second time to find any “gotchas” that may cause problems with students. If there is a certification test associated with the class, you may have taken the test, if it was required. This is a typical scenario in many cases. There are some training companies that require you to audit a class before you can teach it for them, especially if they have developed their own courseware. One company actually has you sit a class as a student, audit the class and then co-teach/proctor the class – now that is thorough preparation on their part!

I think auditing a class is a good idea – not from a learn-the-product standpoint, but more from a professional development approach. We become comfortable in our teaching style and methods for presenting material. We also tend to forget what it is like to be on the other side of the podium. We get wrapped up in teaching a subject and are excited about it and forget about the poor students with their legs crossed! Watching and hearing someone else present material can help us become a better instructor. Demanding that specific criteria that must be met before you can teach a class is also very important (auditing/co-teaching etc). All of these can lead to better instruction on our part.