4 Steps to an Effective Technical Training Class

FOUR STEPS TO AN EFFECTIVE TECHNICAL TRAINING CLASS

I knew I was in trouble when I walked into a week long Microsoft Access class on the first day as a student and noticed that there were no computers.  

“Where are the computers?” I asked.

“Computers will not be necessary for this course,” the instructor responded.  “This will be a lecture based course.”

Needless to say, it was an extremely long week.  I was lucky if I retained 10 percent of what I learned – if I learned anything at.  If you’ve never been yammered at from 8:00 to 4:30 for 5 days, I do not recommend it.

Many technical training classes are spent with students staring at their monitors for hours at a time while the instructor drones on and on in front of the class.  Such classes are not only boring, but ineffective as well.  The instructor has no idea how much learning is actually taking place.  With little or no personal interaction with the students, it is impossible to measure any sort of competency.  It is also much easier in a lecture type of class for the student to “hide in the background” and even shut themselves off from the learning process.  

When developing curriculum and/or conducting a technical training class, I apply four techniques which not only assist the students in retaining the information from the class, but make the class itself more interesting as well.  These are:  The Big Picture, Assisted Exercise, Unassisted Exercise, and Review/Questions.

1.  The Big Picture

The first step is the “lecture” portion of the class.  During this stage, the instructor provides an introduction or “big picture” of a particular concept or procedure, using visual aids, metaphors and analogies to facilitate learning.  During this overview, the students should not attempt to follow along on their computers but rather have their full attention focused on the instructor’s explanation.  The goal here is understanding the basic concepts of the material.  It is during this step that any terms with which the students may be unfamiliar are defined.

2.  Assisted Exercise

Once all of the students are clear on the basics, the instructor should go through an exercise which demonstrates the procedure or concept with the students following along.  For instance, if the concept that was introduced in Step 1 was the creation of Microsoft Access select queries, the instructor would build such a query, with the students following along on their own computers, mimicking the steps of the instructor.  The instructor should explain the reason behind performing each step, tying the explanation back to the “Big Picture” when appropriate.  The purpose of this step is to help the students take their first steps and assist them should they have any difficulties along the way.  It is important to test comprehension after this step with questions to ensure that students actually understood the steps they performed during the exercise before they move on to working on their own.

3.  Unassisted Exercise

During this stage, the students work on one or more unassisted exercises.  This is the step which demonstrates if and how much the students have learned.  I also find that it is during the unassisted exercise where most of the questions arise.  I have conducted training classes where after having worked on exercises together with the students, I had the perception that they clearly understood the concepts.  There were no confused expressions or glazed over eyes.  When asked if they understood the material, the students all nodded their heads in agreement.  However, when it came time to put the concepts into practice with unaided exercises, it became evident that the students, in fact, did not understand the lesson.  

During the unassisted exercise, it is important for the instructor to walk around the room making himself or herself available for questions.  Those students who were perhaps too shy to ask questions in front of the entire class may be more apt to ask a question in a one-to-one situation, rather than when the instructor is in front of the room in an “authority” position.  A lot of valuable learning takes place during the unassisted exercise when the instructor walks around providing individual guidance.  Whatever confusion or lack of understanding the student experiences will become apparent in this step.  Again, it is essential to make sure that competency has been attained before moving onto the final step.

4.  Review/Questions

This last step is an overall review of the concept or procedure.  This is the instructor’s last chance to ensure that understanding and learning occurred.  I prefer to wrap up each lesson with a question and answer period to test competency of the material presented or an open discussion of the material.  Any remaining questions or confusion should be cleared up in this step.  The instructor should not move onto the next new topic until he or she is confident that everyone understood the lesson and that actual learning took place.

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