The thread on knowing how your companions would react got me thinking.
We discuss techniques, tactics and the best way to do things here, but I don't think we've ever discussed how to organize and present these concepts to others. These are some thoughts on how to present those things you learned in school to your family and friends. I put this together to teach police officers how to conduct training, but the concepts are valid to anyone who wants to teach.
Jeff
Planning and Conducting Meaningful Training
The chief just walked in and said; "Since we sent you to that high speed school last month, I'd like you to put together some training for the rest of the department based on what you learned there, so everyone can benefit from your experience."
Or you just returned from a big name shooting school and would like to share your hard won knowledge with your family or significant other so that you will have a seamless home defensive plan. Where do you go from here? All of a sudden you're out of your comfort zone. You want to do a good job, and you want your students to learn the technique or tactic you are presenting. But you've never taught anything before, you've attended all kinds of classes, but you haven't had to get up and make a presentation since high school.
Don't worry, it's not that hard. The first thing you should do is learn your subject. Tell the chief that you'll need a week or so to prepare. Then take the time and do it! There is nothing worse then an instructor who doesn't know his subject matter. We've all been there, feeling like our time and maybe even our money was wasted, because someone didn't take the time to prepare. Remember that feeling, think about it while you're preparing. You don't want your students feeling that you've wasted their time, and your boss feeling you've wasted his money. So get out your notes, open the book, call the subject matter expert, and assemble all the necessary references. Once you have all the materials, get out a blank piece of paper and create an outline. List the task that you are going to teach on top. Below that, write a brief description of the task and why it's important that your students learn it. A simple statement like; "Today we're going to train on (fill in task here). It's important that we learn how to do this so that we (don't get sued, end up injured or worse, can protect our family against a home invasion)….You get the idea. As you become more confident in your new role as a trainer, you'll come up with witty and maybe even humorous ways to present this.
Next write the cue that will tell your students when to perform the task. This could be anything from, upon arrival at the scene, to when the subject fails to comply with a verbal command, to it's 0230 I just awoke to glass breaking and the dog began barking. We're just telling our students when to perform the task we're going to teach them.
Fill in the standards that you expect the task to be performed to on the next few lines down. For example, be able to present the handgun from the holster and engage the target with a controlled pair in 2.1 seconds. It's important to your students that they know what they'll be expected to do up front. It gives them a standard to measure their own progress with.
Next item is the conditions that you'll want your students to be able to perform the task under. In the dark, with their gas masks on, with one hand to simulate an injury…..Pretty simple, but very necessary.
The next section of the outline is a breakdown of the task, step by step, with a note on how you intend on presenting that portion. For example, you will present this part of the task by lecture, another part by hands on by-the numbers etc.
List the resources you'll need, chalkboard, range, abandoned building, ammunition etc. in the next section of the outline, along with a little note on where to get them if you don't already have them. It won't hurt to prioritize the resources you don't already have so that you can modify your presentation if you can't acquire them.
Finally, list all of your references. Your students will ask you questions that will stump you and it is handy to be able to know where to go to come up with the answer for them. Some students may sharpshoot you and you'll need the reference to back up your presentation.
Now go out and gather all of your resources and rehearse. If presenting this training is going to be a continuing job for you, you soon will be able to conduct it in your sleep or on cue. But, if you are going to present material that is new to you, you should rehearse. Get your spouse, another officer or best yet, another trainer to watch your rehearsal and give pointers. Modify your presentation and rehearse again. Get some evaluation and repeat the process, until it feels smooth and you are confident in it. Use this rehearsal time to identify natural pauses in your presentation. Try to plan your breaks to coincide with these natural breaks in your presentation. I say try to, because there might be too long a time between the natural pauses in your material. The last thing you want is for your students to get fidgety because they need a break. A good rule of thumb is about 50 minutes training time to ten minutes break time. But this is just a guideline. If you are achieving a breakthrough moment on a particularly difficult task, it's often better to continue on past the break until you reach a natural pause. If you stop for a rigidly scheduled break, the students may lose some of what they are just grasping, and you'll have to start over after the break. The one thing that isn't easy to rehearse is allowing your students enough time to learn physical tasks they are expected to perform. You are going to have to go back to your experiences when you received the training that you are going to present to get a rough idea of how much time to program. The more complicated the task, the more time they'll need to correctly learn it. You are most likely going to be teaching a class that covers skills that are critical and could have serious repercussions if they are improperly executed. So you must train to standard, not to time. Remember people learn at different speeds, sometimes the same person learns at different speeds in the morning then he does in the afternoon, so you should plan for a way too keep the class flowing. One or two slow learners can hold everyone back. A way to keep your class flowing and on time is to plan for the use of peer trainers. There will almost always be one or two people who pick things up quickly, either they've already had training on the task or they are just fast learners, but you can use them to make sure you get everything covered and everyone learns. There is nothing worse then not completing the entire program because one or two students required so much of your time that you couldn't finish. Ask the fast starters to help coach the slower learners as you complete the exercises. They won't be bored because they are repeating a skill they've mastered and the slow learners will benefit from the one on one instruction.
Now it's time to take the training outline we've worked on all week and execute. Get there early on the day the class is to be held. Murphy is also a trainer, he'll be there. This will give you a little bit of last minute crisis management time in case something goes wrong or you discover you've forgotten something. Set up everything you'll need for your opening presentation. Nothing looks more unprofessional then an instructor who's still getting his act together when the students are expecting to be starting. Perform any administrative tasks that you need to, such as sign in, collecting payment etc. before you start the class. Allow time for this in when you plan the time you'll need to cover the subject. Don't stop your presentation to accommodate a late arrival. Take care of this non-training business at the first break. Remember you are the trainer and you need to maintain control of the class. Distractions like this are one way you can begin to lose control.
Speaking of maintaining control, just how do you deal with distractions and students who may be less then cooperative? Good planning will cover most distractions. Identify the restroom facilities, where to get water, coffee, shade etc. before you start. Make sure that they are adequate for the number of students you are training. You will need to identify a restaurant or two for lunch if your training if your training is going to last an entire day. Try to pick something close by. If you are going to have a large number of students, you may want to coordinate with them in advance. It would be a big distraction for a third of your students to be late returning from lunch because the nearest restaurant couldn't accommodate them along with their normal lunch crowd. If your class is going to be conducted on a range a good drive from town, it might be a better idea to have your students bring their own lunch, or to arrange to have it catered there.
If there is special equipment required that you are going to supply to the students, inspect it well in advance of the class. Non-functional equipment could cause your whole program to crash and burn. If it's breakable, have some spares along. The student who breaks his equipment is out of the training at that point.
The other kind of distraction is a little more difficult to deal with. The unruly or disruptive student can really be a problem for the trainer. It seems that trainers who are training others from their own agency run into this problem more then often then trainers who deal mostly with students from other agencies or off the street. They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but I'd prefer to say that in this case, familiarity give some people license to joke around, have a good time, and generally be a little less serious about what they are doing then they otherwise might be. The key to handling this is not to let it frustrate you. Give the joker his one shot, laugh with him and then drive on. Usually the realization that he can't get you off track will be enough to get him in the right frame of mind to learn. If he starts again, shut him down. Don't allow him to turn the class into the BS session he wishes it would be. You also may run into the sharpshooter. This guy has been there and done that, he knows more then you do and it's only been because of interdepartmental politics that your roles aren't reversed right now. He is a little harder to deal with. That's one of the reasons that we identify our references before we start. When the sharpshooter starts sniping, you have to shut him down or he will end up taking over. Don't engage him in an argument, that's what he wants. Give the class the reference for the disputed point and tell the sharpshooter you'll be glad to discuss it further at break or after class. You have to refuse to participate in these kinds of discussions during your time. The sharpshooter is not only wasting your time, he's wasting everyone else's too. The other disruptive student is the one who is clearly in over his head. His struggling to keep up can hold the rest back and make your well-prepared training a failure. You can use the peer-trainer method we discussed earlier or if the subject doesn't lend itself to that, you may just have to either offer him some remedial training during breaks or you may have to just ask him to retake the class at a later date when he's prepared. You can easily tie up all of your break time up trying to get this student through. You must think of yourself here. You need your breaks too. If you start dragging then the entire class will suffer. If he's not picking things up after the first remedial session or two, you may want to ask him to come back at a later date.
Tact is the key to dealing with all of the disruptive personalities you will encounter. Remember your students are not in basic training or the basic police academy course. The kind of persona that Drill Sergeants and TAC officers assume for their trainees is probably not going to be appropriate for your audience. Don't lose your cool in front of the class. Take the disruptive student aside for some more appropriate counseling if it becomes necessary. If you have to, ask them to leave. It's better to have one person think badly of you, then it is for one person to ruin the course for everyone.
The final thing that you have to do is evaluate the training that you've just conducted. Make certain that your students can perform the skills you've just taught them. Have a performance test prepared. You told them at the outset what you were going to teach them and under what conditions they'd have to be able to do it and how well they'd have to do it. Remember Task, Conditions and Standards? Conduct the performance test to the standards you set out at the beginning. It's very important that you don't back away from the standards and allow someone to graduate or move on who comes close to meeting the standards. By doing that you've lowered the standard. This may make someone who worked hard but didn't quite get there feel good, but is it really helping him? Grade the test step by step so that you can identify weaknesses in your presentation. There is an almost 100% chance that if there is a portion of the performance test everyone is having problems with, you didn't adequately train them on it. If that is the case, you may need to repeat that part of the training.
.
We discuss techniques, tactics and the best way to do things here, but I don't think we've ever discussed how to organize and present these concepts to others. These are some thoughts on how to present those things you learned in school to your family and friends. I put this together to teach police officers how to conduct training, but the concepts are valid to anyone who wants to teach.
Jeff
Planning and Conducting Meaningful Training
The chief just walked in and said; "Since we sent you to that high speed school last month, I'd like you to put together some training for the rest of the department based on what you learned there, so everyone can benefit from your experience."
Or you just returned from a big name shooting school and would like to share your hard won knowledge with your family or significant other so that you will have a seamless home defensive plan. Where do you go from here? All of a sudden you're out of your comfort zone. You want to do a good job, and you want your students to learn the technique or tactic you are presenting. But you've never taught anything before, you've attended all kinds of classes, but you haven't had to get up and make a presentation since high school.
Don't worry, it's not that hard. The first thing you should do is learn your subject. Tell the chief that you'll need a week or so to prepare. Then take the time and do it! There is nothing worse then an instructor who doesn't know his subject matter. We've all been there, feeling like our time and maybe even our money was wasted, because someone didn't take the time to prepare. Remember that feeling, think about it while you're preparing. You don't want your students feeling that you've wasted their time, and your boss feeling you've wasted his money. So get out your notes, open the book, call the subject matter expert, and assemble all the necessary references. Once you have all the materials, get out a blank piece of paper and create an outline. List the task that you are going to teach on top. Below that, write a brief description of the task and why it's important that your students learn it. A simple statement like; "Today we're going to train on (fill in task here). It's important that we learn how to do this so that we (don't get sued, end up injured or worse, can protect our family against a home invasion)….You get the idea. As you become more confident in your new role as a trainer, you'll come up with witty and maybe even humorous ways to present this.
Next write the cue that will tell your students when to perform the task. This could be anything from, upon arrival at the scene, to when the subject fails to comply with a verbal command, to it's 0230 I just awoke to glass breaking and the dog began barking. We're just telling our students when to perform the task we're going to teach them.
Fill in the standards that you expect the task to be performed to on the next few lines down. For example, be able to present the handgun from the holster and engage the target with a controlled pair in 2.1 seconds. It's important to your students that they know what they'll be expected to do up front. It gives them a standard to measure their own progress with.
Next item is the conditions that you'll want your students to be able to perform the task under. In the dark, with their gas masks on, with one hand to simulate an injury…..Pretty simple, but very necessary.
The next section of the outline is a breakdown of the task, step by step, with a note on how you intend on presenting that portion. For example, you will present this part of the task by lecture, another part by hands on by-the numbers etc.
List the resources you'll need, chalkboard, range, abandoned building, ammunition etc. in the next section of the outline, along with a little note on where to get them if you don't already have them. It won't hurt to prioritize the resources you don't already have so that you can modify your presentation if you can't acquire them.
Finally, list all of your references. Your students will ask you questions that will stump you and it is handy to be able to know where to go to come up with the answer for them. Some students may sharpshoot you and you'll need the reference to back up your presentation.
Now go out and gather all of your resources and rehearse. If presenting this training is going to be a continuing job for you, you soon will be able to conduct it in your sleep or on cue. But, if you are going to present material that is new to you, you should rehearse. Get your spouse, another officer or best yet, another trainer to watch your rehearsal and give pointers. Modify your presentation and rehearse again. Get some evaluation and repeat the process, until it feels smooth and you are confident in it. Use this rehearsal time to identify natural pauses in your presentation. Try to plan your breaks to coincide with these natural breaks in your presentation. I say try to, because there might be too long a time between the natural pauses in your material. The last thing you want is for your students to get fidgety because they need a break. A good rule of thumb is about 50 minutes training time to ten minutes break time. But this is just a guideline. If you are achieving a breakthrough moment on a particularly difficult task, it's often better to continue on past the break until you reach a natural pause. If you stop for a rigidly scheduled break, the students may lose some of what they are just grasping, and you'll have to start over after the break. The one thing that isn't easy to rehearse is allowing your students enough time to learn physical tasks they are expected to perform. You are going to have to go back to your experiences when you received the training that you are going to present to get a rough idea of how much time to program. The more complicated the task, the more time they'll need to correctly learn it. You are most likely going to be teaching a class that covers skills that are critical and could have serious repercussions if they are improperly executed. So you must train to standard, not to time. Remember people learn at different speeds, sometimes the same person learns at different speeds in the morning then he does in the afternoon, so you should plan for a way too keep the class flowing. One or two slow learners can hold everyone back. A way to keep your class flowing and on time is to plan for the use of peer trainers. There will almost always be one or two people who pick things up quickly, either they've already had training on the task or they are just fast learners, but you can use them to make sure you get everything covered and everyone learns. There is nothing worse then not completing the entire program because one or two students required so much of your time that you couldn't finish. Ask the fast starters to help coach the slower learners as you complete the exercises. They won't be bored because they are repeating a skill they've mastered and the slow learners will benefit from the one on one instruction.
Now it's time to take the training outline we've worked on all week and execute. Get there early on the day the class is to be held. Murphy is also a trainer, he'll be there. This will give you a little bit of last minute crisis management time in case something goes wrong or you discover you've forgotten something. Set up everything you'll need for your opening presentation. Nothing looks more unprofessional then an instructor who's still getting his act together when the students are expecting to be starting. Perform any administrative tasks that you need to, such as sign in, collecting payment etc. before you start the class. Allow time for this in when you plan the time you'll need to cover the subject. Don't stop your presentation to accommodate a late arrival. Take care of this non-training business at the first break. Remember you are the trainer and you need to maintain control of the class. Distractions like this are one way you can begin to lose control.
Speaking of maintaining control, just how do you deal with distractions and students who may be less then cooperative? Good planning will cover most distractions. Identify the restroom facilities, where to get water, coffee, shade etc. before you start. Make sure that they are adequate for the number of students you are training. You will need to identify a restaurant or two for lunch if your training if your training is going to last an entire day. Try to pick something close by. If you are going to have a large number of students, you may want to coordinate with them in advance. It would be a big distraction for a third of your students to be late returning from lunch because the nearest restaurant couldn't accommodate them along with their normal lunch crowd. If your class is going to be conducted on a range a good drive from town, it might be a better idea to have your students bring their own lunch, or to arrange to have it catered there.
If there is special equipment required that you are going to supply to the students, inspect it well in advance of the class. Non-functional equipment could cause your whole program to crash and burn. If it's breakable, have some spares along. The student who breaks his equipment is out of the training at that point.
The other kind of distraction is a little more difficult to deal with. The unruly or disruptive student can really be a problem for the trainer. It seems that trainers who are training others from their own agency run into this problem more then often then trainers who deal mostly with students from other agencies or off the street. They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but I'd prefer to say that in this case, familiarity give some people license to joke around, have a good time, and generally be a little less serious about what they are doing then they otherwise might be. The key to handling this is not to let it frustrate you. Give the joker his one shot, laugh with him and then drive on. Usually the realization that he can't get you off track will be enough to get him in the right frame of mind to learn. If he starts again, shut him down. Don't allow him to turn the class into the BS session he wishes it would be. You also may run into the sharpshooter. This guy has been there and done that, he knows more then you do and it's only been because of interdepartmental politics that your roles aren't reversed right now. He is a little harder to deal with. That's one of the reasons that we identify our references before we start. When the sharpshooter starts sniping, you have to shut him down or he will end up taking over. Don't engage him in an argument, that's what he wants. Give the class the reference for the disputed point and tell the sharpshooter you'll be glad to discuss it further at break or after class. You have to refuse to participate in these kinds of discussions during your time. The sharpshooter is not only wasting your time, he's wasting everyone else's too. The other disruptive student is the one who is clearly in over his head. His struggling to keep up can hold the rest back and make your well-prepared training a failure. You can use the peer-trainer method we discussed earlier or if the subject doesn't lend itself to that, you may just have to either offer him some remedial training during breaks or you may have to just ask him to retake the class at a later date when he's prepared. You can easily tie up all of your break time up trying to get this student through. You must think of yourself here. You need your breaks too. If you start dragging then the entire class will suffer. If he's not picking things up after the first remedial session or two, you may want to ask him to come back at a later date.
Tact is the key to dealing with all of the disruptive personalities you will encounter. Remember your students are not in basic training or the basic police academy course. The kind of persona that Drill Sergeants and TAC officers assume for their trainees is probably not going to be appropriate for your audience. Don't lose your cool in front of the class. Take the disruptive student aside for some more appropriate counseling if it becomes necessary. If you have to, ask them to leave. It's better to have one person think badly of you, then it is for one person to ruin the course for everyone.
The final thing that you have to do is evaluate the training that you've just conducted. Make certain that your students can perform the skills you've just taught them. Have a performance test prepared. You told them at the outset what you were going to teach them and under what conditions they'd have to be able to do it and how well they'd have to do it. Remember Task, Conditions and Standards? Conduct the performance test to the standards you set out at the beginning. It's very important that you don't back away from the standards and allow someone to graduate or move on who comes close to meeting the standards. By doing that you've lowered the standard. This may make someone who worked hard but didn't quite get there feel good, but is it really helping him? Grade the test step by step so that you can identify weaknesses in your presentation. There is an almost 100% chance that if there is a portion of the performance test everyone is having problems with, you didn't adequately train them on it. If that is the case, you may need to repeat that part of the training.
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