Ptlls_Assignment_1_(All_Sections)_-_Unchecked

When first organising a course it is my responsibility as a trainer to ensure I have endeavoured to identify the needs of my students. Whether this is by knowing my students or by estimating the needs of an unknown group and reviewing constantly as the sessions progress. In either instance, it is essential that my knowledge and information is up-to-date and relevant to the subject and material I am to teach. Boundaries to my responsibilities as a trainer would be a personal lack of knowledge about the students, both at during planning and at the start of the course and personal knowledge of the subject. (105 words) When designing a course I need to make it as engaging as possible. It needs to be based around the needs of the students taking into account both the requirements of the course and the limitations of Health and Safety legislation. I can make use of icebreakers to assist in creating a relaxed, comfortable environment but not overuse these as they can cause a distraction to learning. I also need to incorporate the kinaesthetic, aural and visual learning styles whilst looking at using, where possible the numeracy, literacy and ICT skills where applicable. Room layout is also an important aspect of designing a course, there is no point planning a large practical exercise if you do not have the space for this. There are courses that I will be looking to teach that contain various references to Government legislations so I need to ensure that my teaching materials always refer to the most current version and that I too am up to date and relevant. When delivering a course I need to give careful consideration to my tone of voice, speed of speech and choice of language. I need to be aware of bad habits, such as the overuse of words such as ‘ok’ and try to minimise the use of these. Personal appearance plays an important part in the students perception of you, if you look clean, professional and have an outwardly calm appearance they will react better than if you rush in late, look panicked or look like you do not know your subject material. When writing on whiteboards and flipchart paper, your writing needs to be clear and easily readable by all students, if in doubt, ask them. You should follow your session plan as far as possible, but you need to remain flexible as you may not have been able to fully assess students needs and requirements if it is an unknown group. The main boundaries to delivering courses is myself. Students need to feel that I am approachable, confident, open and relaxed, even when things are not going strictly to plan. This is easier said than done. When assessing the effectiveness of courses taught I have a choice of options available to me. I can use continuous assessment, this is especially useful in practical sessions such as CPR where if a student is not quite right you can provide quiet support to correct a mistake, I also have formal assessments available, this is where students will receive a certificate valid for a fixed period of time at the end. Peer review is a useful tool where I can engage the students in feeding back to each other on their progress, under supervision. If the group is large or I do not have a lot of time available I can use a question and answer session to assess theoretical knowledge learned. Course critiques are also a useful tool to assess the effectiveness of a taught course, but you do not get this until the end of the course so is more reflective than practice. The main boundary I have with this is being completely honest and non-patronising, or being perceived as being non-patronising. Choice of words is so crucial as is tone of voice. If I are unable to be impartial with my students and it is a non-certificated course then I would ask a colleague to come and assess. When evaluating my courses the course critiques are a very useful tool and are a good way of getting the student’s perception of how the course went, but not the only evaluation method available to me. If I can be completely honest with myself at the end of a course I can review what went well, what did not go so well. It is an idea to jot these things down as you go along to aid your memory. It is very easy to fall into the trap of saying everything went amazingly well. I need to be positive with my review as this is the main way I can improve my timing, delivery, methods of delivery, assessment methods and speech. Whilst on this course I have understood the benefits of learning journals as a form of self review and self evaluation, they give you the opportunity to focus on areas where you are struggling so you can easily spend more time focussed on that to develop it from a weakness into more of a strength. As with the assessing, complete honesty is essential, not everything is going to go completely to plan every time, there will always been room for improvement. However, being human, my boundaries are I will focus on the negativity of the comments in the review and possibly not see past them to the positive improvements that can be made. References: Preparing to teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector, 3rd Edition, Ann Gravells