marc

Assessment Validation is a critical aspect in operating a successful RTO. Aside from being an important compliance issue, it offers organisations significant insight into what works and what doesn’t with an RTO's Assessment system and provides guidance around the expectations of industry. This will ultimately support RTOs in building better systems, practices and tools.

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In training, “the appetizer” relates to the opening. This is where the trainer gets to make their first impressions and is also their opportunity to focus the participant to what is coming next, both in terms of content and experience. As such, the appetizer represents a bite-sized taste of what is to follow and is the trainer’s chance to whet the student’s appetite.

So give them a TASTER of what they can expect:

marc

Yes and No. In a sense the traditional concept of “teacher” is one which has diminishing impact. The notion of what a teacher is and does is changing and being increasingly replaced and extended by the role of guide and mentor. More than “redundant”, teachers are at risk of becoming irrelevant. No longer are teachers the bastions of knowledge and harbingers of a single, right way of doing things. Moreover, learners are not looking for that structured, linear style of learning either. In a Post-Google world, learners are wired to use networks and search engines to find answers quickly.

marc
One of the most common challenges for trainers is getting the group to refocus and return to their seats after an activity, particularly when this activity has been noisy or ends in bursts of laughter.  Similarly, a lot of time can be lost to the trainer when their group does not return in a timely fashion after a break.  A few months ago we went to our brains trust of training colleagues and former students with the simple question: How do you get your participants back on time? Below is a summary of the best tips we collected: 1. Tune them in!
marc

I continue to be amazed at how little preparation seems to go into presentations. Outside of our training and assessment space, I do get an opportunity to see a range of presentations via conferences and workshops and whilst the presenters tend to have good subject matter knowledge they seem to lack an ability to plan for an effective transfer of this. Therefore, I thought it was timely to share my seven easy steps for success when session planning.

marc

Even experienced trainers with the latest resources and most interesting training material can be thrown off course by the behaviours of difficult participants. Therefore, it is important to load the kit bag with a variety of tools and techniques to overcome the dilemmas presented by some students.

marc
Most participants' brains seem to stop functioning when you invite them to ask questions. It’s like at the mere mention of the phrase “are there any questions” a chain-reaction of nuclear proportions engulfs the participants’ brains and they all become suddenly quiet as the fallout spreads through their bodies and renders them incapable of even making eye contact! Possible causes:
marc
As we enter our eleventh year and our third incarnation of the Cert IV TAA, I watch with concern a return to the dark days when the Cert IV became just a commodity, rather than the underpinning standard for quality training and assessment for our industry.
marc

I recently spoke at the TAE10 Summit in Brisbane about the importance of contextualising commercially purchased resources. There are a plethora of resources in the marketplace and seemingly even more now with the endorsement of the new Training and Education Training Package.  However, it should be noted that these are only a starting point. Many of them profess to be an “everything to everyone”, one-size-fits-all resource.

marc

Having just returned from the Training and Performance Improvement Conference in Minneapolis, USA, I was so impressed with one of the presentations, that I thought I should provide a highlights package in this month’s Ezine. I attended a workshop by Becky Pike Pluth on “Teaching from Tinsletown” and it reminded me how powerful cinema can be in portraying a message or engaging a response. As trainers we can take short clips to reinforce a point, evoke an emotion or to quickly build understanding of the topic in a non-threatening way.

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