The bell rings and you look up from your notes at a sea of curious, eager faces. Ready or not, it’s time to teach your first basic electrical class. These students are depending on you. You’re a journeyman electrician with years of experience. Yet, you feel somewhat unprepared to transfer your accumulated knowledge and experience to a classroom full of students in an efficient and effective manner.
Sound familiar? This situation has played out in thousands of classrooms and industrial training centers across the country for decades. The moral of the story? Subject matter expertise and hands-on experience do not necessarily prepare one to transfer that knowledge and experience to others.
That’s why “train-the-trainer”-type classes have become a popular way for industrial trainers and career and technical education (CTE) instructors at the secondary and post-secondary level to learn the skills they need to be effective in the classroom.
Now, new or inexperienced instructors in educational or industrial settings have a new option to acquire the teaching skills that will enable them to transfer technical knowledge and hands-on skills to their students: Amatrol’s Technical Instructor Performance Essentials.
The Need
Whether you’re talking about the industrial workplace, high schools, or colleges, technical education is on the rise. Manufacturers have been facing an ongoing crisis for years, and efforts to begin building a pipeline of skilled workers are starting to pay off.
Students are also realizing that modern manufacturing facilities offer great opportunities for good pay and interesting work. Yet, the supply of new workers still lags far behind demand. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for March 2023 (released May 2, 2023), there were 693,000 manufacturing job openings.
That’s an astounding number of unfilled job openings. With nationwide unemployment numbers approaching record lows, manufacturers will continue to face a tight, competitive labor market. Filling those positions will require a renewed focus on effective technical training, both at educational institutions and on the job.
Unfortunately, the rate at which modern technologies are revolutionizing the modern industrial workplace makes it challenging for traditional CTE programs to keep pace. According to Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent, a study conducted by Harvard Business School and Accenture, “[t]he rapid pace of change in many occupations, driven in large part by advancing technologies, has made it extremely difficult for workers to obtain relevant skills. The evolution in job content has outstripped the capacity of traditional skills providers, such as education systems and other workforce intermediaries, to adapt.”
That’s why both educational institutions and industrial training programs are increasingly turning to current workers who are subject matter experts to teach students and new workers the skills they need to succeed. However, even if these experts know what to do and how to do it, many of them don’t possess the skills or confidence to teach others.
The Solution
There’s a reason people go to college to learn the skills they’ll use throughout their lives as a teacher at a secondary or post-secondary educational institution. Possessing knowledge and skills does not necessarily prepare one to be able to effectively transfer those skills and knowledge to others.
Train-the-trainer-type programs exist to equip subject matter experts with the basic skills they need to teach the skills they’ve worked so hard to acquire. If you’re going to teach a technical topic, why not learn from the best?
With more than 30 years of experience designing and manufacturing state-of-the-art training systems, Amatrol remains the world’s leader in skills-based, interactive technical learning for industry and education.
It was only natural that Amatrol would apply its experience and expertise to developing a new program designed to equip technical instructors with the performance essentials they need to teach today’s students and workers.
Technical Instructor Performance Essentials
Amatrol realized that successful technical learning programs needed well-trained teaching staff in addition to hardware, software, and quality curricula. Amatrol’s commitment to instructor training is unparalleled with 20+ years of experience and thousands of teachers trained.
For example, Amatrol offers year-round teacher training courses through the Amatrol Technical Training Institute (ATTI) at its headquarters in Jeffersonville, Indiana. For years, ATTI courses have focused on getting instructors up to speed on how to use and teach about specific Amatrol training systems.
Now, Amatrol’s new Technical Instructor Performance Essentials training classes will expand its training capabilities to new and inexperienced technical instructors who want to build a foundation of skills that will allow them to teach a wide variety of technical training topics.
What types of skills can you expect to develop from a Technical Instructor Performance Essentials training class? The teaching fundamentals our experts will focus on will include things, such as how to:
- Develop a set of teaching objectives;
- Build a course lesson plan;
- Create a course syllabus and class outline;
- Present information to a class;
- Demonstrate hands-on skills to students;
- Assess student comprehension and skill mastery;
- Align course objectives with actual job tasks;
- Utilize multimedia eLearning curricula and virtual simulators;
- Incorporate hands-on training systems into lessons; and
- Use different methods to appeal to a variety of different learning styles.
In addition to these skills, technical instructors will also be recorded teaching a mock class, so that Amatrol experts and fellow participants can provide invaluable feedback on skill development and areas for improvement.
Amatrol’s Technical Instructor Performance Essentials will feature a variety of Amatrol learning systems, so that instructors will be able to gain hands-on experience teaching with a full suite of eLearning curricula, virtual simulators, and physical trainers with real industrial equipment.
Contact Amatrol to Learn More!
Ready to take your technical instruction skills to the next level? Consult with an expert at Amatrol today to learn how you can take the first step toward teaching students or employees the skills that will set them up for success in the modern workplace.
About Duane Bolin
Duane Bolin is a former curriculum developer and education specialist. He is currently a Marketing Content Developer in the technical training solutions market.
