The Other AR: 2 Days of Beatings + 1 Day of Pummeling

Transcribed from original hand- -written notes

23 -25 Feb. 2015 Reflections-

True Student-Led Learning:

-Advanced class (3 students) – 1^st day realized a ‘miscommunication’ about wheat we (my organization) thought the class would cover vs. what the student thought they were coming to learn…

After gathering perspective for the next couple days’ training with the students, we drew an agenda on a white board.

-They listed their goal items,

-I listed our goal items,

(Later notes 29 March 2015: we used our collective list as a road-map to guide us over our days of training… this showed the students that I was flexible to their expectations and needs as well as exercise elements that were important to me to cover, and additionally we covered a large number of items as they presented themselves).

·         This was used as a template/framework for the class… to keep us on track so that as many things that could be covered were covered.

·         I specifically told students “you lead the direction of training for this class, whatever you need I or we will do the best to accommodate your learning for long as you’re here”.  Fortunately I have enough rapport with these students that they know this statement extends to nearly any training or time I can offer with them. 

      Every step- group oriented- each student completing/executing specific new tasks

·         1:3 Instructor to student ratio for the subject matter is challenging, taxing, rewarding –

Three people thinking & learning brings learning & challenges for the instructor.

Sidebar: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1:3 complete collaborative learning… instructor often works with students as peers through points of material.  This ACTUALLY increases rapport between students and instructor, but more importantly enables students to feel respected for their knowledge and experience.  Simultaneously, students respect instructor expertise while understanding instructor will gainfully acknowledge and sometimes defer to student perspective on topics. 

Training information I have thought about adding or documenting came up throughout training (and was commented on in survey responses)

                Maybe add:

·         Troubleshooting & anomalies –

Possibly a troubleshooting scenario…

Other Notes:

Training was so useful to students that they asked if it could be extended to three days (instead of two).  We were not behind in our pseudo-white boarded agenda, but it was seen as a great achievement that students felt that training was useful enough to extend it a day (they traveled out to us for this training, and the additional costs further denote the usefulness of the training they attended).

Closing thoughts:

Three days of 6+ hours of 1:3 instruction was really too much information for the students-

 

-Instructor fear of how much is enough & how much is too much work/learning/instruction?

I talked to another instructor (of different material,) and we concluded  –for now—that this may be hard to work on.  Every learner has a different threshold…

-Maybe I can incorporate (more) self-inquiry play time (like we did, prior to lunch for 45 mins of the last day of training).  Then they would have more interest or patience with material?

Maybe for my continuation training of them I can give them more system time and anomaly training of system and data and have examples to have them work on…. ?

Possibly I can develop some weekly “tech-bits”?  To share opinions, further their development?