How to Train the Kronos Trainers - Part II
This is the second entry on some commonalities to all successful Train-the-Trainer courses. We now will spend some time on two of the last three areas of focus for a good Train-the-Trainer course; Reviewing Challenging Areas of the Curriculum, Classroom and Participant Management, and Participant Presentations.
Reviewing Challenging Areas of the Curriculum - In any type of training, technology or not, there are areas that are more challenging to understand than others. Any Workforce Central trainer worth their salt knows the five to seven different areas that are harder to present than the others. Your job in the Train-the-Trainer course is to provide any and all strategies to successfully present these different areas. If you have any tips or tricks, share them here. Don't worry about giving up some closely held secret. That isn't the point. Give up what you know to make your trainers better. It will improve the course, and therefore, the entire training implementation; that makes it worth sharing.
Classroom and Participant Management - When dealing with classroom management, there are three areas of focus; network issues, computer issues and environmental issues. Network issues present the area over which you have the least amount of control. Unless you happen to be a network administrator, your primary task will be to contact a network administrator. Discuss who to contact if there are issues with the network. Make sure you have cell phone numbers! When the network goes sideways, you need to call a real person, not a voicemail recording.
Computer issues are pretty similar. Talk about who to contact if there are issues, and be patient enough to go through some basic troubleshooting tips (Are the computer and monitor plugged in?) Just the basic stuff here.
Environmental issues are often what isn't considered. What if a chair breaks? (no laughing here, it happens) Too cold? Too hot? You need to know who to call, or how to fix it. I have personal experience on this, training in a basement training room, it was consistantly too hot. It is tough to teach at 85 degrees, for four hours! Know who to contact when there are issues with the classroom.
A blog entry was written dealing with participant management (Your Moment of (Kronos Training) Zen - Participant Management) so go back and re-read. The key to properly manage your participants is to remember that you are managing personalities. Be patient, be professional and don't take anything personally.
In the next installment, we will discuss the final area of focus for your Train-the-Trainer course, participant presentations.
Good luck with your training implementation.