Danny Faught <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Michael R. Wolf wrote: > > As part of a "Training Certification" at a community college outside > > Princeton, NJ, I took a course that was taken directly (and I mean > > directly) from this book. > > Very interesting - I hadn't heard of any courses based on the book. > > Could you say more about the Training Certification?
Here's a link from Mercer County Community College. Princeton, NJ is in Mercer County. So is Trenton, the capital. http://www.mccc.edu/programs_noncreditcert_training.shtml I took two classes, then moved on before finishing the certificate. The first class (that got this tangent started) was basically a direct embodyment of (the first edition of) this book: How to Run Seminars and Workshops : Presentation Skills for Consultants, Trainers, and Teachers by Robert L. Jolles (Author) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471397296/qid=1041469529/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-1558813-2226510?v=glance&s=books#product-details But it was the instructor that made it come alive. While researching this response, I was surprised to find my "smile sheet" comment posted on her Carol Kivler's home page for her "Kivler Communications" web page (www.kivlercom.com) Lost Corner Learning- Train the Trainer "I witnessed a professional breathing life into these principles; I observed a master practicing her craft. The insight I gained and the seeds that were planted, by watching Carol, will bear fruit for weeks, even years, as I practice the techniques I learned in this course." I probably penned these remarks in 1995 or 1996. I was right. The techniques from her class have served me. (Someone (I forget who) had claimed a huge price on this book, so I'm pretty sure they got the wrong book. This book lists for $19.95 and sells on Amazon for $13.97.) The other was "Acting skills for Trainers". It's not listed now, so I'm sure it was one of those "use the skills of the staff we have now" kind of courses. An exercise I remember from the class involved memorizing trivial dialog (like "one", "two", "three", "four"), then having a scene set for us. Our job was to convey the meaning of the scene (to the unwitting "audience"), working on the parts of our communication that didn't require any words. We worked with tone, body language, facial expression, etc. The scene was over once the audience correctly identified our roles. Obviously, the object was to effeciently convey the information using all modes we could, except for reasonable dialog. It's also been a fun party game, since. Some sample scenes: Person 1: Mother, 2 a.m. Person 2: adolescent child arriving home, late, from a date GO ---- Person 1: customer with defective product Person 2: customer service rep GO ---- Person 1: Boss getting ready to hire/fire/promote group member Person 2: Group member GO ---- Person 1: Perl trainer reacting to XXXX-type question/student Person 2: Student GO ---- Person 1: make it up Person 2: make it up, you get the idea GO ---- It was fun _and_ instructive. Obviously, the choice of scenes directs the skills you're honing. Pick ones from a professional setting, and it's helpful in those settings. Regardless of the setting, however, the focus away from the words helps build the other communication skills. I'm sure it indirectly helped my presentation skills. It focused me on the fact that only part of my job as a trainer requires me to be the "Shell Answer Man". Much of what I'm doing is independent of the words or specific knowledge that I'm transferring. To use language from another set of seminars I attended, "it's who I'm being". Or to quote a poem we had to read as kids, "It's not the words you use, but the tone in which you convey it". We've all gotten great answers with demeaning tone, and terrible answers with great tone. My job is to give great answers with great tone. It's hard. TTT (Train the Trainer) programs help focus on the non-content part of the job. I think they're very useful. The reason I was able to pick up training techniques in the first MCCC class is because of the communication techniques we practiced in the second class. At the time, Carol Kivler was transitioning out of the MCCC English Department, and into a private communications consultancy where she taught soft skills (phone ettiquite, communication, conflict management). What can a hard skills trainer learn from a soft skills trainer? Plenty!!! Training not only about the content. While I'm the TTT skills jag, take a look at these techniques from Mel Silberman, another trainer I met in the ASTD (American Society of Training & Development) meetings, runs a company whose name says it all "Active Training". http://www.activetraining.com/ And take a look at my .signature line. I believe that we as programmers instinctively know how to use the words "play" and "learn" interchangably. I've learned a lot from this book. Active Training : A Handbook of Techniques, Designs, Case Examples, and Tips by Mel Silberman (Author), Carol Auerbach http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0787939897/qid=1041473241/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-1558813-2226510?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 (Also available directly from his site.) For example, in the "ice-breaker and introduction" section of the class, I poll the students with a simple technique I modified from his handbook. I call out a whole bunch of programming languages, programming paradigms, and operating systems, then ask everyone to hold up 0-5 fingers to indicate their proficiency or comfort level. I hold up my fingers, too. Obviously, I'm a 5 on Perl, but they can see that they have some background that I don't. We all get to visually get a quick sense of each other. I find classes that lack basic programming maturity, and expand or skip certain sections accordingly. They see that my COBOL and DOS background isn't as deep as theirs, so they word questions appropriately. Done in parallel, and actively, it takes about 3 minutes. To do this individually would grind the intros to a halt. And the students gain confidence by realizing that they're (usually) very close to the levels of their class mates. That helps to take off some of the performance anxiety that every "beginner" brings into an "Intro" class -- they're beginners to Perl, but not beginners to computers or programming. Hope this delayed answer helped!!!! -- Michael R. Wolf All mammals learn by playing! [EMAIL PROTECTED]
