Week3-ExpertsSpeak

In the K-12 environment, the “instructional problem” or the need for training is often initiated by changes to the state standards. New guidelines in the standards will require changes to various units of learning. For example, this year our state added a requirement for fifth graders to be able to identify a literary point of view. This meant that my team had to design and develop instruction on this new piece of content for our students. Another reason for training has to do with teachers and other staff. When teaching assignments change or when new teachers or staff are hired, those people need support to make sure they’re well prepared. These are also “instructional problems.” In the Corporate arena, standards can come into play through certification programs, continuing education mandates, or internal standards for excellence. Competition will also drive a change in standards and therefore create a need for training. This just happened to us; our biggest competitor introduced a new product that was much better than our equivalent one. Obviously, we needed to redesign ours and when it rolled out, all our people had to be trained on the new features and functions. Let me give you another example of standards – regulations. When new federal or state regulations come into play, affecting the way we do our work, we typically pull together a comprehensive training program very quickly. Of course, we also train new hires on longstanding regulations such as OSHA, ADA, sexual harassment prevention, safety requirements, and things like that. In higher ed, accreditation reviews are most often the source for standards. Accreditation is extremely serious business for us. At our last accreditation visit, my department was criticized for not offering a wide enough variety of classes for freshmen and sophomores, so we immediately began planning new courses to address that deficiency. You might be surprised that, like the corporate setting, higher ed can also be influenced by competition. My university decided to enter the online education arena a few years ago because we were losing students to other institutions that had already done so. All our professors had to be trained to use the online interface and to adjust their classroom methods to an online environment; this was a huge endeavor!
 * Experts Speak – Week 3 **
 * Fifth-grade Teacher Soraya **
 * Corporate Training Manager Cathy **
 * College Professor Jim  **