The assignment this week was to develop a lesson plan for my content area.  One of my main reasons for taking ed classes is to be able to develop an instructor development course to help law enforcement trainers.  As this is my first education class, this is a little early, but I’ll give it a shot. 

Title:

There’s more to training than being a subject matter expert

Target Audience:

Law Enforcement Trainers – Instructor development does not tend to be a priority for many trainers.  This course is designed for those wishing to become better instructors, but lack the time for long classes requiring a significant time and monetary commitments.

Learning Objectives:

Trainers should be able to:

• Identify core principles of adult learning including understanding motivation
•  Identify types of adult learning and ways to incorporate all learning style
• Understand that adults learn best when they can draw from the experiences of peers
• Situations and scenarios should be designed to mirror real life
• Develop and present a training course to peers

Teaching Materials Needed:

Provide handouts explaining adult learning motivators and learning styles.  Provide paper and allow time for class participation to brainstorm ways to make training interactive and encourage creative ideas for encompassing all learning styles.

Provide a class roster with phone numbers and E-mails for group work that will take place outside of the class.

Students will need to provide their own computer with Internet connection for the portions of class that are not ‘on-site’.

Outline:

Trainers will start in a classroom environment for two days of on-site classes.  These days will be spent familiarizing trainers with adult learning strategies, technology requirements for online portions of the class, and most importantly the trainers will be required to get to know each other (especially selected learning groups).  Lunch will be provided and taken in a group atmosphere.

Take home assignment: After the completion of the second day, trainers will be required to start developing a 10 minute training presentation.  They will develop this presentation using a wiki program which all students will have access to.  Each trainer will have been assigned to a small group and they will assist each other in developing their training program.  Group members will review each other’s ideas to provide feedback and ideas.  Trainers will be encouraged to review projects outside of their group, but it will not be required.  (The instructor will be active on all wkis.)

Trainers will meet for a third and final on-site class where they will present an interactive portion of their developed programs to their peers.  Peers will be required to evaluate the presentations in several categories including:

• ·         Interactivity
• ·         Ease of understanding
• ·         Adult learning strategies used

The evaluations will be done outside of the learning groups (Learning group A will evaluate learning group B and so on).  Evaluations will be based on the submitted lesson plan and the presentation; however, evaluators will take into account the limited presentation time allowed.

Evaluation:

Individuals will be evaluated in several areas.

• ·         The amount and quality of feedback given on wiki assignments
• ·         Adult learning principles applied to peer evaluations
• ·         Thoroughness of written lesson plan
• ·         Inclusion of different learning styles
• ·         Group interaction (polite, involved, etc…)

Roy,