Friday, April 10, 2015

Teacher Training

I got an e-mail about Weld-Ed's summer training sessions, one of which is Instructional Design and Teaching Strategies. For non-members the four day session is a cool $1K. For a thousand bucks, I'll be happy to come to you and put on a training session but I can save you some money if you'll just remember a few simple things.

Know your subject matter well. 
Be enthusiastic and sincere in your teaching. 
Gear your presentation to the skill level of your students and individualize the instruction as much as possible. A one-on-one in the welding booth with a quick sketch on the welding bench with a piece of soapstone almost always trumps even the best Power Point presentation.
Look them in the eye when you're done. If the light didn't come on, you did it wrong.

Pretty much all there is to it.




4 comments:

dorkpunch said...

Spot on. Where do I send my money? ;)

Shop Teacher Bob said...

Don't worry about the money. I'll give you that one as a professional courtesy.

Tom Anderson said...

Hello Bob . . .
Just stumbled across your blog looking for something completely different. First saw your post about boats, bumpers, and something put up in 2012. Couldn't believe you referenced Slojd . . .
I'm a new shop teacher (but not so new guy) in Washington state. I'd love to talk to you about your program as I'm just re-building one here at our local school
Tom Anderson
Glenwood School
tdanderson@hughes.net

Shop Teacher Bob said...

Welcome to the blog. Great to hear a program is being revitalized rather than being shut down. I'm currently teaching at the local community college but I taught at the high school level for 36 years. I'd be happy to pass along any info I have that might be helpful, plus I like to talk shop (opinionated). I've also got a few regular readers that probably would chime in with solid advice.