Put the plan into practice

You should know by now who should approve of the plan before you can go ahead and what needs to be put in writing. Get agreement to implement the plan.

Now you simply implement what you have planned. Follow the plan for each session and review it afterwards. It needs to build on their strengths, and identify anything they need to develop further.

• Start by explaining clearly to the students the goals of the program and what kinds of activities it will involve. Explain any rules and processes. Answer their questions and allay any fears that they may have.
• Follow "how-to-do-it" steps so that the student finds it easy to learn.
• Give the student a go at doing it. Don’t just explain theory or how to do it.
• Develop ways of explaining things simply or demonstrating skills so that the student can learn more easily with less confusion or frustration.
• Encourage the student to:
• take responsibility for their own learning
• think about what they are learning. For example, they might see and understand various principles, understand their weakness and strengths, ask whether procedures could be different or improved.

You will need to be flexible, because sessions don’t always go exactly as planned. For example:

• The student might take a long time asking you questions about difficulties they faced since you last met.
• A room or piece of equipment might not be available.
• Something in your planning doesn’t work and confuses the student. You then take a long time to "de-confuse" the student.
• The student knows much more (or much less) about the skill than you thought.

How you picture it in your mind during planning usually looks different from the real program later on, even if you put it into practice exactly as you planned. It’s like making that perfect coffee table in the DIY book. You follow the instructions exactly but somehow your table doesn’t quite look as good as the glossy photo in the book.

Another thing frequently happens. You must change the plan because unanticipated factors make the original plan unworkable. As a result, the program as implemented will be different from what you planned.

Lots of other things can happen:

• Key people simply change their mind for reasons you do not know.
• People were enthusiastic but didn’t realize what it would involve. They then try to limit their commitment.
• There may be changes in business structure, budget, technology, business climate, or workplace practices.
• Key personnel leave the program.
• Some support services become unavailable or better support services become available.
• You missed some things through lack of foresight or experience on your part.

It’s easy to accept changes that you see are good, but it’s quite difficult to handle changes you don’t like. You will probably be frustrated that your "perfect plan" needs to be changed, but you’ll just have to adapt your "perfect plan" to the new reality.

Preparing for meetings

Maintain and develop the relationship. Make sure you prepare for each session and meet regularly as agreed and scheduled. As you go, you should grow the relationship and keep both of you actively involved.

You need to prepare proactively for meetings with the student:

• check that the time and location is suitable
• make sure the students emails any written work beforehand, if it is that kind of course, so that you have time read it and give it appropriate reflection before your interview
• list your questions and ideas
• plan your next step

Then, during the interview, keep to the allotted time.

If you sometimes use email "interviews", the same kinds of guidelines also apply. It will probably pay to write rough drafts of your questions and reflect on them for a few days. You might realize some of the answers yourself, find a better way to ask the question, or find that another underlying question is the real issue.

In any case, it is better to offer help than for the students to become increasingly frustrated.

Establish the relationship

Develop a a good working relationship with the student. For that you will need particular interpersonal and communication skills:

• asking effective questions
• responding appropriately to students' needs
• maintaining appropriate body language
• communicating clearly
• critical listening
• being honest
• showing empathy

You need to make clear the boundaries and expectations of the relationship and get agreement fairly early. Can the person telephone you for help? If so, when? For how long? How much extra time can you give? How responsible will the student become for his/her own learning? Consider these:

• your role and responsibilities
• the student's role and responsibilities
• limits of the relationship
• confidentiality
• your area of expertise
• the involvement of others
• organizational expectations
• reporting requirements

As the relationship develops:

• Build the student’s confidence, self-esteem, respect and trust in the relationship.
• Resolve any differences. Ask for help if you really can’t agree on something.
• Recognise any important changes in the relationship and discuss them with the student and their supervisor. (For example, the student might eventually become quite independent and not need you so much. Your schedules might change. The student might need a different kind of expertise from yours. The friendship might sour.)
• Use your personal and professional networks to help the student.
• Watch the student for any signs of difficulties. If necessary, change your approach to keep up momentum. Don’t let it bog down.
• Always be ethical (e.g. be honest and fair, keep sessions confidential, work within your limitations).
• Meet regularly with the supervisor to monitor whether you are being effective in helping the student to learn the planned skills.

Effective communication and interpersonal skills are essential and you must get them right. These include:

• showing respect for the expertise and background of the student
• demonstrating sensitivity to diversity, disability, culture, gender and ethnic backgrounds
• setting an example of what you teach
• engaging in two-way interaction
• encouraging the expression of diverse views and opinions
• negotiating complex discussions by establishing a supportive environment
• using language and concepts appropriate to cultural differences
• accurately interpreting non-verbal messages
• Looking at issues from the student's viewpoint.

Watch for cues. Is the student engaged or disengaged? Do they show up every time, or do they miss sessions? Can you detect frustration, distraction, or stress? Have they reached a plateau where they've stopped learning?

The relationship sometimes sours. This might be through fundamentally different opinions, lack of contact, misunderstandings through emails, or critique of work. Your first course of action should be to repair the relationship.

The working environment

So far, we've looked at the steps that students need to go through. If you want to provide training to people who are already working, your first step as an instructor is to establish an effective working environment for learning. Even if the workplace provides full workplace induction, it is your responsibility to talk with students about their learning program. In fact, all the aspects of introducing students to classroom-based programs apply just as much to you. You will often have to liaise with other staff if the workplace training affects them.

A good place to start is to establish the purposes of the workplace learning. Why is it there? What goals is it trying to achieve? Do the various people have the same set of goals? For example, the purpose or goals might be one or more of the following:

• introduce new technology
• provide a new product or service
• take a new organizational direction
• manage workplace change
• train people for new positions or job roles
• address an identified skills gap
• meet OHS requirements
• improve quality
• provide a traineeship or apprenticeship
• develop career paths for employees

Part of your planning is liaison with various people. Depending on the program, these may include management in the workplace’s organization, RTO staff, or Group Training Company staff (these organise traineeships and apprenticeships). Get their agreement on the program before you go further.

As the next step, find out what the student’s job description should be and get it written down. Make sure that the boundaries are clear; students need to be willing to do what needs to be done, so overly restrictive job descriptions are frustrating for employers. On the other hand, you need to provide some delineation to prevent students being exploited or diverted into too many tasks that are outside their program.

The student’s job description should address work activities, areas of responsibility, processes to carry out work, accountability, use of equipment, projects, and schedules.

In your preparation, ask, "Will the student reach the learning goals with this job description?" You will need to analyze work practices and routines to determine whether they are effective for reaching learning goals. You will need to consider factors such as:

• Work timelines
• Performance expectations
• Organizational strategies
• How work is organized, including its structures and systems
• Changes in the organization
• Multi-skilling expectations
• Operational or organizational guidelines
• OHS issues
• Work demarcations and industrial relations concerns
• Who is the workplace supervisor? Does he/she have the skills to supervise and support a student?

You may need to propose changes to make the students program more effective. Many changes might be small, practical adjustments that do not affect others. However, some proposed changes might mean that you have some homework to do:

• Are there any OHS implications?
• Are there any industrial relations implications? Does it contravene particular awards or workplace agreements? Will the industrial relations situation ensure fairness of learning opportunities?
• Who will need to approve of any changes before you can go ahead? Who else needs to be consulted or informed? What needs to be put in writing?

About learning contracts

In practicum-driven cases, you might need to use a Learning Contract for each student. This is a clear record of what the student is intending to learn in a given period. As a contract, it is a commitment on both sides. The form should be filled in with copies to both the student and the coordinator/director. In the cases of apprenticeships and traineeships, you should check specific requirements with your program coordinator.

If you use a Learning Contract, it should:

• list clearly work responsibilities
• cover all they need to learn in the timeframe (e.g. one semester)
• commit supervisor and students to regular contact
• list any other planned leaning tasks (including the probability of workshops)
• fit their personal schedules, given that some adjustments and sacrifices might need to be made.
• fit their individual characteristics and abilities
• be achievable but also stretch them
• identify person(s) giving supervision and help

Several important points:

• Achieving the best contract may involve negotiation.
• The tasks for which students are responsible should be highly consistent with the units for which they will be assessed.
• Students need to be as accountable for what they do as if they were being employed, even if they are volunteers.

Monitoring

Now the program is running, you need to monitor it. The line between monitoring a program and mentoring the student is fuzzy, so here are some guidelines.

Let's say that you have the role of training program supervisor. Put briefly, if nobody is assigned to mentor or coach the student, you are responsible to make sure the program works for the student. From a training viewpoint, the buck stops with you.

You regularly need to ask all parties how the program is going. Besides the student, these most commonly include the supervisor or manager, on-job people giving help, and off-job training personnel.

Although some problems are serious, many are simple misunderstandings:

"I thought they meant … but then they … "

"She said … but then she … "

It is quite normal that some of them think the program is going well, while others see difficulties. Explore the difficulties until you know the nature of the problem. For example, Jamie mentions to you that he can’t handle the workload. When you enquire, he might say:

"I have a full day each week on campus, but I still have to do a full-time load at work."

"The boss comes in and gives me extra things to do that aren't on my job description."

"I was sick, but I kept coming to work anyway."

"I was given some things to do but I don’t know how to do them."

The supervisor might say:

"He’s doing really well. I didn’t know there was a problem."

"He’s just slacking off. He doesn’t get his work done."

"He’s trying real hard but I guess he’s not cut out for it."

"He’s doing okay. I discussed how it’s going with him the other day and it was good."

Whatever the case, and whichever side brings up a problem, it is your duty to find out what is going wrong and fix it.

And it doesn't stop there. Other monitoring points:

1. Monitor the student's readiness to take on new tasks and responsibilities. They may become comfortable with things that they have learned, or become fearful of some new tasks.
2. Put most of your time into being constructive rather than solving problems. Dealing only with problems and ignoring success is a rather negative attitude to convey.
3. Observe the student’s work and suggest alternative approaches where necessary.
4. Especially in the case of younger people, it will be helpful to monitor workplace relationships. Work will be much easier if they make friends, but they may be very unhappy if they don’t. Besides, most training sector qualifications require teamwork and communication, so these aspects are really part of your core responsibilities.
5. You might also find cases of inequitable treatment based on race, culture, gender or other related issues. You need to find out what is going on. When you do, intervene tactfully but decisively to resolve the problem. You cannot assume that people will always communicate effectively.
6. Monitor OHS.
7. Encourage student to take greater responsibility for their own learning
8. Encourage students to reflect on their experience. They may be able to do some things before understanding them very well. Ask the student about the reasons why things are done as they are, the implications, the relevance of off-job learning, and how they might do things in other situations.

Is the student still learning?

Keep on asking yourself, "Is this effective?" As you go, you'll learn more about the individual’s learning style, and their particular characteristics.

You will probably need to develop learning activities to support and reinforce new learning, build on strengths and identify areas for further development

You should make every attempt to adjust for their learning style so that you can be more effective. For example, some people will learn more by reading, but other won't. Some people need active involvement in doing something. Others live on interaction with other people.

Show leadership if the student gets stuck. They may need you to make the harder decisions if they can't. For example, you can help them re-focus or give them more (or less) responsibility. It's hard to inspire people, but easier to empower people.

It is your job to motivate them so that they continue to be responsible for their own learning. Usually that means discussing the goals and barriers. But watch for subtle cues from the students about things that they are reluctant to say out loud. Changes your approach if you need to so that the student keeps momentum.

Ethics can be more of an issue:

• If you get personally very close, you might become unable to objectively evaluate the success of the relationship as a learning experience.
• If the other person is of the opposite gender, you should not normally spend a lot of time alone.
• The closeness of your relationship involves a level of trust that brings the need for confidentiality.

Closing

Make sure the closure is smooth. Talk about it and the student's further goals.

• When the student has met the goals you set, negotiate closure and carry it out smoothly. Keep the relationship good and communicate it well.
• Ask the student for feedback on whether they think they achieved the goals of the sessions.

You can determine when the relationship is over when:

• The student assesses themselves as having the skills they are aiming to get.
• The student shows significant improvement in a particular area.
• The student is ready for formal assessment.
• The student can learn independently.
• The student is ready to keep learning through other means.
• The agreed time period over.

Sadly, you might also find that severe blockages in the relationship that make it no longer viable.

Evaluate

Evaluate how effective it was as a learning experience for the student. Get the student's feedback on the outcomes achieved and the value of the relationship. Evaluate your own performance in managing the relationship. What things do you need to improve on?

Fill in the evaluation form. If your organization uses a different form, then you should also use its form and lodge it with the relevant staff member.

• Did the student have all the skills you aimed for?
• How effective was your teaching process and your teaching techniques?
• What personal benefits did you gain from the process?
• What benefits did the organization gain from the process?
• Based on your evaluation of what happened, what improvements do you recommend? (E.g. What would you do differently next time? What kind of person would you select? Do your organizational procedures need improvement? Were the forms helpful or not?)