Career and Technology Education

A few days ago, I attended a Career and Technical Education (CTE) committee meeting at our town’s high school. This committee used to be called “School-to-Career” and at first, the change to CTE sounded to me like we added a degree of separation between us and the students. School-to-Career was a mandate; “CTE” sounds like a committee, sigh… But, the new name is a good move for this committee - let’s face it; students aren’t likely to move from high school to a career.

The committee mostly focuses on students who aren’t planning to attend a 4-yr college program. College may not be the plan, but training certainly looms in their future. Students looking for good jobs that don’t require a college diploma are still looking at some serious education either through a technical training school, community college, industry (or trade union) organized training or the military. Diplomas, certificates and designations are also in their near future.

The goal of this committee and the working arm it’s attached to, the Guidance Department is to educate students as to what their career options are and to help them prepare now to meet the demands of their future employers. When I began serving on this committee (during the last century) we were scrambling to focus on those 12th graders without a clear plan. Today, again mainly due to the effort of the folks in Guidance, some of the programs are reaching out to students as early as 9th grade and the really valuable stuff is being provided to every student. This is more than a good thing, it’s a necessary thing!

As hard as it is to think about “career choices” when your 14, it must be equally frustrating to the Guidance staff to know that bad choices made between 9th and 12th grade will haunt these kids for a long time. What are they doing to help? Well, they’re doing a lot of things but here’s a few that impressed me:

• They are making every senior fill out a college application. They don’t have to apply, but they have to go through the process up to the point where they could apply. By doing this, the students become aware of the process and the requirements in an environment where personal help is available (see last week’s post).
  
• They are subsidizing the PSATs for all sophomores and juniors and they are urging all students to take the SATs even if they don’t have immediate plans to attend college. Plans change and taking the SATs after graduation can be difficult to arrange and you’ve already begun forgetting some of what you learned.
  
• They held a recognition breakfast for all students performing at or above the goal on one set of standardized tests, and they let them bring their family.

In addition, they organize programs and events, from Alumni Day to Career Fairs to Mentoring programs to put students in touch with people who are working in those coveted careers. Guidance staff members are probably only one step above parents in terms of how students value their advice so these programs put students in touch with more credible sources. This is the opportunity for someone with experience to tell a future nurse that he/she needs to know math or to tell a future programmer that he/she will still need to write well and be able to speak in front of an audience of non-geeks. Programs like this make a difference - I urge you to contact your local high school’s Guidance Department and ask about opportunities for you to share your experience.

Speaking of 'speaking in front of an audience', next week, we’re going to begin a short series on training in public speaking. During the course of this series, we will introduce our first guest bloggers.

The Personal Touch

Recently I have witnessed the effectiveness of personal training in a curious variety of encounters. First, a picture of a block and tackle I used to unload the tension on a spring spawned a question regarding the physics of that simple machine. Explaining the pulley in this particular example also lead to a discussion of potential and kinetic energy to describe the energy stored in the spring and how that energy is used. The second example was a short training session during which I taught a coworker how to perform a difficult task. The task in this example is one I've covered in group training sessions but not in much detail. Sometimes I include material in training that I want people to know "can be done" without taking the time to show them "how to do it". This way, the people who want the information know to ask about it later.

The example I want to focus on is one when I was the student. In August we installed a trial version of a complex software product. During the course of the trial, I realized I was dealing with a powerful piece of software but, due to its complexity, it was hard to evaluate. Several weeks later, we were contacted by the company and offered the chance to participate in a web-based demonstration. While I’m sure the person giving the demo had a script and a series of topics to cover, he started out by asking if what we were hoping to see. (It was almost as if he had read Mark’s comments on our previous blog entry). When I said that interface seemed a bit overwhelming (due to the robust capabilities) he changed his plans on the spot. Instead of the topics he wanted to cover, he showed me an alternative interface they had developed and he walked me through the product from that interface. We decided to buy the product during that demonstration.

In all three examples, training or self-study had been somewhat effective yet a little bit of one-on-one input tipped the educational experience toward success. It's easy to see how that works, we probably all have examples like those above, but how do we capture that success? How do we ensure that kind of success in the training we attempt? One-on-one isn't always an option, or is it?

Perfection - Enemy or Objective

My friend and programming consultant David Pennington introduced me to the phrase "perfect is the enemy of good" several years ago when a programmer he was working with was wasting time perfecting an input screen. Of course, looking at David's modeling blog makes one wonder if he really believes that expression. Still, matching training objectives to actual need is a critical and sometimes overlooked aspect of program design.

If the training is preparation for a certificate exam then, obviously, we need to be closer to perfect. I'll highlight the training I received through AIIM as being a great example of this type of program. The AIIM ECM Master Class is preparation for the ECMm certificate as well as great preparation for actually implementing an Enterprise Content Management solution. Obtaining the ECMm certificate requires that you pass an online exam and complete a case study. The class is four days long and the instructor methodically moves the class through an extensive pogram. In-class examples and case studies reinforce the instruction and when you leave, you’re ready to tackle ECM and the exams.

Closer to the other end of the spectrum is the in-house training we offer. These are a series of one-hour sessions and I have a habit of trying to include too much. I've been at this for a number of years and I think I'm getting better but that's because I have been narrowing the "Learning Goals" for each session. I am also trying to be more precise in setting the objectives of what I expect people attending to be able to do when they leave. I'm taking my lead here again from AIIM, not the Education program, but this time, the annual AIIM Expo. When you apply to present at AIIM Expo, one of the questions you have to answer is "What will an audience member take away from your presentation?" When I remember to ask that question, I develop better objectives.

For example, one of our more successful training sessions was "Using the Outlook Calendar" - the training was focused on a few specific tasks: 1) Sharing your calendar, 2) Indicating your status during an event, and 3) Planning a meeting using calendar information. Complicating those objectives with: Accessing your calendar over your phone, Using Unified Messaging to postpone a meeting, Synchronizing your office calendar with your home calendar might be nice, but adding them would make for a confusing hour.

At the far point of the opposite extreme is an article from the New York Times on Robotic Prostrate Surgery. One doctor is mentioned having said that it took several hundred operations before he got good at preventing complications. OK, here's a case where better training seems necessary, even David might agree, "perfect isn't our enemy".

When automation fails, the learning experience suffers

Earlier this week, I logged into a training webcast I had signed up for weeks ago. The presentation was being delivered by a technical organization with an advanced online registration system, and contained information I needed to complete a complex project. I signed in successfully and waited for the presentation to begin. Within 30 seconds, an error occurred, my browser crashed, and I lost the conference space the webcast was running in. As I dug through my email looking for the link to re-join the meeting, I noticed that I had already been sent an automated follow-up email, thanking me for attending the event, which had begun not 5 minutes prior and which I had not yet successfully attended. I found the original confirmation email and followed the link again, but because the training application recognized that my registration ID had already entered the conference once, the button to join the meeting no longer displayed. In its place, however, I did have the option of downloading a little diploma congratulating me for having completed the course, which was now progressing on in cyberspace without me.

Of course, I was left feeling frustrated, and very aware of the time I was wasting on this effort. As a marketer, I appreciate the idea behind that little diploma, but in this scenario, it was more of an inconvenience than a reward. What I really needed was a human to intervene and somehow allow me to rejoin the conference, but once a presentation is running, contacting a person involved with it outside of the presentation itself is generally difficult. So I did what I am always afraid that a client experiencing technical difficulties on the other end of one of the events I coordinate will do - I got frustrated, and I moved on. I didn't learn the material I needed to learn, and although I did eventually get in touch with a person at the company and requested a copy of the recorded presentation, I was told that would take 48 hours to become available. I do hope to receive the recording next week so I can begin my project, but I will likely have to follow-up on that request - one more step between me and the information I am seeking.

Overall, I believe the technology behind the online registration and training systems like the one I worked with is quite impressive and sophisticated, and indeed capable of adding value to a training session. This experience merely highlighted for me the importance of ensuring that the technology is never itself a barrier to the learning experience for any student, particularly the ones who value the act of learning more than receiving the certificate of completion at the end.

Follow-up

About nine years ago, our company enrolled a dozen people in an on-line training program provided by a national training company. On-line training was a pretty new concept back then, this particular curriculum was not great and despite unlimited availability, very few hours were logged. We collectively dropped out after one year. Earlier today, I received an email from that company inviting me, “as a previous customer” to complete a survey regarding our training experience and our current thoughts on training – not exactly what I would call effective follow-up.

Effective follow-up should reinforce the training experience, gather additional feedback and keep people in learning mode. If these things are done well, they also help you market your program.

I recently had the opportunity to present a short training session to some of our customers regarding the use of our Web-based portal. The immediate feedback indicated that the subject was a bit overwhelming (not an unexpected result). In response, we are preparing to follow-up with the participants in several ways. One, we are sending each participant a copy of the notes we wished they had taken. We provided handouts, but sitting in a classroom people don’t always know what to take away, so we’re trying to make that easy. Two, we are creating four short screen-capture videos that replay the four live demonstrations given during the training session. In addition to those specific actions, we’re going to invite a few attendees to become part of an advisory group that will help us select training topics for future meetings. Hopefully these activities will help us turn an isolated training session into a continuous learning experience.

Let me wrap-up with a quick Training Debate status update. We have finalized the guidelines for our guest bloggers and we have sent out the first few invitations. Hopefully we will soon be reading the insights and opinions of our visiting thought leaders – stay tuned.