I currently spend a proportion of my time carrying out training on various specialist chemistry information end-user tools, such as SciFinder.
I am keen to move into a more full-time training role, and to broaden my skills from the specialised tools I train in at the moment.
Are there qualifications I could study for, or should I learn 'on the job' with an IT training company?
Julia Lock
5 Responses
IT Qualifications
Try the TAP accreditation. Details can be found on the Institute of IT Training.
Many organisations now insist that their IT Trainers hold the TAP accreditation. Two of my trainers have recently undertaken this, I am delighted with the significant improvement in their delivery skills.
Good Luck
CTT+ Accreditation
Another option is CompTIA’s CTT+ accreditation. It offers a less formulaic approach to training than TAP does and is acknowledged worldwide.
Whether you are interested in the accredication or not, Lisa Evans of SkillsCERT (www.skillscert.com) does on of the best Train the Trainer courses in the country. I highly recommend it.
added benefits
I recently attended an accelerated training course run by Instep, North Staffs. This built on my training skills and gave me a toolkit of trainer resources and varied delivery techniques and a 1 day overview into this area. I would recommend it for any trainer who is flagging and wants to boost their potential.
City & Guilds
I was pointed towards City & Guilds 7331 “Instructional Techniques” which I have found very useful.
The new wave of trainers (or should that be, learning facilitato
Ah, good question. And hi.
Please forgive a fairly long response. I’m the IT Learning Manager at DLA Piper (world’s 3rd largest law firm) and I’ve led us to win a couple of awards – department of the year 2004 and project of the year 2004 from IITT – for the quality of the training we provide to our thousands of solicitors. (Bear with me, I’m not just boasting. Though of course it’s always fun to do so, ho ho).
All my trainers have done TAP in the past, several have done CIPD/CTP and a few of us have experimented with a raft of other training qualifications – but ultimately we found that they barely scratched the surface for the level of training delivery quality that we need: there’s a big difference between helping people to learn, and helping people to learn so that they’re best able to apply the learning to their work. It appears that most train-the-trainer courses aren’t aware of the differences.
In the end we took matters into our own hands and approached both Happy Computers and The Fourth Level to develop two different qualfications – LFT and ROLF respectively.
These have been well piloted and are now out there: ROLF for example is spreading into other law firms (big emphasis upon results and value-for-time!) with such firms as Cameron McKenna leading the way. I believe Balfour Beatty Utilities and Asda (? don’t quote me) are mastering it.
Anyway, my advice is skip the old qualifications (typically ‘behaviourist’ based), go for the cutting-edge, ‘constructivist’ based ones. Personally my money’s with ROLF (Results Orientated Learning Facilitation), not least because of the amount of post-course coaching you get to truly help you master the techniques back in your own work place, from the fourth level: http://www.thefourthlevel.com. (LFT’s a darned-site better than the other alternatives though and I think is cheaper).
Hope that helps,
John Salt.
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP