Air Traffic Management

Simulation sessions for ATC initial training [and I am not talking of part task training exercises] have most of the time, at least in the organisations that I am familiar with, been a one – on – one exercise where a student has a dedicated instructor.

Surely this is good for parts of this training where individual attention is required, however I think that in some other parts, we could do with a reorganisation of the training.

I notice that most of the times students know what they should be doing, they just do not have enough skills to do it effectively yet.  I also notice that most of the times students are harsh critics of their perfromance and of that of others.

So why not create sessions where there is one instructor to a number of students who do a simulator run.  After the simulator run, instead of the few minutes briefing which follow between the instructor and his student, a facilitated session is organised instead.

In this session the instructor, who would have never the less observed the students, and with the aid of a script, and some knowledge of facilitation processes, would start asking questions to the students for discussion.  The instructor would take a facilitator role, and the students would say what they felt during the exercise and ask their fellow students for help.

The facilitator would moderate this exchange of knowledge and information if he thinks that a statement is for example wrong or if a student is unfairly criticising himself or another.

I think that this method wold bring the following advantages:

1. It responsibilises further the students, who become a little bit more masters of their training.  They learn because they have to think on how to improve and not just being told by their instructor.
2. It also a fosters team building where the students instead of having an individual relationship with their instructors, are in group learning.  They will discover that they have to help each other to succeed, just like in real life.
3. Thirdly it frees instructor time – less instructors for some simulation sessions.

I think that this is a method worth experimenting with.  Maybe some ANSPs are already doing this?  I would be glad to receive feedback on this subject…

Share on Facebook

In a lot of cases, especially when the training issue is to provide new information to qualified staff, one of the key elements involved is to make the training as relevant and as concise as possible.  The audience does generally have little time to dedicate to training.

So in the quest of making it as relevant and as effective as possible, one possible strategy is to design the training in a ‘Frequently Asked Question’ format.

I have used this in the past to write reports and information brochures, which would describe the services that my company gives in a particular domain, but which are seen from a ‘what a client would like to know view-point’ .  I have not used this technique really in training yet.  But I might soon.

 The example provided here, courtesy of the Rapid E-learning Blog is one worth considering if you have to design some training answering to the configuration I mentioned above.

I can think of Safety, Regulation, new Technology, ATC Briefing related training that could be developed using this design style

Share on Facebook

This is an article I wrote for the EUROCONTROL E-learning newsletter which you can find here

I am regularly fascinated by stories within stories,the best of which for me would be Itchy and Scratchywithin The Simpsons. I experienced a similar event last year when I participated to an e-learning course about blended learning.

The content of the course was very interesting and eye opening in many ways. In it we saw that, basically, what matters is to produce the most effective and efficient training possible considering the situation.

This is only possible if one considers the learners,their preferences, the training gap and the practical constraints such as the budget, facilities, time and human resources available. The process would then follow by determining the strategy to achieve the learning objectives and to think well about the selection of the media and methods to use. The final ‘blend’ should be better than the sum of the individual methods, similar to the taste of a successful cocktail.

But what also interested me very much, and here comes the link to Itchy and Scratchy, is to observe how this course was delivered. I have designed
e-learning modules in the past, all of which are more or less of a student-computer stand alone nature, so I was really interested in how this 100% on-line course would walk the talk and include an effective and efficient blend.

Together with other students I was given access to a virtual learning environment [VLE] through which I could access all the resources and from which I could follow the programme set by the course tutors through a calendar and also where I could contact the other students and the tutors.

The course kicked off with an email the tutor sent. He introduced himself, gave us his view of the course objectives and an appointment to meet on a virtual classroom session at a preset date and time. We had students from the Far East and so we had to juggle a little to find an adequate time when all of us were available, but we managed.

The virtual classroom session was simple and fun. We learnt how to use the software, which was simple, and apart from a few glitches with some voice connection, the session was smooth. We all introduced ourselves, saying briefly who we were, what our backgrounds were and what we were expecting from the course. Very similar to what you would d in a physical class room, except that one of us was in Singapore, others in the Benelux and more still in the U.K.

At the end of this session, the tutor gave us some home work. It was a brief assignment where we had to list what methods and media we thought we could use to teach with. The interesting part of this assignment for me,
apart from the obvious reflection time I created on the subject, was the fact that we had to post our replies on the VLE. The tutor had asked, as part of our assignment, to constructively comment on the work of two designated fellow students. Each time someone posted their work on the VLE, the others got a notification on their mailbox. [I got mine on via Outlook at work]. I commented on the others’ work, and learnt from the process. Then we reconvened a week later on the virtual classroom session to discuss the findings and to explore further subjects.

On another occasion, we learnt about what blogs, wikis and podcasts were and how they could be used. The exercise helped demystifying the whole thing. We did not stop at the theory, but we were asked to create a small podcast, contribute to a wiki found on the VLE and were asked to go out and explore
free blog service providers such as Blogger or Word Press. I remember that for the podcast exercise we had to record what we thought a podcast was
and how it could be used. It was a learning experience in itself to learn what the others found out…

Somewhere midway the course, the tutor wanted to make sure that we were on the right track and that we were still motivated. He organised a one on one tutorial. He invited me to a chat session through which was available through the VLE. I am not the chat type, and I generally prefer writing longer letters [does it show through this article? ] but I have to admit that it had a good effect. It was one on one, direct and simple…
Finally the last assignment was about presenting a training project in which we proposed a blend and justified the choice. We had all the resources found on the VLE, ranging from a stand alone CBT, all our previous assignments, both mine
and those of other students, access to a wiki which included a lot of methods and media that could be used, etc etc. Before we submitted the work to the tutor, we were advised to have a peer read it and comment on it. We were also asked to take time to make at least one peer review and to do it well. I did just that and I was awarded a certificate in ‘blending training’. What is also interesting to note is that I felt that through his regular contact with us and through our work, the tutor could easily assess whether we were making the effort and whether
we were learning without recurring to automatic reporting of how much time we had spent on the VLE or which resources we had accessed.

In hindsight, I think the course I attended, indeed walked the talk. It was 100% distance learning, but far from 100% student – computer stand alone. It was varied, effective, innovative and, to a large extent, ‘fun’. Looking at the technology it used, it was simple, yet engaging. I am committed to trying this out as a trainer some time soon!
There are indeed some episodes where Itchy and Scratchy are more entertaining than Bart & co…

Share on Facebook