Last Wednesday, January 19th, I attended my first session of the Instructors Certification Training Program (ICTP) at the Guam Contractor's Association Trades Academy main office in upper Tumon. The ICTP is an instructor training program with the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER). They certify instructors to teach construction craft skills for their programs through their sponsors. Guam Contractor's Association is the main sponsor on island for NCCER. While the GCA Trades Academy is an Accredited Training Unit of GCA.
I don't want to get into to much detail about the NCCER or ICTP. I had a lot of fun. The instructor put out a lot of information all week, since the first day. What I liked about the program is that it goes away from traditional teaching processes. It's not about the teaching. It's about the learning process. "Did Learning Occur?", the instructor reminded us each day during each module.
I was surprised to be taking a test after our first module. That caught me off-guard. It's a good thing I was reading along, taking notes, and listening. Those little tests went on for the next 8 modules, for a total of 9 tests or exams. It was not easy. The passing score was 70%. With a 10 question multiple-choice exam, that does not give much room to play with. More than 3 wrong is failing. But learning does not end there. We reviewed the questions after each and every test. So even if we know we answered a question wrong. The correct answer was given and normally discussed. "The Learning still continues.", our instructor would say.
The class size was small but fun. I got to know the other students before the first day was over. I already knew of Ann Marie and Debbie through my interactions with GCA and the Trades Academy. They both work for GCA and GCA Trades Academy respectively. I met Zenon, Tim, and Mike. Everyone of us have talents that we brought into the training. Our instructor Bert Johnston is an Educator by trade and is the Education Director of the GCA Trades Academy.
What caught my surprise again, was the first 10-minute presentation on the first day. I was not expecting that nor was I even ready for it. Bert had us partner up for the first presentation. My partner that day was Mike. I can't even remember the topic. Of course, I can look at my notes. But doing that now, would distract my train of thought in writing this post. Anyway, I don't remember anything negative from any of the presentations. Bert always asked what could be done better to improve our presentations. Edification was used a lot during our trainings. Something really different from traditional teaching methods. Where they ask what was wrong?
NCCER's Instructor Certification Training Program cut away all the fat from traditional teaching format and simplified it with only the best of all teaching has to offer. What would take a college student 4 years to do. NCCER cut it down to 3 intense days of instructor training. Traditional Education requires "time" spent in the classroom. NCCER only requires if you learned the skill. How fast is really up to the student.
The second day was much like the first, more modules, 10 question exams, and two presentations. We only covered 3 modules because we had a long discussion on the first module for that day. But, we were still on schedule. The last exam on the second day had me worried. I was not sure of 5 of the questions and answered as best as I could. We didn't go through the questions and had decided to wait until the next day to review it. Going home that day was not a good feeling. The good news for day 2, was that the whole class got perfect scores on Module 6. Which was supposed to be the hardest of all the modules. However, Mod 7 got all of us worried.
The third and last day, started off learning that we had passed the exam from the day before. What a relief! Then we finished off two more modules for the written portion of the course. I did pretty well on those two exams. After lunch was our actual presentation. Since day one, we were told it was up to us to use any topic for our presentation. I chose for my topic: "Guidelines for Armed Self-Defense for Women" the first night. It was a topic that I'm very familiar with. I had to get permission from Bert to use my gun, my Springfield XD40, for my presentation. Only restrictions were that it had to be unloaded and I'm not to pass it around to the students.
During lunch, I worked to prepare my presentation. Did a couple of rehearsals while everyone went to lunch. I was ready. At least, I thought I was.
After lunch, I volunteered to do my presentation first. I wanted to get it out of the way. Plus, I was nervous and didn't want to be the last one. I hit my topic hard, going through my objectives and giving some stories to have the student relate to my topic, asking questions, and having them do an exercise with their pen. I covered the different weapon types available for women. How to look for an instructor, and touched on training, safety, licensing, and territorial law/company policies. All this in 10-minutes.
During the class review, there were a lot of good suggestions to make it better. All of the students were surprised when I pulled out the gun. I had pulled the slide to show them that it was empty and also showed them that the magazine wasn't loaded or inserted into the weapon. But, all the comments were great.
The rest of the presentations from my classmates were great as well. Everyone knew their subjects. Not one of us touched on any of the topic modules in the Core Curriculum. I am pretty sure we all wanted to do something we were comfortable with.
In the end, we all passed. I had fun. It was challenging with lots of information given to us. But we all "Learned".
"The Learning Still Continues".
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