1-3-12-Training and Staff

Why was it important that Jesus be born in Bethlehem?

If the Magi were pagan astrologers, why would they leave everything in order to follow that star?

In light of the prophecy (v.6), why was Herod so concerned that the baby be found?

Trace the responses of the Magi upon seeing Jesus.  How is that similar to the responses that Christians make to Jesus?  How is it different?

What do the star, the Magi, the gifts, the homage, the hostility, and the prophecy teach about the significance of Jesus?

In your "journey" toward God, how are you like the Magi?  Unlike them?  Have you had to leave anything to follow Jesus?

What is the "gold, incense and myrrh" in your life?  How have you offered this to Jesus?

There were many Jews living in Babylon from the time of the deportation in 600 B.C.  Daniel was one of the Jews deported to Babylon and he prophesized the exact time of Christ's baptism when He wrote:

Read Daniel 9:24-25

Underline the words "Seventy 'Sevens'" in Daniel 9:24.

In the prophetic language used by Daniel, the term "seventy 'sevens'" is understood to be referring to a period of time.  Some Bible scholars prefer the translation "seventy weeks".  All agree, however, that one prophetic day was used to symbolize one year.

One must count the "prophetic years" by starting at the time of the decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem up until the beginning of the last week of the prophecy.  It is enough for us to know that it tells the exact date of Jesus' baptism at the beginning of the year of preparation.  God revealed this fact 600 years before its fulfillment to the prophet Daniel.

Balaam was also from Babylon.  Balaam had prophesied that a star would come out of Jacob and that a Sceptor (a king) would rise out of Israel. (Numbers 24:17).

Now let's look at a third prophet, the prophet Micah.  Micah lived 700 years before Jesus.  He prophesied the exact place in which Jesus was going to be born.  According to Micah 5;2, where was Christ to be born?

The highest court among the Jews was called the Sanhedrin.  It was made up of important Jews under the leadership of the high priest.  They advised King Herod.

We know that the Emperor (Cesar Augustus was a foreigner who live in Rome thousands of Miles from Bethlehem and, therefore could have known absolutely nothing about the prophecy of Micah.  Why, then, did Caesar Augustus decreed this census

God is sovereign at all times and in all countries of the world.  He is king of kings and Lord of Lords.

His kingdom was an international one.

What do Christians celebrate on Epiphany?

Give thanks to God that Jesus Christ doesn't know any racial barriers.  Ask the Lord to give you the same love in your heart to those who are foreigners to you.

Training Staff

Goals

1. Develop and implement a more useful training program,

2. Discuss five training techniques,

3. Explain how you would go about identifying training requirements.

4. List seven principles of learning,

5. Prepare a training chart.

Lead-in

The main purpose of this lesson is to increase your effectiveness as a trainer.  We discuss how to assess training requirements, how to apply "principles of learning" and how to use training techniques.  In terms of our "ABCs" of performance, training is important.  It is largely thought training that trainees (1) find out what you expect of them; (2) develop the necessary skills and (3) learn something about the consequences of performing effectively or ineffectively.

Introduction

Training-improving an employee's job related skills - is an important prerequisite for performance.  Often, in other words, when a person is performing poorly, it is not because he or she does not want to do better, but, rather, because he hasn't the skills to do what is expected well; training can often rectify such a problem.

Keep in mind, however, that when a person is not performing well it is often not for lack of training.  Instead the consequences of performance may be negative.

What training is required?

In determining what sort of training is required, it is useful to distinguish the training needs.  Here your aim is to develop the skills and knowledge required for effective performance, and so the training is usually based on a detailed study to determine what specific skills and knowledge are required.

Is training required?

Analyzing problems in order to assess the need for training basically involves:

1. Identify improvement areas;

2. Measure actual performance, and identify deficiencies (or problems);

3. Analyze the cause of the problem: does it lie in the behavior, or consequences?

A typical analysis might be as follows:

First, it comes to the attention of those in training that there is some sort of problem.  For example, there may be obvious problems like: accidents; fatigue.

1. Having determined that a problem may exist those in training begin to analyze the problem.

2. Next, they interview and closely observe the training involved.

3. The next step is to analyze the cause of the problem, using the "ABCs" of training.  For example, ask: Does he or she know what is expected, in terms of good performance?

4. Next, having identified the cause of the problem, one can plan and implement the necessary change.

As often as not, the solution does turn out to be training.  Remember, however, that the problem often lies not in the trainees skills, but in the fact that he or she doesn't know what is expected or that the consequences for performing are negative or inadequate.  In other words, there may in fact be a need for training-the person hasn't the skills.  On the other hand the solution may lie in providing positive consequences.  With that in mind, we can turn to a discussion of training, beginning with an explanation of how people learn.

Principles of Learning

Training is essentially a learning process and so to train you should understand something about how people learn.  Research into why people learn (and how to get them to learn) has been going on for years and there are still no surefire answers.  But we do have some findings that are useful, and we do have some findings that are useful, and we discuss these "principles" of learning.

Make the Method meaningful

First, we know it's easier for trainees to understand and remember material that is meaningful.  And, Wexley and Yukl say there are at least six ways in which you can make your training materials more meaningful:

1. At the start of training, provide the trainees with a bird's eye view of the material to be presented knowing the overall picture and understanding how each part of the program fits into it helps make the entire program more meaningful.

2. Make sure you use a variety of familiar examples when presenting material to the trainees.

3. Organize the material so that it is presented in a logical manner and has meaningful units.

4. Split the material up into meaningful chunks rather then presenting it all at once.

5. Try to use terms and concepts that are already familiar to the trainees.

6. Use as many visual aids as possible to augment "theoretical" materials.

Make Provision for Learning.

1. Maximize the Similarity between the Training Situation and the living situation.

2. Provide Adequate Experience with the Tasks during Training.  As a rule, the more your trainee can practice the task, the better will be his or her learning.

3. Provide for a Variety of Examples when Teaching Concepts or Skills.  For example, if you're trying to "get across" a concept, present examples of instances which represent and do not represent the concepts - like the right and wrong way of doing some task.

4. label or Identify Important Features of the Task.

5. Make Sure that the Trainee Understands General Principles.  This is really a variation on the idea that you should make the material as meaningful as possible.  Thus if your trainee understands the general principles underlying what is being taught he'll probably understand it better than if he were just asked to memorize a series of isolated steps.

Provide Feedback

As you might imagine, based on our discussions of positive reinforcement trainees who are given feedback on their progress usually learn faster and perform better than those who aren't.  As a rule, feedback should be fast and frequent.

Motivate Your Trainee

Educational psychologists know that to get students (or trainees) to learn, You have to first get them to want to learn.  And if you think about classes in which you have done especially well (or bodily) you will probably agree that this is so.

How do you go abot motivating trainees?  make sure your trainee understands how his training can be instrumental in his success.  Clarify the goals of the training.  Explain how job performance is related to rewards like incentive.  And explain how the training can improve his performance and thereby boost his rewards.

Some of the other learning guidelines we just discussed are also relevant here.  For example, making the material meaningful and providing quick feed back and reinforcement will help motivate your trainee.  The reinforcement aspect is especially important: provide a quick positive reinforcement (this might just take the form of a reward" like a compliment for "a job well done").

Provide for Practice and Repetition

Practice and repetition are important for learning new skills.  Skills that are practiced often are better learned and less easily forgotten.

Seven Principles of Learning for Trainers

Based upon our previous discussion and the work of a number of psychologist, here are some important principles of learning to keep in mind:

1. Trainees learn best by doing.  Try to give them as much "real life" practice as possible.

2. Trainees learn best when correct responses on their part are immediately reinforced.

3. Provide reinforcement as quickly and frequently as possible.  Don't wait until the end of the day to tell trainees they've "done well."  Instead, reinforce frequently, whenever they do something right.

4. Provide for practice in a variety of settings.  This helps ensure that your trainees become familiar with performing the task in a setting similar to the one they'll find.  If also helps them apply their learning in a variety of settings.

5. Motivate your trainees.  Trainees who are motivated are more likely to learn and apply their new knowledge and skills than those who are unmotivated.  make sure they see how the training will be to their success and rewards.

6. Make the learning meaningful by using familiar examples and summaries and by intelligently organizing the material.

7. Finally, we know that trainees learn better when they learn at their own pace.  Think about how you would feel with someone looking over your shoulder and prodding you as you try to learn a new subject.  Most people don't learn well under these  conditions.  Instead, the learn best when they are all owned to proceed at their own pace.

Training Techniques

Lectures

Lectures are one of the most simple ways of imparting knowledge to trainees.  Here the training instructor presents a series of facts, concepts, or principles, and explains relationships.  As most students are painfully aware, lectures are usually a means of "telling" trainees something.  The students (or trainees) participate mainly as listeners.  In training, the most important uses of lectures include:

1. Reducing anxiety about upcoming training programs or organizational changes by explaining their purposes.

2. Introducing a subject and presenting an overview of the scope.

3. Presenting basic material that will provide a common background for subsequent activities.

4. Illustrating the application of rules, concepts or principles; reviewing, clarifying, or summarizing.

The main advantage of the lecture method is that it is simple and efficient.  The trainer can present more material in a given amount of time than he or she can by almost any other method, and can do so with very large groups.

But as most students know lecture have some important drawbacks, they usually don't provide for student participation, and unless that material is very interesting, little learning make take place.  People learn skills by doing and therefore lectures are inadequate by themselves for teaching new skills or for changing attitudes.  We also know that the necessary stress on verbal communication can prove very frustrating to some students.  And while a skillful lecturer can adapt his material to the specific group, usually it is almost impossible to adjust it for individual differences with in a group.

Programmed Learning

Whether the programmed learning device itself is a textbook or a computer, programmed learning always consist of three functions:

1. Presenting questions facts, or problems to the learner.

2. Allowing the person to respond.

3. Providing feedback on the accuracy of his or her answers.

The main advantage of programmed learning is that usually it reduces training time by about one third.  And since it lets people learn their own rate provides immediate feedback and reduces the risk of error, it should also facilitate learning.

We know, however, that trainees usually do not learn much more with programmed learning than  they would with a conventional textbooks approach.  Yet the costs of developing  the materials for programmed learning can be quite high.  Therefore you have to carefully weigh the cost of developing such programs against the accelerated (but not better) learning which should occur.

Conferences

Conferences can be used in various ways.  Sometimes the trainer guides the discussion and presents information in such a way that the facts, principles, or concepts are explained.  At other times the purpose of a conference is to find an answer to a question or a solution to a problem.  Here the group is used to develop the best solution.  The instructor's jobs is to define the problem and encourage full participation in the discussion.

The main advantage of conferences is that they permit your people to actively engage in discussion.  This is important because, for most people, the opportunity to express one's own views can be very stimulating.

The main limitation to using conferences is probably the lack of good conference leaders.  A good conference leader can:

1. Clearly identify the central problem.

2. See to it that all participants are encouraged to present points of view and develop alternatives.

3. See to it that there is a clear agenda to follow.

4. Minimize debate over unimportant details.

5. Prevent domination by one or two individuals.

6. Provide clear summaries on each point.

Small Groups

People learn best by getting actively involved in the activity itself and small groups can be very useful for gaining such involvement.  In the typical group, trainees are divided into five to ten person groups.  They are given a goal, and are told they can make several specific involvement/actions.

There is usually a great sense of excitement and enjoyment in playing small group,  And in addition to bringing an enjoyable way to develop a problem-solving skills, groups also help focus attention on the need for planning rather than on "putting out fires."  They can therefore useful for developing leadership skills, and for fostering cooperation and teamwork.

Evaluating the Training Efforts

It is unfortunate (but true) that many trainers don't spend much time appraising the effects of training programs.  For example, are your trainees learning as much as they can?  Are they learning as fast as they can?  Is there a better method for training them?  These are some of the questions you dan answer by properly evaluating your training efforts.

The Relative Effectiveness of Different Training Methods

One of the first things for you to consider in this regard is the outcomes you are to evaluate.

1. Reaction.  First, evaluate your trainees' reactions to the program.  Did they like the program?  Did they think it worthwhile? etc.

2. Learning.  Did your trainees learn the principles, skills, and facts that you wanted them to learn?

3. Behavior.  next, ask whether your trainee's behavior has changed because of the training program.

4. Results.  last (but probably most important) ask: What find results were achieved?  Your training program may succeed in terms of the reactions you get from trainees, increased learning and changes in behavior.  But if you don't get the results you were seeking, then, in the final analysis, the training has probably failed.

Homework

Explain how you would apply our principles of learning in developing a lecture, for example, on how to train staff.

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