I just signed up for the talk account, but have been a member of the space for about a month.
I looked at the event calendar and see the Monday trainers class, but do not see the Sunday class.
What time will that class be?
Iâm thinking that at least on my first couple of classes that iâd teach, that a co-teacher who has at least been through the 101 & 102 level course, would be awesome as Iâm betting that there are things that Iâll forget. What would be great is to get someone with machining experience to assist.
Woodshop has been reorganizing and improving their training structures recently, to try and meet the demand from new members, and to improve the way we conduct training. We have three required classes necessary to use our tools - Woodshop Basics (all saws, sanders, drill press, joiner, and planer), Lathe Basics (lathes), and CNC Router. We are also beginning to offer advanced classes, most of which have one of the basic courses as a prerequisite.
Each class has a standard syllabus, followed by all instructors of that class. New instructors must audit a class, then lead the class with an authorized instructor monitoring, and then they may solo classes thereafter. The syllabusâs are routinely reviewed and improved as we learn new things, run into questions, etc.
You might think the extra requirements would discourage new instructors, but the opposite has proved true, New instructors appreciate the training. Many folks want to help, and knowing they will be trained, and reviewed gives them the confidence to step forward and volunteer. And standardized training also means all users know the rules, and help enforce them - making the shop safer too. Weâre now up to 8 trained WSB instructors, 4 Lathe Basics, and 3-4 CNC instructors, and still adding more to help us meet the demand. And advanced classes are being added to the schedule all the time now, and more to come.
May not be the only way, but itâs working for us.
Woodshop has at least one very full tier of equipment below their big fancy CNC machine.
I still think at least a couple cheap chinese machines would make a foundation for education
in this department, without the stakes always being so high. Blasphemy, I know.
I think this will be an ever-present problem. Identify (RFID logging on big tools) and troubleshoot the issues as they occur.
Who would you say is qualified to judge a âpractical testâ? Are we going to get into the quagmire that Automotive has turned into with âonly ASE certified mechanics can give classesâ? Those who judge competency might just be adding their name to the âDefendantâ side of that lawsuit.
Anyone who is teaching a ârequiredâ class is already do so. It is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt and sues.
Very true. I give training classes at work, if Iâm video taped then I say something to the tune of âNothing I say supersedes anything in the bookâ. Before Iâm video taped they have a waiver signed too saying they wonât sue us if I miss-speak. Of course it is my due diligence to warn them of the extreme hazards of having a 700 vdc buss. I had a chief engineer of a major hospital want us to show him how to work on 13.8k-4160 drive. Myself & a guy I work with told him no repeatedly.
There are a couple of issues with your understanding. First, you are teaching as an employee, so your employer is the primary responsible party. While our teachers are not officers of our corporation, they can be directly named in a suit (so can an employee), and given that we (DMS) have limited assets, anyone suing is going to want to spread the blame around.
Finally, any attorney will tell you that you canât say anything that eliminates your potential liability, nor can a waiver keep you from being sued, nor even from loosing such a suit. We have disclaimers that all members are required to sign, yet we can and ultimately will be sued by some stupid person who harms them self at some point.
I told my boss that the waivers are a lost cause. My business attorney told me this many years ago. She said that waivers just keep the masses thinking they canât sue. In this country you can sue for anything at any time.
To put a penny or two where my mouth is, try this out.
This is not something I am âgood atâ, but I have thrown together a course for âIntroduction to Welding and Welding Safetyâ and posted it to the âfree-for-instructors-up-to-five-classes-available-at-a-timeâ Blackboard offering âcoursesites.comâ.
Itâs a bit of a pain in the arse, but you can sign up (or sign up using a google or facebook account), self-enroll, and check out the sort of thing one could do with such an offering. This is by no means intended to showcase all you can do (with this product or any other), but I wanted to hit the highlights of the sort of thing I am thinking about when I suggest âvidoe-fyingâ intro/safety classes and offering âtest-out quizzesâ online. On the backend i get fairly extensive reporting info. I am unclear on how this might be leveraged into âcertificatesâ, but at the very least the data could be exported to a database, and checked for âcompletenessâ before offering other, more advanced classes (or enabling RFID, or whatever).
Many organizations use a simple 4 level training system, something like this:
1 Rookie - Must have supervision to use the equipment, in training.
2 Operator - Can use equipment without supervision
3 Trainer - Can train and evaluate rookies and operators
4 Master - Can train the trainers (as well as rookies and operators) and create training material.
With the Masters training more Trainers, we can increase the number of qualified Trainers.
If weâre going to implement an equipment training system, we should include something like this to multiply our training personnel where needed. Right now we basically have 2 levels: Operator and Master.