Train-the-Trainer CAD!
By Aliza Wajih
At Research Platforms we know that one of the most essential elements of running a successful course is making sure that the content beingdelivered is relevant, informative and interesting to the students. However we also know that it is equally as essential to supplement the course with engaging and effective content delivery techniques.
Introducing the ResBaz CAD Team!
The Resbaz CAD team was heavily involved in the 3-day Train-the-Trainer invent that was held prior to the Research Bazar 2015 where trainers were taught how to teach. In the lead up to Resbaz we focused on finding the most effective ways of organizing, designing, and delivering lecture content. Knowing that the participants in our class came from diverse academic background, one of our major challenges was to design a course that would intrigue everyone.
For me personally, Train-the-Trainer was an invaluable learning experience. I got to learn from some very smart, talented and driven people namely, my peers and my mentor Paul Mignone (@paulmignone). This course was a success as a direct result of the team effort that we put together. Here is a picture of us doing just that on Day 1!
During Train-the-Trainer we collaborated and supported each other to perform our best. We practiced delivering lectures and shared our views on how to make them more engaging and interesting. As our main focus was to design a student-centred course we constantly brainstormed and encouraged new ideas to teach more effectively rather than use ineffective traditional teaching methods.
As a result of innovative approach to making this course we came up with some great ideas, one of which was including exercises that would keep the course fun and interesting (i.e Lego man) and another was to allow the student to give live feedback on course notes in Google Docs.
Check out this musical warrior!
Train-the-Trainer gave us the opportunity to critically look at our work, step back, redefine problems and work on developing better techniques. It gave us the time to perfect the art of teaching, see potential pitfalls, plan for future improvements and make the process of iteravively designing courses much easier and productive.
This trying to figure out how to put a lid on the USB! ( Hint: Its easier in real life!)
Overall, working in a team of intelligent and determined people at Train-the-Trainer and learning how to teach was great professional and personal experience. What made this experience even better was the excellent feedback we received at ResBaz! We hope to continue improving our work and making it better, see you all next year and well done CAD team!
