Talk:Train the Trainers consultation

Welcome to the discussion about Train The Trainers. Do you have opinions on the programme? Were you on one of the courses? Were you trained by someone who was? How do you think it can develop? Please let me know so that I can compile a report for the Board and plan the future programme. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 15:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Weekends

I was on one of the courses last year and was pretty impressed. One observation though, is it true that we pay a premium to have it run at the weekend? If so, and if we run more than one event a year, you might consider doing one in the week, a lot of the attendees would happily have attended a mid week session especially if it was saving the charity money. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 10:06, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Accreditation

This word worries me as it implies that you need to go on the course to be an accreditted trainer. This can be an expensive use of resources. As I understand it the course is intended to teach Wikipedians to teach and not to train Teachers about how to teach Wikipedia. We should assume that people who already have a degree level teaching qualification have already been taught to teach. The SWAT analysis overleaf does not mention the accreditation apart from noting it exists. It should be a strength but the course needs to recognise its limitations. If we compare an average accreditted trainer (from the WMUK course) with a WMF person who trains people in the USA and is visiting the country or Tony Santi before I met him at EduWiki (who was teaching Wiki without WMUK guidance) then how many of these are accreditted trainers? I think the correct answer is three. If its "one" then we belittle the training offered here. --176.227.135.245 10:14, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to comment - very much appreciated and I will be building everyone's comments into the review. You are quite right that the primary aim was to show active wikimedians how to teach, especially newbies. I might argue with your assertion that those with a teaching qualification (I have one) would always know how to teach editing but you are generally right. The TtT weekend does contain more than just, pace, differentiation etc it also includes exercises on writing modules and use teaching skills to interpret how to edit.

We have 30+ accredited trainers now. I don't know if the Foundation have anything like our scheme, I have not heard of it but may be wrong. Nobody HAS to be on the course to train but to be accredited you DO and the process is taken very seriously. That way we can offer an assurance to those being trained that their commitment is taken seriously. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 09:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

To the anonymous questioner: yes, I would expect that in getting trainers for an event, we take into account more of their background than attendance at the TfT course. However, we need to be careful because people can have lists of qualifications as long as your arm and yet be weak on the skills that make a good workshop. I disagree that a degree level teaching qualification should be treated as equivalent: teaching is simply not the same thing as training. It's possible to be, say, an experienced university lecturer and still a complete beginner to the sort of skills needed for running the training workshops we need. In recent years universities have introduced a lot more active learning into their training so the overlap is getting stronger.

I agree that paying consultants every year is not sustainable: Wikimedia UK has to develop its own training programme in the longer term, but an essential step towards that is developing and auditing the skills we already have, by a credible process. If the Lead Trainers (accredited by the TfT process) decide someone is suitable to train on behalf of WMUK, then they should be able to "accredit" them, but bear in mind that these are early days and we don't yet have a formal process for this. We need some quality standard, so I don't think we should be afraid of the word "accreditation", but you're right that we need to apply the label with common sense. Pete Forsyth (ex-WMF) gives outstandingly good training, and Toni Sant has a great track record getting his students to improve articles: we're not blind to that.

Jon, in North America there is the Wikipedia Campus Ambassador network which identifies suitable people and prepares them to deliver a specific two day workshop: this is focused on the particular task of campus training to support a course, not general trainer-training like we have been doing, and it has tough entrance requirements so it basically requires entrants to already have the presentation/training skills. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:50, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Maintaining a profile

Not sure whether this actually ties in with accreditation directly, so I've started a new topic.

From my perspective as Education Organiser, it would be really useful if every active trainer had a separate public profile as a trainer (perhaps similar to staff pages) to ensure visibility as well as record interest and expertise along with maintaining a public record of accreditation in a standard and useful way. This will also help us circulate a more professional profile of trainers ahead of training events, so that attendees (especially new editors) know who they're going to meet, and how they can contact their trainer before/after the event. I'll gladly elaborate on this, if required. --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 18:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Great idea! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 11:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)