Starting job as an electrical instructor (Advice?)

RdmanElect

RdmanElect

Member
Location
Poughkeepsie NY
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Hey guys, I got a night time teaching position at a local trade school. Just wanted to reach out to get some advice. I've never taught in a formal setting before so I'm pretty excited. Should have about 15 students. Seems like I'm going to be developing my own curriculum while meeting some of their criteria. I've been making power point presentations and working on talking around the slides. Anyone have any advice?

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I know this is Mike Holt's forum but he does have some of the best training materials out there. Just on example:

www.mikeholt.com

Mike Holt Enterprises - Classroom Training Products.

We specialize in creating electrical training products that work. Reach out today to see how we can help your program with our dynamic books, instructor resources, and online training system.
www.mikeholt.com
 
infinity said:
I know this is Mike Holt's forum but he does have some of the best training materials out there. Just on example:

www.mikeholt.com

Mike Holt Enterprises - Classroom Training Products.

We specialize in creating electrical training products that work. Reach out today to see how we can help your program with our dynamic books, instructor resources, and online training system.
www.mikeholt.com
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I reached out to Mike holts team in regards to purchasing just the power point slides, but I was told I have to order 20 or more books which the school isnt interested in funding at this time.

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I have a BSe degree in Workforce Education, instructed over 500 electrical classes. I used Mikes materials 90% of the time as it saved me time and his graphics are the best. It will take you 8 hours of development time for one hour of podium time, will your school pay for your development time?
 
Congratulations! Teaching is a rewarding experience. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now. Often you are a week or more often a day ahead of the class. You will forever be learning and getting better. You don’t need to have all the answers, but be prepared and honest. Your students will appreciate you being genuine. As stated above Mike holt slides are great, Ryan Jackson is amazing too. Your coworkers will likely be willing to help mentor and share as well. I find making a list of objectives ( or maybe your program will have one already) you want to have students be able to do, and then creating labs or exercises to map back to those objectives will give you focus in your planning from course level down to the day to day. Don’t be afraid to review and revisit. Covering less material more thoroughly is better than drowning your class in info.
Best of luck, I hope you enjoy this aspect of the trade.
 
Two things stand out from teaching my classes. One, as tom mentions, be prepared to spend many hours prepping for each hour you teach.
(If you are doing it for the $$ you will find the pay per hour invested isn't what you thought :) ) Secondly, be prepared to LEARN also. You will find you don't know as much as you may have thought you did once the questions start.
I enjoy teaching the classes and hopefully you will also.
 
augie47 said:
Two things stand out from teaching my classes. One, as tom mentions, be prepared to spend many hours prepping for each hour you teach.
(If you are doing it for the $$ you will find the pay per hour invested isn't what you thought :) ) Secondly, be prepared to LEARN also. You will find you don't know as much as you may have thought you did once the questions start.
I enjoy teaching the classes and hopefully you will also.
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I had the smartest teacher in our Vo Tech school. He had a degree in electronics & Math and was working on a third degree. He told me I challenged him the most with questions that I asked him. One was on a Scott T transformer that I helped my electrician dad install. Was in on old building and wanted to know how the two phase 2,300 volt transformer produced both two phase & three phase power. He was not sure and had me talk to a teacher who know a lot about transformers. I bought in a few samples of THWN wire when it first came out around 1967. Cut off the wire marking and asked him to identify it. After graduating keep in touch with him. I dropped off a what was called electronic trip overload relay for starters. They only had the overload blocks that used think it was caller a bimattalic element to produce heat to trip overload. Can remember on the older Alien Bradley starters they started with a " N " then ones from late 1979's started with a " W ". Place I retired from had a best in class drive tech with over 25 years experience. Even he got stumped a few tines where he had to call the VFD manufacturer for assistance. One was on programming. He had a 1" thick book on programming that he looked thru awhile until making a phone call.
 
augie47 said:
Is it more a "practical-how to class" or a Code class ??
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It's trade school, so it would incorporate both. The state has a list of criteria I would need to meet. Starting with ACDC theory, ohms law, Residential/Commercial/Industrial overview, grounding/bonding.. I will be mentioning code once we get through the fundamentals section.

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augie47 said:
Two things stand out from teaching my classes. One, as tom mentions, be prepared to spend many hours prepping for each hour you teach.
(If you are doing it for the $$ you will find the pay per hour invested isn't what you thought :) ) Secondly, be prepared to LEARN also. You will find you don't know as much as you may have thought you did once the questions start.
I enjoy teaching the classes and hopefully you will also.
Click to expand...
Teaching definitely requires you to know more about the subject which forces you to learn thoroughly I noticed. I am spending lots of time making power points and working on talking around the slides

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tom baker said:
I have a BSe degree in Workforce Education, instructed over 500 electrical classes. I used Mikes materials 90% of the time as it saved me time and his graphics are the best. It will take you 8 hours of development time for one hour of podium time, will your school pay for your development time?
Click to expand...
i dont think so.. getting paid in general is great because i would honestly do this for free. this is a passion of mine as im sure the field is for you as well considering we are both on this forum. I think the commitment to the schedule is the only scary thing lol
 
Pdub said:
Congratulations! Teaching is a rewarding experience. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now. Often you are a week or more often a day ahead of the class. You will forever be learning and getting better. You don’t need to have all the answers, but be prepared and honest. Your students will appreciate you being genuine. As stated above Mike holt slides are great, Ryan Jackson is amazing too. Your coworkers will likely be willing to help mentor and share as well. I find making a list of objectives ( or maybe your program will have one already) you want to have students be able to do, and then creating labs or exercises to map back to those objectives will give you focus in your planning from course level down to the day to day. Don’t be afraid to review and revisit. Covering less material more thoroughly is better than drowning your class in info.
Best of luck, I hope you enjoy this aspect of the trade.
Click to expand...
this is great advice...thank you!
 
I would suggest trying to find a train the trainer type class. Learning how to teach adults is going to be very different than what you're used to.

And congratulations and good luck.
 
Ken_S said:
I would suggest trying to find a train the trainer type class. Learning how to teach adults is going to be very different than what you're used to.

And congratulations and good luck.
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Agree. There are 4 learning styles- become familiar with learning outcomes and especially how to construct exams- multiple choice are best. One university class I liked was on evaluative devices or tests. Most tests are poorly written
My best advice is begin with the end in mind. Do a pretest and use the same for the class test
 
I've been teaching in my industry for about 4 years now. I had to fine tune my presentation, and I made sure the content I was teaching factual.
It is very rewarding for me as I get to give my 43 years of experience to the new generation.
I constantly update my slides with current information as well job photos and pics from the field by others.

I'll be teaching at the AC Pool and Spa Show for the 3rd year next month. One of the biggest pool shows.

And I do get paid. I would do it for nothing, but my decades of experience didn't happen overnight and I need compensation. Don't sell yourself short.
 
I taught a first year apprentice class. I enjoyed it, and it made me up my game of understanding and explaining theory and code so it's true that you learn more than you teach.

Be ready for no feedback. Have a long list of jokes to get everyone loosened up. Be ready for nobody laughing even at the good jokes. Be ready to repeat what you said again and again. It takes a while for the information you want to communicate to settle in.
 
Teaching might be fun, I don't think I could handle any kind of grading beyond multiple choice though. They better have sharp #2 pencils ready
 
Back in the day they got them into the trades much younger.

When I was young they still had this place St Catherine Drexel's sister funded about a mile from where I grew up

158674656_3914334908629418_4181475697022229115_n.jpg

St Frances Industrial School For Boys.

1-2-129E-25-ExplorePAHistory-a0k9e5-a_349.jpg

And it wasn't always called "The Milton Hershey School"

1766852652945.png

It might look low tech, but at the time this was all modern and that is what they were training them on. I'll bet a lot of them got really good at it
 
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