Train-the-Trainer by DataHomeLab

7.2 Role of an Instructor

In all aspects of training, the instructor plays a pivotal role in ensuring that the aims are met and the trainee finishes the session with a positive learning experience. The post instructional debrief is therefore of vital importance, and the instructor must be aware of how to be effective in this area. There are times when the particular training does not allow for an in-depth debrief, for example in a large classroom-based lecture scenario; however, even then it is important to check understanding by asking questions and encouraging involvement.

The pivotal role

Two distinct functions sit on top of each other when an instructor steps into a debrief.

The first is outcome custody. The instructor owns the trainee's exit state from the session: whether the trainee leaves clear about what was achieved, what was not, and what the next training event will require of them. An instructor who lets a trainee leave the room uncertain on any of those three points has not finished the job, regardless of how well the in-flight or in-classroom phase was conducted.

The second is learning custody. The instructor owns the conversion of the session's data (observed behaviours, errors, recoveries, decisions) into learning the trainee can carry forward. Sessions that produce abundant data but no learning are common; sessions that produce learning without sufficient data are not, because the instructor cannot fabricate observations the session did not generate. The two functions interact: outcome custody is operationally easier when learning has been properly produced, because a trainee who has internalised the learning can describe their own outcome.

When the format does not allow an in-depth debrief

Some training formats compress the time available for debrief discussion to the point where a full facilitated discussion is impractical. The classic case is a large classroom lecture where the audience size, the schedule, and the topic mix all push against open dialogue. Post instructional debrief explicitly recognises this exception: an in-depth debrief is not always possible.

The "questioning" technique that does the work of a compressed-format debrief is treated in 3.5 Questioning and the applied-instruction sections that follow it. Pose-pause-pounce, the technique named in 7.4 Specific Debrief Scenarios, is one structured form of audience-wide question handling that is particularly suited to this constraint.

What the role is not

The role of the instructor in the debrief is not to deliver a verdict and move on. The verdict (the outcome) is part of what the instructor owns, but it is the frame for the debrief, not the substance of it. The substance is the trainee's analysis of their own performance, drawn out by the instructor's facilitation. This distinction is operationalised at length in the 7.4 Specific Debrief Scenarios (synthetic flight training and airborne debriefing) and the 7.5 LOFT Debriefing - Introduction, and is the load-bearing principle of the FSF / NASA facilitation manual reproduced in A1.2 Instruction vs Facilitation.

How the role is assessed

The instructor's debrief performance is assessed against the rubric reproduced in full in A3.1 Purpose and Directions. The rubric scores instructor facilitation across five categories (the introduction, the use of questions, encouragement of crew participation, focus on crew analysis and evaluation, and use of videos) on a five-level scale (poor / marginal / adequate / good / very good). Each category has four behavioural markers; the standard for "very good" on every marker is the standard post instructional debrief asks instructors to internalise. The full 100-cell descriptor table lives in Appendix 3; the techniques that produce a "very good" rating are what the rest of post instructional debrief describes.

Connections