Train-the-Trainer by DataHomeLab

A2.3 Unit 2 Prepare the Training Environment

Expanded Performance Descriptor. The competent instructor / evaluator should ensure that the training environment provides for effective learning. The training environment includes facilities, equipment, and instructional materials.

Unit 2 is the upstream Unit: the work the instructor does before the trainee enters the room (or the simulator, or the cockpit) so that the training event can succeed. Two Elements decompose the preparation: Element A is design (where the instructor is involved in shaping the course or lesson itself), Element B is the readiness of the physical environment.

Element A. Designs training

This Element applies where there is a need for the instructor / evaluator to design training programs. Not every instructor designs courseware; an instructor delivering an established curriculum off existing approved lesson plans does not design training in the sense of this Element. But where the instructor is in a course-design or lesson-design role (whether as a sole author, as a contributor to a courseware update, or as the per-session designer of a custom briefing or scenario), the six behaviours below define what good design looks like.

Desirable Behaviours

a) Explains why the training is needed.

b) Ensures the training is logically structured.

c) Ensures the training is realistic and relevant.

d) Ensures there are specific and measurable objectives.

e) Ensures realism in the choice of scenarios.

f) Participates in the design of courses / courseware.

The behaviours encode the discipline of training design as a small ordered cycle: the design begins with why (a), assembles a structure that the trainee can follow (b), keeps that structure connected to operational reality (c), commits to objectives that are specific enough to be observed and graded (d), grounds the practical content in realistic scenarios (e), and feeds back into the approved programme's broader courseware development (f).

The "explains why" behaviour (a) and the "realistic and relevant" behaviour (c) are tightly coupled: a trainee who understands why the training is needed is better equipped to engage with it as relevant to the line, and a designer who can articulate the why is more likely to make design choices that keep the training relevant. The "logically structured" behaviour (b) is the bridge between the why and the objectives: a logical structure is one in which each lesson, each exercise, each scenario advances the learner from the why toward the measurable objectives without redundancy or gap.

Element B. Ensures adequate facilities and equipment

Element B is the readiness check on the physical and procedural infrastructure the training event needs. Five Desirable Behaviours cover the facility, the physical environment, the instructional materials, the equipment, and (for airborne training) airspace.

Desirable Behaviours

a) Ensures the facilities are adequate to meet the training objectives.

b) Ensures that the physical environment is suitable for learning.

c) Ensures that the applicable courseware, training aids and supporting material are available.

d) Ensures that the equipment is suitable, adequate and serviceable.

e) Arranges appropriate airspace for the required training, if applicable.

The five behaviours are not a checklist run only at session start: they are the standing pre-session readiness for any training event. Where facilities are inadequate or equipment is unserviceable, the instructor's responsibility under this Element is to either secure a fix (move to a different room, swap to a different simulator slot, source a working training aid, request an airspace re-allocation) or to declare the event non-deliverable. Running the session anyway, with inadequate facilities or unserviceable equipment, breaches Element B and typically threatens at least one Element of Unit 1 (safety) as a consequence.

The "if applicable" wording on Element B Desirable Behaviour e (airspace) is the framework acknowledging that not every training event involves airspace. A ground-school session has no airspace dimension; a synthetic training device session has airspace only insofar as the simulator's geographic environment is loaded; an airborne training event has airspace as the dominant constraint, sometimes requiring booking of training areas, coordination with ATC, or arrangement of restricted airspace use. The behaviour applies to whichever subset of training events the instructor delivers that involve airspace.

Connections

  • A2.2 Unit 1 Manage Safety in the Training Environment. The previous Unit: the safety dimension that Element B's facilities-and-equipment check serves alongside training effectiveness.
  • A2.4 Unit 3 Manage the Trainee. The next Unit: where the prepared environment meets the actual trainee.
  • A2.5 Unit 4 Conduct Training. The in-the-room delivery Unit, which presupposes that Unit 2 has been done; Element G of Unit 4 (operation of training devices) is the execution counterpart to Element B Desirable Behaviour d here.
  • 1.4 Methods of Training and Checking. The cluster's foundational treatment of training-design methodology that Element A draws on.
  • 4.1 Introduction. The cluster's full treatment of training-aid design and use; Element B Desirable Behaviour c sits at the operational end of that treatment.
  • 6.3 Preparation. The pre-session preparation discipline that Element B operationalises for an individual session.
  • 9.1 Introduction. Synthetic training device readiness requirements that Element B Desirable Behaviour d draws from.