A2.5 Unit 4 Conduct Training
Expanded Performance Descriptor. The competent instructor must demonstrate a variety of instructional methods as required for the training.
Unit 4 is the largest and most decomposed Unit in the framework. Where Units 2 and 3 prepared the environment and read the trainee, Unit 4 is the instructor's actual in-the-room delivery of the training. The delivery is decomposed into seven Elements because instructor delivery is genuinely seven distinct competencies that can be observed and graded separately: an instructor can be strong on presentation skills (B) and weak on time management (F), strong on facilitation (C) and weak on training-device operation (G). The Unit's value as an evaluation tool comes from holding all seven distinct.
Element A. Establishes and maintains credibility
Credibility is the precondition for the instructor's authority in the room. Without it, the trainee will resist instruction, dispute assessments, and disengage from the relationship. Six Desirable Behaviours decompose credibility into role-modelling, credentials, organisational respect, role clarity, mutual respect, and self-awareness about one's own limits.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Demonstrates and role models exemplary behaviour (meaning the behaviours expected in the technical role being trained).
b) Establishes personal instructor / examiner credentials.
c) Demonstrates respect for organizational goals and requirements (SOPs, dress codes, appearance, acceptable personal conduct, etc.).
d) States clear objectives and clarifies roles for the training or evaluation being undertaken.
e) Establishes and maintains an atmosphere of mutual respect.
f) Demonstrates an awareness of own limitations, for example will readily admit when they don't know something, and will not offer instruction or advice outside the bounds of their expertise.
Element B. Demonstrates effective presentation skills
Presentation is the in-the-room form of the instructor's delivery: how the trainee experiences the instructor's voice, body, pacing, sequencing, and use of aids. Six Desirable Behaviours cover the dimensions an evaluator can observe.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Stimulates and sustains trainee's interest.
b) Sequences and paces instruction appropriately.
c) Uses the voice effectively (e.g. tempo, volume, rate of speed).
d) Uses appropriate body language (eye contact, gestures and movement).
e) Uses training aids effectively.
f) Demonstrates effective questioning skills.
The Train-the-Trainer cluster develops each of these behaviours in depth: voice (c) in 3.4 Voice, questioning (f) across 3.5 Questioning, training aids (e) in the whole of 4.1 Introduction. The framework's Desirable Behaviours are the observable evidence that the instructor has internalised that material.
Element C. Demonstrates effective instruction and facilitation
Element C is the instructional substance to Element B's form: not how the delivery looks but what it does. Seven Desirable Behaviours cover communication, listening, questioning for learning, answering, balancing participation, structuring, and the explicit cross-reference to the LOFT facilitator behaviours.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Communicates effectively both verbally and non-verbally.
b) Listens actively and reads non-verbal messages correctly.
c) Asks appropriate questions to encourage learning or to confirm understanding.
d) Answers questions, correctly and adequately.
e) Promotes trainee participation by questioning, redirecting, balancing participation, etc.
f) Provides structure by confirming understanding, paraphrasing, summarizing, etc.
g) Demonstrates effective application of the LOS Facilitator behaviours (refer to Appendix 1).
The seven behaviours of Element C and the six of Element B together cover the full vocabulary of in-the-room delivery. Element B is the how it lands; Element C is the what it does. An evaluator marks them separately because they fail separately: an instructor with elegant presentation form (B all marked-met) can still be ineffective on instruction (C marked short on questioning, or on the LOFT facilitator behaviours, or on the active listening). The reverse is rarer but possible: an instructor with substantively excellent instruction whose presentation form is so distracting that the trainee struggles to receive it.
Element D. Adheres to Company training and operational policies and procedures
Element D is the policy-adherence Element. Four Desirable Behaviours cover the conduct of training against documented policy, the operational SOP discipline, the use of approved courseware, and the conduct against the lesson plan.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Conducts training in accordance with the policies and procedures specified in OM Part D.
b) Demonstrates adherence to Company operational policies and SOP's, and refrains from training in accordance with personal preferences, practices and opinions.
c) Uses correct and current company-approved courseware.
d) Conducts training in accordance with the approved lesson plan.
Element E. Creates and sustains realism
Realism is treated as a distinct Element because losing realism is a distinct failure mode of training, separately from any of the other Unit 4 Elements. Two Desirable Behaviours.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Ensures realism in the choice of scenario administered.
b) Maintains a realistic approach in the conduct of the scenario.
The two behaviours decompose realism into the selection of the scenario (a, the up-front choice) and the conduct of the scenario (b, the in-the-moment management). An instructor can select a realistic scenario and then conduct it unrealistically (over-pausing for instructional purposes, breaking the operational reality with side-channels of instructor coaching, intervening in a way that breaks the scenario's situation rather than serving its training purpose); the inverse is less common but possible (an unrealistic scenario conducted with great fidelity produces an unrealistic outcome at high fidelity, which is its own failure mode). Element E grades both halves.
Element F. Manages time
Time management is the instructor's ability to deliver the lesson plan in the available session window. Three Desirable Behaviours.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Allocates time appropriately on required training activities.
b) Adjusts time spent on activities to ensure that objectives are met.
c) Implements contingency plans for situations in which activities must be eliminated, reduced or replaced.
The three behaviours encode the instructor's responsibility to the lesson plan's objectives across the time horizon: allocate (a) is the up-front planning; adjust (b) is the in-session re-planning when activities run long or short of the planned allocation; contingency (c) is the larger re-planning when the available time is no longer sufficient to deliver the original activity set and the instructor must drop, compress, or substitute activities while still meeting the training objectives. The behaviour wording deliberately keeps the focus on objectives rather than on activities: a session that finishes "on time" but that did not meet the training objectives has failed Element F.
Element G. Demonstrates effective Operation of Training Devices and Facilities
Element G is the IOS and device-operation competency for synthetic training devices. Five Desirable Behaviours cover the device, the comms system, the scenario programming, the device's training functions, and the defect-reporting discipline.
Desirable Behaviours
a) Demonstrates competence in the operation of any devices used for training.
b) Demonstrates competence in the use of the communication system in the device.
c) Demonstrates competence in programming aircraft, airport and environmental conditions as required by the lesson plan used in a synthetic training device.
d) Effectively uses the freeze, record, replay and slew functions of the synthetic training device.
e) Records / reports all defects in the device and / or facilities.
The five behaviours are written generically ("any devices used for training"); for instructors operating non-FFS devices (FTDs, fixed-base FNPTs, computer-based training stations, classroom AV setups) the same structure applies with operational substance proportional to the device.
Connections
- A2.4 Unit 3 Manage the Trainee. The previous Unit: trainee-management is the precondition for the in-the-room delivery this Unit grades.
- A2.6 Unit 5 Perform Trainee Assessment. The next Unit: assessment runs through the same in-the-room delivery this Unit covers, but the framework grades them separately.
- A2.9 Appendix 1 Facilitation Competencies. The companion appendix that operationalises Element C Desirable Behaviour g.
- 3.1 Introduction. The cluster's depth treatment of the techniques behind Element B and Element C.
- 4.1 Introduction. Training-aid design and use; Element B Desirable Behaviour e grades against that material.
- 7.3 General Debrief Techniques. The facilitation discipline Element C Desirable Behaviour g cross-references through Appendix 1.
- A1.4 Facilitation Techniques. The FSF / NASA upstream of the LOS facilitator behaviours.
- 9.1 Introduction. Synthetic training device operation; Element G grades against that discipline.
- 12.2 Instructor Competencies. The instructor-duties summary of the same competency structure.
- Facilitation. The instructional technique that Element C Desirable Behaviour g operationalises.