Most of us have had to participate in some type of training on our jobs, such as new employee orientation, lunch-and-learn workshops, Employee Assistance Program training, technical skill training, employee benefits update meetings, or management development workshops.Some of us have experienced on-the-job training.Others have participated in professional development workshops or skills-based continuing education classes.Think about the best and worst training experiences you have had.What made the best experiences excellent and what made the worst experiences terrible?
Write an 8-10 page essay (not including cover and reference pages) analyzing one of your best training experiences and one of your worst training experiences. Be specific in discussing what made the experiences good or bad. Please review the content of Weeks 4-8 on learning theories, the design of training, training methods, training evaluation, and transfer of learning.This material should be reflected in your essay.
Your essay should include brief descriptions of the training experiences:
The target audience
The objective(s) of the training (see Week 5)
The training site
Training methods used (see Weeks 7 and 8)
The major focus of your paper is your analysis, which is worth 65% of the grade for this assignment.Your analysis should include:
An assessment of the specific factors that contributed to the success or ineffectiveness of the training; for example, consider these questions:
Did the training achieve its objective(s)?
Was the training site conducive to learning?
Were the methods chosen appropriate for the topic and the audience?
Did you have opportunities to practice and receive feedback?
A discussion of the learning theory or theories that you believe guided the training (see Week 4).
A discussion of how your learning as well as the overall effectiveness of the training were evaluated (see Week 6).
An assessment of the competencies, knowledge, and/or skills demonstrated or not demonstrated by the trainer(s). The ATD competency model (see Week 1) is a good resource.
A discussion of whether or not you transferred what you learned to your job, and what contributed to your successful or unsuccessful transfer (see Week 4).
Your specific recommendations for improving the training, based on what you now know about effective training programs.
The information above should be included in your paper but you are free to organize your essay in whatever way makes sense to you.You may use the first person (“I attended a program” or “the trainer told us”) in discussing your experiences.Support your analysis with citations from the readings from this class or other HR courses, and additional resources posted in our classroom.Make sure you define all key terms and cite the source(s) of your definition.Since this is not primarily a research paper, no specific number of references is required.However, you must cite your sources.