Have you ever thought “Oh no, not that class again!”? Or woken up in the morning and dreaded going into your RTO and conducting your next training session or assessments for your students?
Let’s face it, motivation for training can fluctuate, some days we love being in the training room, other days we don’t. Trainers can get caught up in the routines and motions of carrying out training and assessment. Motivation is a big topic that we cover in our TAE program here at Plenty Training, but the importance of motivation management can’t be underestimated.
Never forget that as a trainer, your role and responsibility is to impact your students so much that they permanently change their thoughts, actions and behaviour around a certain topic area. It’s also your responsibility to impart the skills and knowledge for students to carry out new tasks in the workplace. But as we all know, students don’t master skills immediately and can take a lot of work to influence. The thing we need to realise is that students know instantly what our level of motivation and passion is for a topic and we can’t hide it. It will always reveal itself in some form.
Here are 6 simple ways you can keep your motivation high as trainer:
1. Get clear on your trainer mission
Training isn’t just training for the sake of a job. You need to get clear on your trainer mission and the impact that you want to have on the world. Training is all about solving problems. Your industry would typically have 3 or 4 problems that it consistently faces. Tap into those problems and remember that what you teach in the training room can go a long way to solving those problems.
2. Ask yourself the following critical questions
What would happen if your students don’t receive the training you will provide?
What is the biggest challenge that they face because they haven’t yet learnt what they will learn?
Why are you the best person to teach them?
Asking the above questions honestly will generally create some strong emotions within trainers and get you pumped and ready to get the job done.
3. Stay up to date with your PD
Below are three areas that a VET trainer and assessor must stay up to date with:
1) VET knowledge.
2) Developing yourself as a trainer.
3) Developments within your own industry.
Staying up to date with any changes and current knowledge can be a great way to stay passionate as you aim to share that information with your students.
4. Find a mentor
This one pretty much speaks for itself. You can only take your students in their learning as far as you yourself develop. So you need to be constantly going out there and finding new mentors that can stretch you, challenge you and inspire you to the next level. If you only teach what you have always known then your students may not be getting the very best that you have to offer. Seek out, observe and follow the mentors in your industry as they will provide just what you need to raise the standards.
5. Watch YouTube clips
If you want to expose yourself to new knowledge and motivation, YouTube can have some amazing resources for developing yourself as a trainer. I suggest spending 5 -10 mins a week just watching great trainers and presenters and see what you like about them and what you don’t. Remember, some of the greatest teachers can be the examples of what NOT to do. Also keep researching topics of interest that relate to your industry.
6. Create a ‘Progress Journal’
As a trainer we can have a tendency to be overly critical of ourselves. However, if you only focus on the negative things that may have gone wrong in a session, you can hinder your own speed of progress. Instead, start writing in a journal of all the things that you are really happy about with your sessions. What went well and what would you love to replicate going forward? Focusing on these things will build your confidence and also keep you willing and ready to embrace any new challenges that come up.
Regards,
Marc Miles
Plenty Training RTO number 32371