Peter Van Dyk

About me

I am new to the instructor community. I have been working with a youth group for the past 10 years as a volunteer instructor and recently started volunteering in a search and rescue team. i recently got a job as an instructor at the colorado school of trades instructing refinishing of firearms and basic tool usage.

Activity

Peter Van Dyk

Blog

Being ready for a suprise inspection

I am constintly suprised at how often i find my military training crossing over for the civilian world. The course I took spoke about being ready for an onsite inspection and alot of it I thought was common sense, give them a clean a quiet place to work, Be polite and professional, have all of your documents in order. There are a few other things to be ready for that need to be ready on a daily basis. the biggest one is hygiene. wear clean properly fitted clothing every day that is appropraite to the working environment. Have a comb… >>>

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Blaming the student and groups

Reading this section bothered me. There was a part where it was suggested to put these students who don't care or are unprepared into groups so they can see the value of group participation in their work and the other students cant move forward until he or she does his part. Last month I took a CEE course (ED105 or ED106) saying groups should be graded on both group and individual participation. So the way I see it is if the last is true, assigning an I don't care learner to a group will not only allow the IDC learner… >>>

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Late work. case by case or across the board standards.

Im very new to the professional instructor world (4 months) I am having a hard time deciding what would be a better option on the case of late assignments. Case by case can be time consuming and frustrating. However case by case seems to be more fair with situations such as family emergencies, medical reasons etc but a firm late policy for all regardless is fair because these situations arise in the real world and depending on the boss or company, late assignments will be dealt with case by case or a total no go. My questions is this. Is… >>>

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Are groups a good option?

im still new to the professional instructor world, only 4 months. Any ideas that might help with the balance?

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Are groups a good option?

Im still trying to wrap my head around the way the civilian world works when it comes to working in groups. Military life is mostly autocratic style of leadership and im not used to having equal input by all. any advice for a beginner in the civilian world?

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Records are the best ammo for attack and defence

Why do you think that is? and what are some good ways to deal with this other than records keeping. my sister is a high school teacher and she calls home has parent conferences and so on however I work with older learners 21 and up. I dont think a note to mom and dad would help. any advice would be greatly appreciated

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Records are the best ammo for attack and defence

Many times in school I have seen students going to the dean blaming instructors for poor grades. keeping good records of attendance, progress, participation and other notes will be crucial when defending yourself against students who are set on blaming you for their failure. however use caution not do disclose any information to unauthorized persons. student records are confidential and misuse could have serious consequences.

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Using comedy or tragedy to gain and keep attention

in the military before we started class the instructor would often show a funny video or an unfortunate video on the topic at hand to gain students attention. By bringing out the emotions such as joy, anger, fear in the learners, they can see a new aspect of the subject at hand. for example, when we learned about improvised explosive devices, we were shown videos of people killed or wounded by these weapons or videos of blowing up washing machines for training. these gave us a better appreciation for the power of explosives far better than a simple lecture with… >>>

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

Death by powerpoint

Being in the military for 10 years a common form of instruction was lecture with power point as an aid. These classes we ineffective at getting the knowledge needed due to long classes, cluttered slides and a "check in the box" mentality. The instructor teaching the class was often ordered to do so and often was unmotivated therefore reading off the slide in a monotone voice with his back to the class. These classes would go on for hours and once a year, several days are set aside for these periods of instruction which last all day. This resulted in… >>>

Peter Van Dyk

Discussion Comment

organization and class preparation.

Having handouts and materials ready is crucial. In a lab environment having all necessary chemicals, instruments, or any other materials will show preparedness. I have these items neatly put away to show students that setting up for the project is part of real world expectations. I feel this reduces the "my way or high way" option because students can set up the work stations which will work best for them to be more efficient while still teaching responsibility and accountability if the students do not have everything they need. Is this a logical way of doing things?

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