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A Guide to Transferable Credentials--and a Certification Decoder--for Trainers

From Training magazine online:

Thinking about certifying as a training and development professional? You certainly have many choices. U.S.-based professionals can choose among the CPLP, CPT, and CTT and those living in Canada have national certifications.

In addition to spelling out those acronyms, this article identifies the certifications available to training and development professionals. But first, it places certification within the broader scope of external credentials, and describes the role of transferable credentials in attesting to the qualifications of training and development professionals.

Check out the entire article at http://tinyurl.com/4z9tdw7

Career Challenges Faced by Highly Skilled Professionals

Here are some recent news about challenges that some highly skilled professionals face in maintaining their employability.

• In Sondage AQIII 2010 : La formation continue negligee (Survey 2010—Training continues to be neglected) (http://www.directioninformatique.com/DI/client/fr/DirectionInformatique/Nouvelles.asp?id=59624), Direction Informatique editor Denis Lalonde reports that a recent survey by a professional association serving independent Information Technology (IT) professionals shows that, in this fast-changing field, 51 percent have had no training in the past year and another 5 percent have spent less than $500 on training (well below the Canadian average for all workers, much less the average of all those working in IT).  

The article attributes the drop in training to the Internet; people are learning on their own.  That may be true, but I’m a bit more skeptical given that IT professionals who are employed in full-time jobs continue to receive significant amounts of training, perhaps more than other categories of workers.  So I can hypothesize several explanations for the findings. One is that independent  professionals don’t value training.  Another is that many are un- or under-employed and cannot afford training. A third is that, without a regular employer to cover training costs, professionals are not investing in their long-term skill development.   

• The Montreal Gazette editorial, Foreign-trained doctors get a taste of justice (http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/Foreign+trained+doctors+taste+justice/3855116/story.html) supports the finding of a recent report by the Quebec Human Rights Commission that medical schools in the province have unfairly prevented doctors trained outside of Canada from entering the residencies they must serve to earn their local medical licenses.  The editorial notes that although many of these foreign-trained doctors passed the qualifying exam, the medical schools found reasons to deny them placement in residency programs.  What’s worse, the editorial reported that these medical schools are rejecting these findings. 

CSTD Research-to-Practice Day

I hosted the second CSTD Research-to-Practice Day this year.

Responses generally seem positive.

Check out this thorough review by the e-Learning Guy at:

http://elearningguy.blogspot.com/2010/11/cstd-conference-my-day-1-summary.html

Corporate Responsibility, Possible Money Grabs, and the ROI of Tutoring: News Stirring Thought about Workplace Learning

• Business owner Paul Downs wonders "Do I owe my employees a career path? Although he wants to retain employees and found that specialist workers are the most productive, he wonders what happens when workers "top out" on the career paths within his company.  He voices a concern that many employers feel--but concludes the value of supporting his workers outweighs the costs.  Read his thoughts at http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/do-i-owe-my-employees-a-career-path/?ref=business.
• Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd make 10 predictions about the future of training in a recent posting on ASTD's Learning Circuits.  Most of the post focuses on the of technology in the future of workplace learning.  But they present more of an enthusiastic rather than critical look at the technology. For example, they see 3-D applications as a low-cost alternative to labs, without addressing the sometimes considerable cost of developing the software-based simulations.  Similarly, they talk about the increasing role of mobile apps but fail to link it to the larger--and ongoing--conversation about supporting performance and transferring training, which is the real process by which these applications for mobile devices offer value to learning.

They also note the role that public policy plays in encouraging workplace learning, and talk about individual learning accounts that some jurisdictions are offering their taxpayers.  But once again, they fail to demonstrate critical thinking about these accounts.  Meister and Willyerd present the accounts as additional revenue sources for tuition for workplace learning.  Why should workers pay their own cash for training on proprietary skills and products that only benefit the employer, when they could invest those funds in a neutral third-party provider who would provide the worker with durable, transferable skills that would make the worker attractive to all employers?  

In terms of the future of trainers, Meister and Willyerd advocate for mostly clerical role: accrediting workers' skills, saying that workers won't necessarily demonstrate competency through courses but, rather, through on-the-job activities. Meister and Willyerd present that certification responsibility as an exciting role--and the primary viable option for trainers.  But they only partially describe exactly what that role is for trainers.  Reading between the lines, if this role is similar to the role that Meister saw for in-the-trenches trainers at corporate universities, one real possibility of this view is that primary role of in-the-trenches trainers under this vision is to serve as contract administrators and trainers of on-the-job coaches—kind of like a specialized purchasing team for training.  This is hardly the "strategic partner" who has a "seat at the corporate table"  view advocated by the trade press and actively explored by strategic HRD research and theory.

Read the full article at http://www.astd.org/LC/2010/0710_meister.htm.

• Although, ostensibly about parents purchasing tutoring services for their children (a booming industry, which grew 5 percent last year, despite the recession and cuts to schools), Paul Sullivan’s exploration of the “returns” on such tutoring offers some glimpses into the challenges of tallying the ROI of training.   For example, some parents come to tutoring with unrealistic expectations—that the only successful outcome is acceptan999ce to an Ivy League school. I was also surprised by the fees that some of the Manhattan-based tutors charge—as high as 8 times the rate of many contract instructional designers and technical writers. Check out Sullivan’s analysis at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/your-money/21wealth.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all. Visited August 21, 2010.

Are We Really Stepping Up to Problems of Teacher Performance?

Teacher performance is a hot issue throughout formal education. Washington DC's superintendent, who instituted a new evaluation system (which seems intended to better reflect actual work performance) recently canned 241 teachers who received the lowest ratings (indicating unsatisfactory job performance). That's over 2.5 times more than were let go last year. Tamar Lewin recently filed a report on the situation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/education/24teachers.html?hpw

  

The issue is also being addressed at the university level. According to University Affairs, the Faculty Senate at the University of British Columbia, which sets educational policy, had voted to actively use student evaluations of teaching in making personnel decisions, like promotion and tenure. The faculty association (union) challenged it, saying that it violated the union contract, and took the university to court. An appeals judge sided with the Senate. Léo Charbonneau's report primarily focuses on the legal issues involved, but the personnel issues are no less compelling. Check out the report at http://www.universityaffairs.ca/senate-decision-vs-bog.aspx.