Description of This Tool

A process for periodically reviewing and revising training sessions or courses in a systematic manner.

• To maintain the relevance of a given course
  
• To justify the choice of topics and methodologies when presenting the course to potential clients with confidence
  
• To strengthen the competence of trainers, stimulate experienced trainers with new material and offer new trainers a carefully designed guide to their work
  

Choose a course or session that has been used for several years (or a shorter period of time if the topic is subject to frequent changes). Create a workgroup, ideally including both trainers and program or field staff, so both perspectives are included. If at all possible, include a past trainee.

Step 1 Review all the evaluations of the course by participants and trainers. Request honest, open feedback from the client organizations. Summarize these findings to determine what has worked best and what has been less successful.

You may find that your standard evaluation has either been too superficial, too focused on logistics (food and lodging), or on factors that are not under your control. A question "Which topics did you like most?" is not very revealing, because you don't know what the standard of comparison is. Questions about sessions being too long or too short are usually asked without any context. Interpreting these evaluation questionnaire is difficult. Look for patterns. Similar responses may hold some clues to particular parts of the course. For example, when a session is considered too long by two thirds of the participants, it warrants a closer look: either the participants were bored because of the delivery, or bored because they already knew the material. Similarly, if a session was considered too short, it might have been too complex for the time slot given, or raised considerable interest, creating a need that was not being satisfied.

If there are no evaluations, or if they hold few useful clues, you should start calling either past participants, or the organization(s) whose staff has been trained. This may provide you with some anecdotal information about the effect of the training on the participants' post-training performance.

At any rate, make notes on how the evaluation can be improved. This too is part of the course review! You might want to include both a written (better designed) evaluation questionnaire AND an informal small/large group review of the course during the closing sessions. You may also want to engage program officers or supervisors as the ears and eyes of the trainers as they visit former participants during their visits to the field. Volume V, Number 3 of The Family Planning Manager, "Assessing the Impact of Training on Staff Performance" may be a useful resource.

Step 2 Review the course purpose and learning objectives and revise any that are not directly relevant to what participants are expected to know and do after the course. Replace or add new learning objectives as needed. Establish for each objective how you will be able to determine whether the objective has been achieved.

In order to do this, the review group has to know something about the trainees' job requirements, the organizational context and the realities of the field. Take a look at each (learning) objective and ask whether the outcome is relevant. It is at this point that you can benefit from the different perspectives and viewpoints of your task force or review committee team members. Whenever you are in doubt as a team, put the objective aside and move on. Sometimes things become clearer after some time has passed; otherwise check again with former participants or client organizations. You might find that there were too many objectives, forcing the course participants through much too much material, with little time for actual practice and reflection. What is too many? More than 5 objectives for a two-week course. The more objectives and the shorter the course, the more likely that the course will be a theoretical one, because practice takes an enormous amount of time. If theory is the purpose of the course, and this fits with clients' expectations, then it is fine. If not, prioritize the objectives and decide which ones should be removed, and which ones to add in light of current or new developments you may know about (or as expressed by former participants and/or client organizations).

Step 3 If the course is organized in broad modules, review each modules to be sure that it helps achieve the overall course objectives. Delete or add modules as needed.

This step closely follows the previous one, both in its implementation and reasoning.

Step 4 Establish a chronology of modules/sessions to create a logical flow of ideas throughout the course.

The logic of any course is a subjective matter. Some courses use a conceptual framework as the glue that holds the pieces together and dictates the sequencing. Management models or leadership models (any book about management or leadership tends to present its own model) can be useful that way. Another logical sequence would be a series of questions (much like the ones used in a strategic planning exercise) such as: "Where do we want to go?", "How do we know when we've gotten there?";, "Where are we now?", "How do we get there?"; Whether a model works or not depends on how accessible the logic is. A clear indication will be your committee members first reaction. If you have to do a lot of explaining, it might not be quite that logical! Simplify! Beware however, if you use a model, don't confuse the participants by introducing slightly different models later in the course.

You are now ready to take a closer look at each module.

Step 5 Agree on a general purpose for each module and the sessions that should be included to carry out that purpose.

You should be able to explain why this module is included in the course, and what you hope to accomplish with it.

Step 6 Specify for each of the sessions the topics to be covered and the learning outcomes.

Always keeping in mind the purpose of the module, determine (if this wasn't already done) the topics you plan to address and precisely what the trainees are supposed to do or know at the end of the session. Here you have to decide how narrow or broadly you want to deal with the topic(s). Beware of the tendency of subject matter experts to want to broaden rather than narrow the focus, and include more than is possible given the length of the session or module. This may require some negotiation. It is important to have someone with a field perspective included in this discussion.

Step 7 Review (and re-design) the activities that will take place during the session.

Look at all the activities that are currently part of the session. Is the objective of the activity clear? Does it fit with the purpose of the module? Is it likely to contribute to achieving the desired learning outcomes? See also Planning an Event. This part of the process is best undertaken by a group of experienced trainers, drawing on their personal expertise and enriching this expertise by referring to up-to-date or classic training resources -- books, journals, and articles.

Step 8 Review and update all examples and exercises used in the training to include new information and programmatic innovations in the field. For more information see our collection of tools from the field, Fieldstones.

Step 9 If possible, try out any new training activities on your committee members or any group of volunteers. At MSH we sometimes organize so-called "brown bag lunches" to which all are invited. These one-hour sessions are a good way to "test the waters", practice, or experiment with new materials.

Step 10 Revise the trainees' and trainers' guides to reflect the changes in the curriculum.