For me, teaching is the hardest job but I think we all have to do that academically or professionally at some point in our life. In my professional career of a year, I learnt a lot from my supervisors and I believe this learning will continue as I work more. However, it’s high time for me to teach other teammates of mine too. Even if I am not an expert in teaching, I might know a bit more than those who just joined the team. Whenever, I am conducting a session, I always follow some steps, which are:
- Need assessment: At first, I probe myself what exactly the trainees want to be trained on and what are their expectations from me as a teacher. Inquiring about them helps me to develop the components of the sessions in detail.
- Knowledge assessment: I assess my own knowledge and expertise level whether I am capable to train them on their desired topics or not.
- Gather information: I go through some literature or search. Reading helps me to note down what I might add to the session with actual ideas.
- Comfortable environment: Establishing a comfortable environment to talk, ask questions, share opinions, and have open discussions can ensure a successful and interactive training session.
- Key points of the session: At the beginning of the training session, I try to assure my trainees that the session would not make them uncomfortable and this will enable them to enrich their knowledge level. This helps the trainees to fully concentrate in the session. I try to highlight key points of the total session so that trainees can evaluate themselves at the last of the session.
- Using easy language: I present with an easy language to make the trainees understand what I want to train them.
- Probing question: In the training session, sometimes we lose concentration, we get distracted. In that case, using probing questions to the trainees helps to regain their concentration in the session.
- Conducting question-answer sessions: Encourage the participants to ask questions; it helps both the trainer and trainees to look for the critical matters that might have been skipped.
– Nusrat Parvin Mitu
Bangladesh Society of Women in Public Health
