Air Date: 11-4-2011| Episode: 226
This week we start the “Education Summit” on IAQ Radio. The IAQ/IEQ, disaster restoration and building science industries have a tremendous mixed bag of educational approaches and options...
Full Description:
This week we start the “Education Summit” on IAQ Radio. The IAQ/IEQ, disaster restoration and building science industries have a tremendous mixed bag of educational approaches and options. How can IAQ Radio and our friends help standardize the process of preparing people to move these industries forward? This week we will talk to Joy Finch, MS Department Head/Environmental, Occupational Health and Safety Corporate and Career Development Division and get her input on the education side of the industry.
Z-Man’s Blog:
Training that Works
Joy Finch, Associate Professor and Department Head for Environmental, Health and Safety Training at Greenville Technical College (GTC) was today’s guest on IAQradio. GTC has been an educational institution for 50 years and has concentrated on adult learning for 45 of those years. With the motto of Training that Works, the school is focused on tying education to employment. GTC’s programs use a combination of instructional technologies to meet the outcome needs of students. Under Joyce’s leadership, GTC is responsive to market trends and needs. Joyce is professionally well connected and was able to quickly respond to the need for training lead renovators, over 6,000 lead renovators have gone through GTC’s program. Joyce comes across to the listening audience as perky and upbeat, a combination of her outgoing personality and from her formal training as a pianist.
Nuggets mined from today’s show:
· Contractors who attend GTC programs and learn how to comply with stringent government regulations are frustrated by losing jobs to fly-by-night contractors who don’t.
· The paint company Sherwin Williams is a good lead renovator resource.
· Conventional classroom training is “the sage on stage.
· ”The difference between education and training: education teaches critical thinking and the drawing of conclusions, while training has a specific and well defined goal.
· Online training institutions are the result of a forced compromise driven by economic realities. Most online training courses are deficient because instructors create courses and hand them over to IT folk who upload them. Superior online programs are actively instructor led, providing more than computer only training: they provide some student interaction with instructor, the ability for students to pose and have their questions promptly, group projects, phone conferences.
· Blended learning, combines online training with hands-on clinical training.
· The value of capturing education for future use, recording lectures, etc.
· Nothing currently can replace the personal dynamic between teacher and student.
· Interested? GTC has a 2 year building science program.
· The Environmental Information Association www. eia-usa.org, is using a multidisciplinary approach to improve and energize environmental training.
FYI, GTC hosts IAQ Training Institute courses.
Today’s Music: Education Song by Art by Axidnt
Z-Man Signing Off
