Wow

What a day. I know that most ITs can't imagine that at times the discussion went a little long, but we had to work through lunch and shorten a presentation or two to get done on time.

The day started with a problem solving session, where everyone with a problem brought it up to their table and we brainstormed solutions. There were more problems than solutions. Some of the problems:

• OJT/TPE processes
• Exam security
• Introductory safety topics in GET CBT
• New fleet transition
• IT task standardization/task creep. This one deserves more attention, I think. Line and training managers, according to the discussion, don't really know what ITs really do, and tend to think that we have a catch-all position. There were a lot of questions, especially from newer ITs about a) how to educate our customers on what we do and b) how to find the right questions to find out what it is our training and line managers really want.

We next went through a presentation on the SAT process and a breakdown of ADDIE. Then each table took an objective and tried to apply one or more of the segments of ADDIE to each criteria. The difficulty on many was picking one or two, and not putting evaluation on each of them. A couple of interesting notes came up. First, findings in Objective 2 are usually found by pulling a string from a finding in one of the other objectives i.e. the problem usually shows up somewhere else and is drilled down to Objective 2. That's not to say that everything goes back there, but that O.2 findings rarely show up on their own; it's kind of like Lyme Disease showing up as rheumatoid arthritis--it's masked under other symptoms. Second, and this is direct from Paul Manning, not everything has to meet 1.7. Not everything we teach needs performance measures.

Following was role in station training. It was said that ITs need to be in the plant observing and digging--be hands on rather than an academic in a cube. Another suggestion was to observe post-evaluation simulator critiques as a model for coaching. One plant has their instructors check quals in class before teaching starts, and they have a 2-minute drill at the beginning of class and after each break. A side note on this, and as a reminder to myself, I need to look up Tim Carter and his theories on generational learning; he says that the differences are overblown.

We went through the training warning flags and suggested solutions during an abbreviated working lunch.

Most of the afternoon was a fun session on learning theory. We were broken up into teams and given 100 index cards. Following certain guidelines and rules, we were to build the tallest tower within 10 minutes. My team won by a long shot. This was, however, a prelude to performing a gap analysis (by the losers--why'd they lose?), writing objectives for KSA, and then developing activities to train the procedure. Our objectives and activities were voted the best too...well, it was a tie. We were giving Addendum IV to ACAD 88-002 for a job aid. Thanks for making me read that already, Bill. It would be a great CT activity if it weren't so long--which is, in fact, the reason we won. We balanced structural integrity and aesthetics against time pressure, while other teams tried more for pretty, solid, or fast. While that didn't turn into the focus of the discussion, I think it's a reality-based topic that seminars like this could get into.

Paul Manning (are you paying attention Bill?) led a discussion of creative web searching. I left his list in my folder over at INPO; I'll post it later, but some other links included

http://www.copyright.mnscu.edu/clearinghouse_roster.htm for copyright owners

http://www.presentationzen.com/ with a list of public domain images

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html with a mindmap of GFES topics

OSHA's website was also brought up, as was a Pixar short entitled "Lifted," which is a good, funny depiction of TPE. It's available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NO2MbkIpxo, and I believe can be copyright cleared for training.

The last of the day was NANTel presenting some basics on the system. I think we'll have more on the last day about this. However, I know that our site has a lot of redundant material between NANTel and our site-specific CBT. We need to address this, and I believe that NANTel would be willing to help. Also, some sites have the supplemental personnel vendors clear the contractors through NANTel before they come on site, which saves the plant time & money, especially before an outage.

Off to dinner soon and an early night to bed. This is exhausting. Tomorrow's theme is Influencing Others, and includes Observation Skills, Coaching and Mentoring, and a long session on 1.7.

Please feel free to comment, disagree, coach, and/or reinforce.

Monday:

Atlanta has no gasoline. If you're thinking about driving here, do so in your own tanker truck. Ignore the mile-long line of people trying to follow you to a BP.

Meeting started at noon, with introductions of the instructors and of the students. I'm not the only IT with no prior nuclear experience, but there aren't many of us...yet. Get ready--the numbers show we're going to have to hire from outside the industry and Navy.

Next was a breakout exercise, somewhat of a diagnostic, where the five tables split a 50-question multiple guess test of TSD (not SAT) knowledge. After an answer period, the test was turned into a game where each table read its answer, and the other tables were able to challenge and pick up points. It was fun, but it wasn't the best test; there were a lot of ambiguous stems and distractors.

After a break, we came back to a discussion of our duties. I was surprised at the range of duties that ITs have across the industry. Some of us only coach instructors, while others do everything from lesson plan approval to ASER writing and more. I was also surprised at the disparity in numbers of ITs at various plants. Some of us have 5 per unit, and some have 1 for multiple units. There seems to be little rhyme or reason other than budget.

After another break, Paul Manning did a short presentation on nuclear power that led to the Special Characteristics video. I'd seen it, but it is a powerful presentation of the need for safety culture and questioning.

Off to dinner. Perhaps more posting afterward if I think of anything to add later. Please feel free to offer up your comments to the blog as well.

Edited to add: Bill, I ate at Pappadeaux tonight. You were right--it was delicious.

First Post

Off to INPO Sunday evening for Monday's start. I still haven't received any materials on the seminar, so I emailed Paul Manning. If I don't get a response, I'll go with May's agenda and show up for a noon start.

May's materials are posted at http://www.inpo.org/trainactivities/MtgSum/May2008/main.asp