1. Provide instruction

2. Instructor roles
identifying the individual and organisational needs of the client
providing advice on the instruction (training) available
planning the instruction
researching available training materials and accessing these resources
developing instructional or training resources
providing appropriate instruction
modeling appropriate behaviors, attitudes, skills and ethics
obtaining client feedback
providing informative feedback to clients, both individuals and the organisation
reviewing training outcomes.

3. Types of instruction or training
Instructor or trainer
Sometime during the course of your career, you may be called on to either work with clients or to provide instruction to clients or co-workers. The terms ‘instructor’ and ‘trainer’ can be interchanged in this topic. Note that in this topic, we interchange terms such as instructor and trainer; and client, user, trainee and learner.
Figure 1: The terms ‘instructor’ and ‘trainer’ can be interchanged

4. One-to-one instruction
One-to-one instruction is personalised training. It’s when you instruct or train someone individually to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to be able to competently undertake a task. You may, as trainer, for example, sit next to the learner (client) at their workstation and go through the features of an updated version of a software package; or you may give step-by-step instructions to someone over the phone.

5. Determining client’s training needs
To determine a client’s training needs, you will need to consider the overall goal of the training and:
the specific tasks the client needs to perform
the skills needed in order to perform those tasks
the different levels of training needed for different learners — novice, advanced, power-user or technical training.

6. Strategies to find out about client needs
Determining the client’s training needs is similar to determining any sort of client need. You must be careful not to make assumptions!
Focus on what the learner needs to know in order for them to perform the task, and also find out what they already know. The training needs to be valuable and appropriate to this particular learner or group.

7. Some strategies to find out about client’s training needs
Ask
Conduct a diagnostic activity
Practise good communication skills
Observe the client as they attempt to complete the task
Do some research
Find out about barriers to the learner (client)

8. Motivate the learners
Before anything else, make sure that the learners have a positive attitude towards the subject matter of the training. Develop rapport and gain their confidence. You can do this, for example, by introducing yourself and perhaps talking a bit about yourself. Try to get them to talk about past work experiences and training. That’s one way of developing mutual trust and respect between you and your clients. Even if the learners already have a positive attitude, explain the importance of the training — how the skills learnt will benefit their work practices and allow them to be more multi-skilled

9. Monitor a learner’s progress and provide feedback
To see whether learners are actually making progress, you need to monitor them. Here are some monitoring strategies:
Ask a learner questions and provide immediate feedback.
Get them to perform a task (even if it is very simple) and observe them. Setting a variety of such activities will help you determine the level of skills and knowledge achieved.
Remember to record such observations. There are often organisational guidelines which should be used for this sort of documentation, and these records are used to support recommendations on further training needs.

10. Demonstrate practical skills
This is the most popular method for conducting sessions where a client has to learn new practical skills.
There are three steps in this method:
Talk about the whole skill (or group of skills) in broad terms.
Demonstrate the whole skill without instructions and at normal speed.
Demonstrate again, slowly, and describe each step.

11. Evaluation strategies
The final stage of training is evaluation. The major aim of training evaluation is to verify whether the client’s requirements have been met. Evaluation is usually based on the feedback obtained from the client.
What can you do to review instruction to ensure that client’s needs have been met? Here are some suggestions:
Ask the client probing questions.
Conduct group discussions.
Observe the client and obtain feedback.
Accept anonymous feedback from the client, e.g. using a questionnaire.
Evaluate the client’s feedback.
Evaluate yourself.
Set up plan to implement findings.

12. Summary
We have discussed the process for providing instruction to clients in group or one-to-one training sessions. We started with an introduction to the roles of the instructor, what makes a good instructor, types of instruction or training and the advantages of one-to-one instruction. Then we moved on to exploring how to plan the training process, determine and meet client’s training needs, and finished with discussions on how to deliver and review instruction.
You must keep in mind that while effective training will contribute to users viewing training as a fundamental process, ineffective training may affect users’ confidence in themselves and/or the environment in which they work.