Training:

Figure: The Strategic Training and Development Process:

Business Strategy

Strategic Training and Development Initiatives

Training and Development Activities

Metrics That Show Value of Training

Mission Values Goals

Diversify the Learning Portfolio Improve Customer Service (education) Accelerate the Pace of Facultys Learning Capture and Share Knowledge

Make Development Planning Mandatory Develop Support groups for Knowledge Sharing Increase Amount of Students Participation

Learning Performance Improvement Reduced Students and Parents Complaints Reduced Turnover Teachers Satisfaction

Our school, Living Wisdom International School will follow this process of Strategic Training and Development.

Business Strategy:
The mission statement of Living wisdom international School, as mentioned earlier, is Learn, work, play, think, live and go beyond. This is a time for young people to explore their individuality and develop their willpower. Teachers will offer challenges through community service, adventure trips, time for self-discovery, and personalized levels of academic excellence. Moreover, we at LWIS want to add

value by not only providing qualitative education but we want to promote a learning culture through cross blending Bangladeshi and western culture. Our short term goal is to sustain our quality of education through high performance work system whereas longer term goal is to build a brand image that succeeds in making learning fun for the students.

Strategic Training and Development Initiatives:

In order to promote LWIS as a continuous learning organization, it is not only important to provide proper education to students, but it is crucial to offer training program to teachers so that they have the adequate skills to provide proper education to the students in an effective manner so that the students can grasp knowledge successfully. Moreover, initiatives must be taken to develop feedback program from students as well as their parents. The training program for teachers at LWIS must be planned in a way so that teachers are passive recipients of information, knowledge and they, as passive recipients, can understand how they can successfully deliver knowledge to students.

Training and Development Activities:

We have tried to develop an effective training system for the faculties of LWIS (our one of the most important asset). Details on designing an effective training system for LWIS is discussed later in the section. Moreover, we have tried to include teachers evaluation by students to ensure that feedback from students who play a vital role for developing an effective training program for teachers.

Metrics of the value of Training:

We at LWIS believe that an effective training program will facilitate effective learning of teachers as well as the students, thus resulting in higher performance standards of teachers, increasing teachers job satisfaction as well as reducing students and parents complaints. Moreover, effective training program will ensure reduced turnover of teachers almost close to zero during the sustainability period and hence will enable LWIS to retain its highly skilled teachers.

Designing an effective training program:

An effective training program might be necessary at Living Wisdom International School for a number of reasons. Some of them are: To develop its brand image To prepare its qualified teachers with the required skills: interpersonal and others required to deliver knowledge in an effective manner. To familiarize the new teachers recruited to become familiarized with the organizations culture, policies and procedures. For high quality and high level of productivity by all employees For personal growth and higher morale

The following table shows an ideal training system to enhance effective performance in a typical organization. We have tried to follow some of the steps mentioned in the table to develop a training program for our residential English medium school named Living Wisdom International School. Table: An effective training system No. 1) The Training Process Needs assessment 2) Organizational analysis Person analysis Task analysis

Ensuring employees readiness for training Attitudes and motivation Basic skills

3)

Creating a learning environment Identification of learning objectives and training outcomes Meaningful material Practice Feedback Observation of others

4)

Ensuring transfer of training Self management strategies Peer and manager support

5)

Selecting training methods Presentational methods Hands-on methods Group methods

6)

Evaluating training programs Identification of training outcomes and evaluation design Cost-benefit analysis

Living Wisdom International School (LWIS) believes that in order to be successful when starting as a new school, the most important assets must be their teachers that will help Living Wisdom International School to fulfill its mission: Learn, work, play, think, live and go beyond. This will also enable LWIS to build its brand image over time. In order to have a pool of highly qualified, skilled and competent teachers, an effective training program is essential to train the teachers each year and some measures are to be taken for designing the training program, details of which are discussed below:

STEP 1: NEEDS ASSESSMENT A needs assessment has to be conducted in order to identify the pressure points for which training at LWIS might be necessary. An example of pressure point might be lack of basic skills of teachings by newly hired teachers who might have graduated recently and have no experience. These newly hired faculty might not have interpersonal skills mainly communication skills up to the standard to deliver their knowledge to students.

The outcomes of needs assessment will help LWIS to identify: What trainees needs to learn Who receives training Types and frequency of training How training should be evaluated

Needs assessment involves organizational analysis, person analysis and task analysis which occurs simultaneously. Needs assessment should be performed each year. (a) Organizational analysis: Effective training program have to be developed in a way so that it solves the pressure points that might be faced by LWIS when starting as a new organization. Moreover, organizational analysis might help to develop a training program consistent with LWISs strategy. Initially, LWIS must focus on developing a highly qualified work force and proper organizational analysis will indicate what types of training program might enable the human resources to achieve the required skills. The main emphasis must be placed on teachers to acquire people skills and other relevant skills. After a few years, if organizational analysis is to be conducted again, it will help LWIS what kind of strategy to pursue. If LWIS in later years, focuses on Concentration strategy (focusing on doing what it does best), training program should be designed so that existing employees can sharpen and retain their skills. On the other hand, if LWIS focuses on Internal growth strategy, training program should be designed to solve unique staffing problems and how LWIS attempts to develop internally. If LWIS focuses on external growth strategy, then training should be designed to resolve conflict. Moreover, organizational analysis will help to analyze whether LWIS has the necessary resources (budget, time, use of internal or external consultants, work samples) to develop the training program. Furthermore, information from organizational analysis will help to design appropriate training programs that is supported by managers and peers.

(b) Person analysis: It is a process that helps to identify which faculties, needs what types of training and whether these faculties are ready for training. Initially person analysis might reveal that most of the new teachers hired might need basic skills training as well as training to understand the organizational culture LWIS likes to promote. But after a few years, depending on person analysis, LWIS might identify which faculties, either existing or new ones need training and whether these faculties are ready for training. Factors that affect facultys performance and learning are: personal characteristics (ability, skills, attitude, and motivation); input (understand what, how, when to perform, whether they have necessary resources); output (expectations for learning performance; consequences (positive and negative incentives to perform); feedback (frequent and specific feedback on how job is performed).

(c) Task analysis: It is a process that will help to identify all the tasks required to be performed in a job and all the knowledge, skills, abilities required to successfully complete all the tasks. Task process includes the following steps: Selecting a job ( Selecting a specific course to be taught by faculty) List tasks to be performed ( list things that faculty needs to do and teach students in the courses) Validate and confirm the preliminary list of tasks ( Managers and faculty trainees must determine whether important tasks- regardless of how frequently they are performed or their level of difficulty- will be included in training) Identify knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform all the required tasks (For training purposes, information concerning how difficult it is to learn knowledge, skill and ability is expected to be acquired by faculty before taking the course).

STEP 2: ENSURING EMPLOYEES READINESS FOR TRAINING The second step in the training design process is to evaluate whether faculties are ready to learn. Readiness for training refers to whether (1) faculties have the personal characteristics (ability, attitudes, beliefs and motivation) necessary to learn program content and apply it on the job and (2) the work environment will facilitate learning and not interfere with performance. In order to provide effective training program, it is very important to motivate the faculties to learn. Motivation of faculties to learn can be ensured in the following ways: 1. Self efficacy is the faculties belief that they can successfully learn the content of the training program. Self efficacy level can be increased in the following ways: a. b. c. Letting faculty trainees know that the purpose of training is to improve performance, not to identify areas where faculties are incompetent. Providing as much information as possible about the training program and purpose of training prior to the actual training. Providing real life examples of how training might help the faculties.

d.

Providing faculties with feedback that learning is under their control and they have the ability to overcome any learning difficulties

2. Understanding the Benefits of Training: Managers (responsible for conducting training program) should communicate the potential job-related, personal, and career benefits that faculties may receive as a result of the training program. 3. Awareness of Training Needs, Career Interest, and Goals: To be motivated, faculties must be made aware of their skill strengths and weaknesses and of the link between the training program and improvement of their weak skills. 4. Work Environment Characteristics: Two critical determinants of motivation to learn are situational constraints and social support. a. Situational constraints (lack of proper tools and equipment, materials and supplies, budgetary support, and time) are a critical determinant of motivation to learn. b. Social support (managers and peers willingness to provide feedback and reinforcement) is a critical determinant of motivation to learn. Certain steps must be taken to ensure that work environment enhances faculty trainees motivation to learn such as providing proper tools, materials, budgetary support, time as well as job related feedback and social support to the faculty trainees. A literacy audit must be conducted to gather information and to analyze the information in order to ensure that the faculty members have the required basic skills such as cognitive ability and readability ability needed to understand the content of training program.

STEP 3: CREATING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT In order to design an effective training program, it is very important to transform LWIS into a learning organization. For faculty trainees to acquire knowledge and skills in the training program and to apply this information in their jobs, the training program needs to include specific learning principles and to provide useful instructional events.

1. Faculty trainees need to know why they should learn. a. Training objectives based on the training needs analysis help faculty trainees understand why they need training. b. A good training objective should have three components:

(1) A statement of what the faculty trainees are expected to do (performance). (2) A statement of the quality or level of performance that is acceptable (criteria). (3) A statement of the conditions under which the faculty trainees are expected to perform the desired outcome (conditions). 2. Faculty trainees need to use their own experiences as a basis for learning. 3. Moreover, faculty trainees need to have opportunities to practice. a. If practice is to be effective, it needs to actively involve the trainee and include repeated practice. b. Distributed or multiple practice sessions have been shown to result in more efficient learning of skills than continuous practice. c. It is probably best to employ both whole practice (all tasks are practiced at the same time) and part practice (a task is practiced individually as soon as it is introduced) in a training session. 4. Faculty trainees need feedback. a. To be effective, feedback should focus on specific behaviors and be provided as soon as possible after the trainees behavior. b. Positive trainee behavior should be verbally praised or reinforced. 5. Faculty trainees can learn by observing others. To enhance faculty learning by observing existing, high performing faculty members, LWIS needs to allow the scope for Community of Practice. Community of Practice refers to group of employees who work together, learn from each other and develop a common understanding of getting work accomplished.

STEP 4: ENSURING TRANSFER OF TRAINING A. Transfer of training refers to the use of knowledge, skills, and behaviors learned in the training environment on the job. 1. Transfer of training is influenced by the climate for transfer, manager support, peer support, opportunity to use learned capabilities, technology, support, and self-management skills 2. Climate for transfer refers to faculty trainees perceptions about a wide variety of characteristics of the work environment that facilitate or inhibit use of trained skills or behavior. The LWISs work environment should be organized in such a

way that it promotes a climate of transfer which is significantly related to positive changes in behaviors following training. 3. Manager support refers to the degree to which faculty trainees managers (1) emphasize the importance of attending training programs and (2) stress the application of training content to the job. Transfer of training is facilitated through reinforcement (use of proper action plans). The action plan is organized in such a way so that identifies (1) specific projects or problems that the trainees will work on and (2) equipment or other resources that must be provided to help the trainee. Support for training can be provided at LWIS by scheduling special sessions which explains the following things: The training purpose must be communicated to the trainees and make them understand how training relates to performing job tasks properly, performance appraisals etc Expectations must be set in such a way that it encourages attendance at training sessions Practice opportunities must be given along with reinforcement for use of training A follow up program with trainees must be provided so that trainees become aware of their progress in using newly acquired capabilities. Support from peers also ensures transfer of training. The peers of NSU must encourage the trainees by communicating the positive effects of training and be supportive of their fellow members. This might motivate the trainees which eventually results in transfer of training.

4. Opportunity to use learned capabilities (opportunity to perform) refers to the extent to which the trainee is provided with or actively seeks experience with newly learned knowledge, skill, and behaviors from the training programs. Opportunity to perform includes breadth, activity level, and task type. Work assignments must be given to faculty members who received the training. Work assignment should be designed in such a way that it will allow faculty members to demonstrate their learned skills. Initially work assignments should be given to all the newly hired teachers as LWIS starts as a new organization. but years passes, steps might be taken to delegate work assignments to newly hired faculty trainees as well as existing faculty trainees that perform poorly in order to demonstrate all the skills they learned during their training period and to ensure that the faculty member understand and use the learned skills in effective manner.

5. Training programs should prepare faculty trainees to self manage their use of new skills and behaviors on the job.

STEP 5: SELECTING THE TRAINING METHOD

When we are about to start something with new people, it is needed to give an over view of the work to the new comers. It can be done by an orientation program. An orientation program is nothing but activities that introduce new employees to the organization and their work unit. It is needed to have a orientation program at least 3 weeks before the employee starts working. We are going to recruit some quality teachers for our schools. And we have planed to arrange a good orientation program. Though it is not a big organization we have planned to go through an informal orientation. A small seminar will be held including the principle, lead teachers, teachers, some of our guests and the new teachers. The purpose of the orientation program is to reduce the anxiety we all feel when beginning a new job. The program should familiarize the new member with the organizations objective, history, philosophy, procedures, and rules. The lead teacher will introduce the newly recruited teachers with the other stuffs in the program. A small welcome ceremony is going to make them feel that it truly cares for its employees. One of the most stressful aspects of starting a new job is the thought of entering the unknown. Everything is not possible to describe in the program so we have planed to supply a list of items few days before the started their teaching. The items are listed below-

District policies. Faculty handbook. Student and parent handbooks. Curriculum book or guidelines. Classroom management examples. A checklist of supplies needed for the first day of school and throughout the school year. The name and phone number of the subordinates. A schedule for orientation. A tentative scheduled calendar for the school year.

Moreover, presentation methods might as well be effective to ensure that all faculties can acquire new knowledge, skills and behavior that helps LWIS to achieve its mission and gain competitive advantage over its competitors. Presentation methods are training methods in which trainees are passive recipients of information. Presentation method should include the instructor led classroom instruction technique. The classroom instruction techniques will help the group of faculty trainees to interact easily and actively with the expert trainer Instructor. Trainees will receive job related examples and exercises that allows them to acquire the needed knowledge, skills and abilities and develop their interpersonal roles required to be an effective lecturer. In Classroom Instruction techniques, the trainees receive information passively as a student does and this also allows the faculty trainees to understand how they must behave and deliver knowledge to students of LWIS successfully. This technique allows trainees to learn quickly and transfer their training to jobs. Moreover, a training program is often conducted yearly by Edexcel or Cambridge board that is to be conducted at British Council on specific courses such as Bangla, English, Mathematics, Science or courses of Business studies. Teachers at LWIS must be encouraged to attend these training programs to ensure that they gain and retain the right skills.

STEP 6: EVALUATING TRAINING PROGRAM

We believe all the training methods mentioned above will yield desirable results. To evaluate the training program emphasis must be given on student evaluation. Student evaluation of faculty members must be designed and conducted every six months, i.e. twice a year. Student evaluation must be scrutinized with care to identify which faculty members are performing poorly. Once identified, these faculty members will receive the training. Once the training is complete, the facultys performance will be observed by an experienced, highly skilled professional third party observer that must be hired by LWIS. And then again the facultys performance is measured by the students evaluation next time. If the faculty performs well then training program has been effective. However, one needs to find out whether poor performance after receiving training program, is related to individual attributes or training program effectiveness. The solution to this problem is to identify all the poor performing faculties for one semester, give each of them the same training and then evaluate their performance on the basis of students evaluation next time. If one or two individual performs poorly, then poor performance will be attributed to individual characteristics but if all faculty trainees performs poorly, then there is a fault in training program and it should be reviewed to make it more effective. Note that when all students faculty evaluation form is taken into account, the factor of students biases becomes negligible. If the training method is found effective, then it means that training program has ensured the trainees to acquire cognitive abilities and other required skills needed to perform the jobs.

Well, we believe that the training program mentioned above is very cost effective and the benefits derived from the training program will ensure LWIS to achieve its both shorter and longer term goals and emerge as a successful educational institution.