Maybe everyrthing on their should have a train the trainer course. Instead of a just guess what it all means approach 
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Maybe we shouldn’t expect every cadet to study aviation to the level needed for Senior and Master? It should be a specialism, perhaps Silver or Gold Aviation, rather than a requirement that every Sqn delivers it and every cadet has to complete it to progress through the ATC (or CCF I assume?)
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And what exactly would those cadets do on ‘classificstion training nights’…
Or do we have to run a seperate room for them?
I am happy if my cadets access google, at the very least they have spent a few moments searching the perticulat question, read it and then chosen the best answer in their exam.
There are some CFAV out there who just give the answers so that the box is ticked and they can move on to the next thing on the programme.
Giving access to the training material as some have mentioned is key so that those keen cadets can digest the information in their own time. What we can control is that the cadets cannot access the exam without CFAV adding their name to the exam list. This would then stop a cadet going from 1st class to Master in a weekend.
The other thing to do is speak to the cadets and set expectations.
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I don’t know. Something fun or interesting maybe??? Something other than sitting in a classroom doing learning like the kids already do for 25-30hours per week… at least at schools have somebody who’s actually a teacher and knows their subject matter (and hasn’t just downloaded a powerpoint from Learn and is delivering it off the back of an inhouse MOI course which doesn’t actually cover the subject matter).
The presence of the BTEC at least gave a credible outcome to why we’ve pursued Classification training. Without it there, there’s no carrot… we’re doing it because we’ve always done it…
Sadly, it’s one of the few elements of “aviation” left within the organisation… but it doesn’t mean that the 900+ squadrons (plus CCFs) across RAFAC are best equipped to deliver it! I’d rather focus parade nights on engaging activities and sack off classification training entirely - OR - have it delivered on via Wing Training weekends - by SMEs who actually understand - not to mention being passionate about - the finer intricacies of engines, radio and radar or aircraft handling.
Anyways… back to Bader Learn…
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I passed airframes on paper by “educated guesswork”.
The goal should be to informally assess that they have a generalised working knowledge and awareness of a topic before putting them in for the exam, if it takes research and notes to pass the exam, then that’s a skill check in itself - you’ve still got to find the right answer.
Doctors look things up, Devs have Stack overflow, engineers refer to documentation…
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A good 10% of my time is spent researching/finding out how to do things. This is a skill. You can point and say I ‘just Google things’ but the fundamental understanding of what I am looking at had to come first.
The same applies to the cadet exams.
I am not discounting the idea of adapting the classification training as I agree, unless you have an experienced SME the subject is often ‘Death by PowerPoint’ and neither the instructor nor the cadets engage with it.
That said, similarly to the likes of martial arts (where coloured belts are used to signify development) having a progressive training syllabus that allows cadets to develop I feel is key. There is such much more that we do in this organisation that could give a cadet the opportunity to move through the classification syllabus but in a more engaging way i.e. Cyber could move away from a stand alone badge to form part of a classification badge possibly?
We are seeing that our age groups are much younger than 10+ years ago but the classification syllabus is still working on the basis that we still have a large amount of cadets staying past their 18th birthday which is just not the case.
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Exactly. I spend a lot of time on Google, poring over data sheets, or with industry and HSE guidance documents. A little too much because I’m both nerdy and (through a certain degree of anxiety) somewhat hyper-fixated on the correct answer. BUT I need to know what I’m looking for, where to find it, and how to recognise and parse what is irrelevant or incorrect.
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These are all good points about online research and open book tests teaching life skills rather than being considered ‘cheating’; however, these skills are not being taught when the exams can be passed by simply typing the exam questions into Google.
To teach these skills, the tests would need to be redesigned so that answers required proper research or someone would have to litter the internet with a minefield of wrong answers for the those being examined to have to trawl through and assess which sources were reliable.
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I wonder if this philosophy of giving the cadets the training material to self-study, only for them to not self-study and sit the exam and google all the answers, led to Pearson pulling the plug on the BTEC?
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From what I understand, it was part of it. Something to do with integrity of exam conditions.
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If in doubt, ask here…
From RAFAC Learn:
Please report all course issues to the course owners. We are working on a way of displaying this information in the future
Yeah, right, nothing listed on the Heat Illness Prevention trg modules. The modules won’t load (using Chrome - worked for other trg) & alternative browsers.
Who do I report an issue to please? I’ve searched all over Learn & elsewhere = nothing.
TIA!
Do you use Teams much? If so, it might be worth asking within the Learn Beta Team. You can join it with this link.
THey are just very slow to load so be super patient, someone did it on Sunday and made the same observation
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At 15 mins, i ran out of patience.
Not so much for cadets…
Not good enough for those of us who live in rural areas and have to put up with internet that’s already 10 times slower than elsewhere.
How long are HQAC expecting people to wait? There’s only so many hours in the day.
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oh yeah, that is excessive