eLearning Signup Through Your Facility: Now What?

by Stephanie Miele:

Woohoo, you received notification a student signed up for an eLearning course through YOUR facility!  This can be exciting and a little intimidating if you do not have experience working with eLearning students.  We are here to help you so both you and your student have the best experience possible with our products.

First Things First:

It’s important to remember eLearning does NOT replace time the student should be spending with an instructor.  Instead, it is intended to ENHANCE the time the spent with an instructor, and all course standards, procedures, and performance requirements still need to be met.  As an alternative to simply reading off questions and answers out of a book, the instructor now has the ability to start testing the student’s knowledge in a more practical setting straight away.

Reaching Out:

It is important that you reach out to the student, so plan on introducing yourself promptly and explain how things will progress once they have finished the online portion of the course.  While the student is informed that there will be additional training and fees associated with completing their certification before they purchase the eLearning, it is important to reach out to them and further explain what is expected of them.  Think of eLearning as a digital student manual, even though the student purchased the book, they still need to pay for their training.

Invite Them to Come for a Visit:

Invite the student to the dive center before class starts to discuss their schedule and have them fill out any student agreements, liability releases, and medical statements ahead of time.  This can also be a great opportunity to fit them for equipment and get them thinking about what gear they will need to purchase for class.  Building a rapport with the student is important and face to face meetings are a great way to establish a long lasting relationship.

Academic Training:

So what do you need to cover with the student academically?  That’s an important question, and the answer fits right in with the training philosophy at SDI/TDI/ERDI.  It depends on the student, really.  As a training facility, you can track your student’s eLearning progress by checking their progress report in the Facility Tools section of the website.  You can see what areas they are having difficulty with and prepare your lesson plans accordingly.  The most critical areas to cover are the questions that were missed on the final exam.  You will need to make sure the student is remediated on those topics and that they sign the final page of their progress report stating so.

Please take a few minutes to watch a presentation by SDI/TDI/ERDI President, Brian Carney, on the negative impact IMPROPER eLearning implementation can have on your student’s performance and how to use eLearning as a valuable teaching tool here:  How eLearning Is Failing the Diving Industry.

The Fine Print:

Now that you know how to use eLearning as a tool to provide high quality diver education, here’s some of the fine print about how to use eLearning as an effective tool for your business.

It is our goal as your training agency to support your business in any way we can.  You will notice a credit appear on your account with us for the student that has signed up online and it can be used for any product purchased from us.  You will be sent notification of this by our accounting department shortly after the student has signed up.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions about the eLearning programs and how to make it work for your facility.  We would love to hear what works for you and what you think of the program.

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