Identifies the role of training and continuing education as an important component of health service and personnel management. Participants are guided through the steps of planning training and continuing education activities for a range of health workers from managers to village volunteers. Draws on real life examples from community-directed onchocerciasis control, village health worker programs, and patent medicine vendor training programs, to name a few. Participants prepare a training plan that includes needs assessment instruments, procedures for involving the trainees in their own learning, instructional objectives, appropriate learning methods and delivery modes, resource and budget needs, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and follow-up supervision. Can provide a foundation for developing a capstone project.

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the role that training and continuing education play in personnel development and management
• Outline the contributions and limits of training in organizational management
• Explain the process of recruiting appropriate participants for a training program
• Identify and analyze tasks needed by trainees to perform their jobs
• Utilize training diagnosis results to choose appropriate content for training programs
• Formulate observable and measurable instructional objectives
• Link training content with appropriate training methods
• Plan training logistics that are convenient for trainees and match available resources
• Budget for training activities
• Develop a sample training guide
• List approaches and resources for distance education
• Describe methods for monitoring the process of training implementation
• Define the different levels of evaluation for a training program
• Describe various tools for evaluating outcomes

Overview: The course assignments are a series of six related activities focused on the process of planning and developing a short, one-day training experience for real health and related staff. To successfully complete the assignments, you should select a real, identifiable group of agency staff or community volunteers that need training, and then complete each assignment based on the training needs of that group. You do not have to focus on your work situation specifically, but you may, for example, include community associations or NGOs where you do volunteer work. If in final analysis you do not feel that you can identify an appropriate set of trainees in any of the suggested settings, you are welcome to use the DOTS reference materials in the Online Library as an example for carrying out the assignments.

Assignment topics:

1. Description of potential trainees
2. Plan for diagnosing training needs
3. Sample training objectives and tasks
4. Training methods and resources
5. Evaluation plan
6. Full training guide 

Access dates and due dates: All assignments are accessible on the first day of the course so that you can plan ahead to complete them flexibly. However, please review the corresponding lecture material before completing the assignments. We suggest that you draft your training guide (Assignment 6) as you go along. The due date for each individual assignment is listed on the course schedule.

We recognize that course participants may have work, family, or other commitments or emergencies that interfere with timely submission of assignments and quizzes. Requests for time extensions will be considered if made IN ADVANCE of the due date for the assignment or quiz.

Individual vs. small group option: To complete the assignments, you may elect at the outset to work on your own. You may also elect to work as a small group of 2–4 people. If you wish to work as a small group, you may self-select your group members in any way that works best for you. See Assignment 1 for suggestions on how to connect with fellow students, decide upon a group topic, and work responsibly within your group. 

Submission guidelines:

• Submit completed assignments to the course Drop Box (click on the Course Resources tab, then click on Drop Box). The file you submit is automatically renamed in the DED system.
• Send only ONE file for any given assignment. If there is more than one worksheet, combine everything into one document.
• Include your name, phone number, and email address as a header on your written assignment in case there is need to contact you.
• If you are working as a group, include in the header the name, phone number, and email address of each group member.
• If you are sending a revision, you must first contact the course instructor at bbbrieger@yahoo.com. You will be able to resubmit your document via the course Drop Box after your earlier submission is cleared.
   
  IMPORTANT NOTE: Successful Drop Box submissions are confirmed with an email message, so always be on the lookout for an email message after you submit.

Late policy: We recognize that people will experience personal, work-related, or other problems that make it difficult to submit assignments and quizzes on time. If you experience such problems, please notify us BEFORE the deadline for a particular assignment and give us a reasonable estimated submission date. Late assignments without such notification will be docked 1 point for each day late. We can arrange for quizzes to be taken early. The maximum extension we can give for taking a quiz late is three (3) days due to the fact that we cannot discuss answers with students until all quizzes are complete.

Final Grade:

• 163-185 = A
• 144-162 = B
• 126-143 = C

Optional textbook: Lawson, Karen. The Trainer's Handbook (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer) ISBN-10: 0787977497; ISBN-13: 978-0787977498; Paperback: 336 pages; 2 Pap/Cdr edition (June 23, 2006); order from Amazon.com. 

Online Library resource materials: The Online Library contains multiple additional readings and reference materials pertinent to the course.

Note on lecture presentations: All audio from lectures can be downloaded by clicking on corresponding "audio" links on lecture main pages. Audio files are ideal for travelers who need to listen to lectures offline. Lecture audio files are for personal use only, and not for distribution.

Always copy the instructor and the teaching assistants when writing in order to get the most timely response. Instructor: William R. Brieger, MPH, CHES, DrPH Community Health and Health Systems Department of International Health Bloomberg School of Public Health The Johns Hopkins University 615 N. Wolfe St., Room E8141 Baltimore, MD 21205 bbbrieger@yahoo.com Office phone: 443-287-4042 Cell phone: 443-850-4815 Teaching Assistant: Anne Palaia - apalaia@jhsph.edu Important: If you have questions pertaining to your assignments and quizzes, send an email directly to the teaching assistant and the instructor. Please do not post personal questions on the BBS. Use the BBS for general questions about assignments that may also be interesting and helpful to other class members. If you have problems with technical aspects of the website, contact DEHelp. You may copy the course instructor and TAs to let us know your issues, but we do not have access to the inner workings of the website and cannot correct problems.

The course evaluations submitted by students during the most recent offering of this course indicated that successfully completing the course involved a range of time commitments, as follows:

• 25% of all students evaluated spent fewer than 11 hours per week
• 56% of all students evaluated spent 11–15 hours per week
• 18% of all students evaluated spent 16–20 hours per week
• 0% of all students evaluated spent more than 21–25 hours per week
• 0% of all students evaluated spent 26 hours or more per week

Students should expect to spend on average nine hours total per week on an 8-week, three-unit course in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.