Warfield Air National Guard Base at Martin State Airport, Md. -- Over the past two weeks, 9 members of the 175th Wing, Maryland Air National Guard, participated in an Air Education and Training Command course at Warfield Air National Guard Base at Martin State Airport.
The Principles of Instruction course provides training to Airmen who are involved in various teaching or training programs such as traffic safety, security forces, self-aid buddy care, and more.
“We really cater this course toward non-AETC instructors and will travel to [anywhere] to provide this instruction to Airmen who will be doing any type of instructing,” said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Giancarlo Martini, a faculty development instructor assigned to the 82nd Training Wing and lead instructor for the course. “It could be briefing a commander like our unit training managers have to do or a security forces briefing for their personnel during their S1 or S3 training, we cater our training for them.”
The course, which is taught by Mobile Training Teams out of Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas, takes two weeks and includes a block of classroom instruction followed by application of those new skills.
“The first week of the course is classroom instruction where we teach students the roles and responsibilities of an instructor, classroom management, learning styles, classroom setup, behavior management, and much more,” said Martini. “The second week of the course is where students apply the principles they learned and apply them to in-class presentations.”
During the application, the students have a 15-minute brief, an informal presentation on any topic, and a 30-minute final presentation, where they teach their students how to perform a skill and then are graded.
The Base Education and Training Management office secured this training after a late cancellation was opened by AETC on a first come, first served basis.
“We have had a lot of Airmen request this training, so I responded and said that the 175th Wing was definitely interested in holding this course,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Natalie Nieves-Gonzalez, base education and training craftsman and course attendee. “It was important for us to get this training because there are a lot of [career fields] that require Airmen to do a lot of training within their squadron, so we were happy to bring the course here.”
The course is designed to give Airmen the confidence and skills to overcome public speaking fears and to help prevent using dated teaching models.
“Another main aspect of this course is we are trying to get away from the old mindset of a boring, structured class and move toward more student-centered, outside-of-the-box thinking when it comes to instruction,” said Martini. “I think the Air Force is moving in the right direction and is starting to move past the ‘death by powerpoint’ model that we’ve become accustomed to over the years.”
The Principles of Instruction course is taught at host-units across all major commands or at 982nd Training Group Field Training Detachment locations around the Air Force world-wide. Each Airmen who attends and completes this training course receives 3 credit hours toward a Community College of the Air Force degree.