BEST AND WORST TRAINING EXPERIENCES ESSAY
This assignment is worth 20% of your final grade. It gives you an opportunity to apply concepts and theories from the textbook to your real-life experiences in training programs. You must complete this assignment individually, without contacting other students, and you may not use a paper or any part of a paper from a previous class or from another person.The assignment addresses Course Objectives 1, 4, and 5.
Most of us have had to participate in some type of training on our jobs, such as new employee orientation, lunch-and-learn workshops, Employee Assistance Program training, technical skill training, employee benefits update meetings, or management development workshops. Some of us have experienced on-the-job training. Others have participated in professional development workshops or skills-based continuing education classes. Think about the best and worst training experiences you have had. What made the best experiences excellent and what made the worst experiences terrible?
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Write an 8-10 page essay (not including cover and reference pages) analyzing one of your best training experiences and one of your worst training experiences.Be specific in discussing what made the experiences good or bad.Please review the content of Weeks 4-8 on learning theories, the design of training, training methods, training evaluation, and transfer of learning. This material should be reflected in your essay.
Your essay should include brief descriptions of the training experiences:
The target audience
The objective(s) of the training (see Week 5)
The training site
Training methods used (see Weeks 7 and 8)
The major focus of your paper is your analysis, which is worth 65% of the grade for this assignment. Your analysis should include:
An assessment of the specific factors that contributed to the success or ineffectiveness of the training; for example, consider these questions:
Did the training achieve its objective(s)?
Was the training site conducive to learning?
Were the methods chosen appropriate for the topic and the audience?
Did you have opportunities to practice and receive feedback?
A discussion of the learning theory or theories that you believe guided the training (see Week 4).
A discussion of how your learning as well as the overall effectiveness of the training were evaluated (see Week 6).
An assessment of the competencies, knowledge, and/or skills demonstrated or not demonstrated by the trainer(s). The ATD competency model (see Week 1) is a good resource.
A discussion of whether or not you transferred what you learned to your job, and what contributed to your successful or unsuccessful transfer (see Week 4).
Your specific recommendations for improving the training, based on what you now know about effective training programs.
The information above should be included in your paper but you are free to organize your essay in whatever way makes sense to you. You may use the first person (“I attended a program” or “the trainer told us) in discussing your experiences. Support your analysis with citations from the readings from this class or other HR courses, and additional resources posted in our classroom. Make sure you define all key terms and cite the source(s) of your definition. Since this is not primarily a research paper, no specific number of references is required. However, you must cite your sources.
Use APA format for all citations, quotations, and references. References should be listed on a separate page as required by APA style.Your paper should be double spaced with one inch margins and a font size of at least 11 points; do not include any spaces between paragraphs or sections.
SUBMITTING YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Please add the following statement to the cover of your paper:
This paper is my own work that I created specifically for this course and this section. All research or material I used in preparing this paper has been properly acknowledged within the assignment in accordance with academic standards for complete and accurate citation of sources.
Submit your assignment electronically via the Assignment folder.
Name your file this way: YourLastNameFirstInitial_TrainingEssay
(Example: DoeJ_TrainingEssay)
Due date: Sunday, April 5, 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.
Please see the next page for the grading criteria for this assignment.
Criteria for Grading Best and Worst Training Experiences Essay
A
B
C
F
Points Earned
Knowledge and Application of Relevant Concepts and Theories
(65 pts)
Student demonstrated exceptional knowledge of relevant theories and concepts; student did an exceptional job of applying theories and concepts to workplace training experiences; all statements and opinions were supported by appropriate citations from the course materials and from other sources.
65 59 points
Student demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of relevant theories and concepts; student did a satisfactory job of applying theories and concepts to workplace training experiences; most statements and opinions were supported by appropriate citations primarily from the course materials.
58 52 points
Student demonstrated less than satisfactory knowledge of relevant theories and concepts; student did a less than satisfactory job of applying theories and concepts to workplace training experiences; some statements and opinions were not supported by appropriate citations.
51 46 points
Student demonstrated unsatisfactory knowledge of relevant theories and concepts; student did an inadequate job of applying theories and concepts to workplace training experiences; many statements and opinions were not supported by appropriate citations.
45 0 points
Comments
Presentation of Ideas and Mechanics
(30 pts)
Student presented ideas in a clear, compelling manner; essay contained few distracting writing, grammar, and/or spelling problems; the page length requirement was met.
30 27 points
Student presented ideas in an organized manner; essay contained several distracting writing, grammar, and/or spelling problems; the page length requirement may have been slightly exceeded.
26 24 points
Student presented ideas in a somewhat organized manner; essay contained a number of distracting grammar and/or spelling problems; the page length requirement may not have been met.
23 21 points
Student presented ideas in a poorly organized manner; essay contained many distracting writing, grammar, and/or spelling problems; the page length requirement was not met.
20 0 points
Comments
APA formatting
(5 pts)
All citations, quotations, and references were formatted correctly or contained only one or two minor errors.
5.0 4.5
Most citations, quotations, and references were formatted correctly or contained a few minor errors.
4.4 4.0 points
Some citations, quotations, and references were not formatted correctly or contained major errors.
3.9 3.5 points
Many citations, quotations, and references were not formatted correctly or contained many errors.
3.4 – 0 points
Comments
Total Points Earned
(100 points max)
Overall Comments
