In Pursuit Of Teaching Excellence In The Classroom Instructor Summer Workshop At West Point

The Army calls it “Train the Trainer”. It is the program of instruction given to soldiers who will be training other soldiers in critical military tasks. Emphasis is placed on ensuring that instructing soldiers know the tasks and standards well, and can deliver an effective class. The stakes are high for most of these tasks, simply because lives depend on their proper execution. Clearly, we do not face the same level of urgency in the engineering classroom, but that does not diminish the professional requirement to train new instructors in techniques for delivering highquality instruction. Engineering students will rise to the high educational standards set for them in the classroom. Sending untrained instructors into the classroom can result in a lower standard of instruction, can diminish the expectations and interest of the students, and may ultimately reduce the quality of engineers in the profession.