Booklet 4: Profile of the trainer

Profile of The Trainer

1. Introduction

There are various learning theory models, such as behavioural psychology, cognitive and social psychology, and social constructivism. Also, much has been written about the trainer’s profile, role, and competencies. We assume that the training courses within MOVE BEYOND are person-oriented and not so much content-oriented. Therefore, the part of the trainer mainly lies in facilitating and observing the participants through interactive training. In what concerns the trainer’s profile, we focus on this project from the point of view of (social) constructivism. The starting point here is about giving meaning to knowledge through social processes. It is not the learning objectives that are leading but the learning process of the participants. This provides a personal sense of their experiences. Learning takes mainly place in a social context, in interaction.

The aim is to facilitate learning processes and, thus, support participants in shaping their learning to give personal meaning to reflection as a process of doubt, hesitation, confusion, perplexity, and deep thinking. In addition,

participants provide a unique sense of learning experiences by mirroring them to others.

Within this project, we focus on four aspects: 1. The trainer as a person because the trainer profession is an excellent mirror to get to know oneself; 2. What we consider essential trainers’ competencies; 3. The role of the trainer; 4. The social and economic environment of the youngsters.

The description of the trainer’s profile does not include his role as a facilitator of didactic teaching methods because one can find information about this particular role in our theoretical handbook.

Neither do we describe the role of the trainer as a designer of learning trajectories, blended learning

trajectories, or online training. The reason for this is that in the cultural and physical activity guidelines, we provide an overview of possible working strategies and training courses, whereby you have the freedom to create your training by using individual components from the various workshops.

2. The trainer as a person

Important in your role as a trainer is who you are as a person and what connects you to the trainer profession. Be constantly aware that participants may see you as a role model. The better you know yourself and the better you can ‘handle’

yourself, the better you can give content to the trainer profession. What are your motivations, values, beliefs, qualities, knowledge, and behaviour? How do you deal with tension, self-reflection and self-development? The Iceberg model of David McClelland can be a helpful tool to look at a person’s visible behaviour, knowledge and skills, as well as the underlying unexpressed and unconscious deeper layers. Another useful tool is Daniel Ofman’s core quadrants. These quadrants give you insight into your strengths, challenges, allergies, and pitfalls.

3. The essential trainer’s competencies

Working with competencies is part of the content of the trainer’s profession. Trainers work on developing the competencies of participants via competencybased training. But, also, trainers must dispose of specific competencies and deal consciously with their development. There are different views on the essential skills of a trainer. As a starting point, we selected ‘the seven competencies for a sparkling and effective trainer’ by De Witte en de Zwarte Zwaan, a network of professional counsellors. Their focus is person-oriented training: training, stimulating or discovering ‘new behaviour’ with the participants. They use the ‘model of the onion’, developed by Korthagen and Vasalos. Initially, this model was developed for teachers’ competence development, but it also applies to other professionals.

4. The role of the trainer

There is a big difference between what we expect from people and what they can do. Knowing and learning does not automatically lead to action. In addition, each group or individual has their own experiences, interests and needs. Encouraging a person’s learning and personal development is a complex task that requires attention to several complex challenges (the learner’s needs and interests, knowledge of the subject, the more profound meaning and impact of knowledge, and the practical application of difficulties in youngsters’ life).

Trainers need to be flexible and adaptable when guiding youngsters. They must assume various roles as a coach, facilitator, evaluator, and subject expert to achieve optimal guidance and results. From a constructivist point of view and taken the fact that we do not assume that trainers should be experts in the cultural or sports field, we are not discussing the role of the trainer as an expert.

4.1 The trainer as a coach

This project does not assume that trainers should be high-level coaches. The trainer is not a subject expert but focuses on helping individuals unlock their potential. Trainers who adopt the coaching role teach youngsters to use knowledge to achieve their goals. To help them learn from their own life experiences, they often work with individuals and adopt a collaborative,

encouraging style. In addition, they help to create personal development plans and provide feedback on performance.

4.2 The trainer as a facilitator

The facilitator’s job is to support everyone to do their best thinking. They create an environment where everyone is encouraged to participate, understand one another’s point of view and share responsibility. In doing so, a group facilitator helps members look for elegant solutions and build sustainable agreements. Training and facilitating are two different activities. They require some of the same skills and some other different skills. Using cultural and physical interactions enables a trainer to create a safe and active environment for participants to learn and share their experiences effectively. It empowers the participants with ownership and responsibility for their progress. It is a contribution to a comfortable, challenging and exciting training/workshop, encouraging active participation, teamwork, group support and tolerance of one another. Of course, it is nice for a trainer if the training runs smoothly, participants are enthusiastic and proactive, and there is no resistance. Nevertheless, the trainer must foresee moments and situations experienced as problematic. It is part of guiding learning processes.

In addition to some practical advice described in the theoretical handbook, we add some tools to help analyse situations and implement interventions in the interaction process between the trainer (in his role of facilitator) and participants.

4.2.1 The Intervention Circle

The type of intervention depends on the situation and the goal you want to achieve. It is essential to combine relationship support and goal orientation. In some interventions, you ‘pull on participants’ to get them moving; in other interventions, you ‘push’ to get them moving

4.2.2 The Rose of Leary

Many situations create behaviours and communication that we can often find challenging. So how can we change these responses to benefit individuals, the group, and the task at hand? Do these difficult situations and experiences exist? What is problematic behaviour and communication? Psychologist Timothy Leary and others created

(for more information we refer to the website of MOVE BEYOND).

‘

Leary’s Rose’ to better understand behaviour. It is an interaction model where behaviour and communication are distinguished into four basic behaviours and from that perception into more specified behaviours. This model can help trainers recognise their own behaviour as well as the behaviour of others, and provide solutions for choosing their acting and way of communicating to influence the behaviour of others.

4.2.3 The nine Belbin Team/Group Roles

Whether developing people, resolving conflict, or fine-tuning high performance, Belbin Team Roles provide a helpful tool to ensure that individuals and teams communicate and work together with greater understanding. By acknowledging the roles within a particular team/group, the trainer can develop strengths, manage weaknesses, and improve how they contribute to the team. The nine Belbin Team Roles are resource investigator, team worker and coordinator (the Social roles); plant, monitor evaluator and specialist (the Thinking roles), and shaper, implementer and completer finisher (the Action or Task roles).

4.2.4 Dealing with communication levels

According to the Palo Alto model, communication consists of three aspects: content, procedure, interaction, and feeling. In addition, Social cognition focuses on mental processes involved in perceiving, attending to, remembering, thinking about, and making sense of the people in our social world.

4.2.5 The phases of group development

Groups are either formal or informal but have a common feature: the stages of development. Tuckman’s model identifies five stages through which groups progress: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Each of the five stages of team development represents a step on the team-building ladder.

As the group members climb the ladder, they morph from a random assembly of strangers into a performing team that can work toward a common goal.

4.3 The trainer as an evaluator

Training evaluation helps discover training gaps and opportunities in training the learners. Training evaluation is essential in determining effectiveness and checking if training programmes assist learners in becoming good at what they do. Evaluation collects information to help improve training programs and help trainers decide if specific programs should be discontinued. Training evaluation is essential to assess training effectiveness and help improve quality.

5. The Social, Environmental and Economic Sustainability of the youngster

5.1 The Circle of Concern, Influence and Control

As a trainer, it is important to be aware of external influences that may determine the behaviour and attitude of participants. For example, what could be going on in the lives and minds of youngsters that may influence their motivation and active participation. The Circle of Concern includes the wide range of concerns people have in the world, their work and life – including health, family, finances, and economy. The Circle of Control helps trainers to be aware that some things are out of their control and others are within the realm of control. The Circle of Influence are the things that you can do something about. Even though, as

a trainer, you cannot influence the circle of concern or fully control the influence process, checking how your participants feel about themselves is essential. A degree of insight helps you as a trainer better understand your participants’ wellbeing, behaviours and attitudes.

5.2 Thinking and Acting abilities

The Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy issued the report ‘Knowing is not yet doing. A realistic perspective on self-reliance.’ With this report, the council draws attention to the importance of non-cognitive abilities, such as setting a goal, taking action, persevering and being able to deal with temptation and setbacks. They mention different questionnaires in various areas to gain insight into the mental capacities and stress that help explain certain behaviours and attitudes. As a trainer, it is important to be aware of those thinking and acting abilities.

NOTES

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

english language revision by: Rita Brito – escritabrito@gmail.com illustrations by: Federica De Leonardo graphic design and print: tipografialapiazza.it last update: september 2022