Advanced Instructor Register - would it sway your choice?

[cynic]Insurance disount

Get enough people running it and the insurance bods will perk up and offer discounts, as per IAM or RoSPA.[/cynic]

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If beer is so bad for brain cells, why does my brain allow me to drink so much of it?

As it stands it reads like DSA having been dumped with an OMIGODWE'VEBEENDUMPEDWITHSOME KPIs_TO_MEET FROMABOVE Syndrome.

This is in a bizarre way a golden opportunity for you to shape the future of advanced training in the country. By either

A
helping bury this half-baked ticklist crap in the hell of committeedom for ever.

Or.

B
As one of very few 'grandfathers', give them something tangible they can put down in a bullet-point list of achievements. Like the 'bends and corners' could get point and squirt made a cornerstone feature - if you can convince the right person, preferably with stats to suit. Break it down into step 1, step 2, step 3 type speak - they like that stuff as it can be put into computer tests/flowcharts/analysis software easily.

I'm not going to disagree with that. And I accept that filtering is optional, but the pressure to do it when you are sat in a jam is considerable. I started by following someone else, fortunately he was rather slow and very careful so I didn't come to any harm. If I had tried following some of the "experts" on the M1 I doubt I would have survived.

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Cousin Jack
A pipe and slippers man to the core.

Definetly one of the areas where it will be interesting to see how it is dealt with officially. Having had a homicidal bitch try to deliberately shunt me at the weekend after I'd oh-so-rudely pulled into 'her' gap in front of 'her' Micra at a set of temp lights, it is a contentious area. Most Harry Homeowner peeps don't see it as valid or legal. I filtered in front of local-doughnut-eater plod this morning and was nervous I'd get pulled, but stayed painfully on my side of the white line.

Unfortunately, the people who had the chance on our behalf to do that weren't really on the ball and bought into the "get rid of the cowboys, improve rider safety" line.

And when there was a chance that if instructors had put their heads together and had a united voice they might just have been heard... only a few of us could be bothered.

"Is it in Roadcraft?"

We're still trying to get the DSA to acknowledge what Olive (or was it Wilbur) Wright wrote about 100 years ago... that motorcycles countersteer!

Still nice ideas!!

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"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

Classic behaviour ! Last time I saw it in action was just prior to pistols being banned, all the various governing bodies were sure that their discipline would be saved and it would only affect those other "cowboys". And the Civil Servants played "Divide and Conquer".

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Cousin Jack
A pipe and slippers man to the core.

Oh they acknowledge it alright, just don't agree that instructors ought to be have it in the syllabus . . .

Educationally the expression is a 'missed opportunity'. What the rest of us would term a 'f@ck up' . . .

Rather ironic that after all they're objections and obstruction they are now having to introduce a test on something they haven't got in the syllabus - totally opposite to the RPMT, which as I posted earlier:

draft syllabus . . . But not checked by the final assessment upon which the issue of ERIC certificate is based!

I suspect someone asked "so how are you going to measure the effectiveness of the scheme, so you can report to the world how your changes have enhanced motorcycle safety?".

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"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

Having worked in adult education and had that kind of approach dumped on you, it merely leads to teaching by tick boxes and a routine, and a robotic like CBT type approach to the training task.

Yes, it means stuff is covered but it almost invariably takes out the "human" approach. Everyone is shit scared they will miss some key point so teaching plans come in so that at a certain time on a certain day you WILL be doing lesson X.

After the lesson, you will tick boxes X Y and Z and if you don't questions get asked and, usually, pressure put on you to tick said boxes. Why? 'Cos otherwise it shows we are falling behind on our "plan" and OFSTED, ALI and other educational busybodies will be chewing our bums 'cos we are missing our KPI's.

Result? You get students with ticked boxes but know squat. Hence my planned exit from "education" and back to the real world....

Steve

Shame you never got to experience the MSF courses we had access to . . .

Lessons are timed, riders have to complete set exercises in a set time. Faster learners are slowed, slower learners get what they get, and have to play catch-up as they progress to other exercises.

But a lot of the management of the 'range' training is very safety-conscious, for example an instructor never stands with his back to a bike that has its engine running unless he is 'covered' by a second instructor. Individual and groups of riders are 'stage managed' around so that there is never a risk of a head-on collision (remember there might be a dozen bikes doing two different training exercises in a 200' x 120' range, and having to be moved between the exercises*).

But much of this isn't for anyone's benefit. It's to reduce the likelihood of being sued. And one of the elements of that is that you follow proven techniques - no innovation! Following a set syllabus, strictly, using written notes, set explanations, pre-arranged demonstrations etc., means that - if asked in court - you can honestly say you did it 'right'.

That said, I learned a lot from the MSF that has influenced my riding, training, and instructor training.



* Because the weather was poor the day we did training on this range management, we actually did it in a hanger, with a 1/4 size range set up, and with two Instructor Candidates at a time 'controlling' where the rest of us went - with us shuffling around pretending to be on bikes - but it worked!

Unfortunately, this is exactly how CBT works... and something I was worried that would carry over into post-test training the moment we had an "approved syllabus".

It really depends how seriously they decide to apply the rules - if you go to the DSA website, there's a feedback form appeared - you can find it here:

Now, apart from asking for information which identifies the trainer

----------------
Please complete the course details
How did you find out about this course? *
What was the name of the training organisation? *
What date(s) did you attend? *
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They are also checking up on how the instructor carried the course forward:

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How many hours of rider theory development did you receive? *
How many hours of rider practical development did you receive? *

Which syllabus modules did you take? Syllabus (select all that apply) *
Machine check/ Manual handling
Move away/ Slow control
Negotiating junctions and roundabouts
Motorways/ Dual carriageways
Corners/ Bends
Normal road position
Reactions to other road users
Use of speed
Progress/ Hesitancy
Overtaking/ Filtering
Separation distance

----------------

It's all a bit back-door and I don't like it.

What worries me is that they're relying on feedback from the trainees. Now at the end of an average DAS course, the trainee doesn't remember half the things we covered - they'll swear blind to me I didn't discuss something when it's in my standard patter, at a particular place and time. I can't see the trainees after an ERIC being any more capable of remembering the detail of the course.

So, how does the instructor cover his bottom when the DSA turn up saying "Mr Idle says you didn't cover X, Y and Z on his course"? Well, you use a ticklist. And you get the trainee to sign off every section of the course as "completed to his satisfaction".

As Steve says, the paperwork becomes more important than the content.

Just to give you an idea how picky the DSA can be, some years ago, I got check-tested and we got to the bit where they start to get used to manhandling the bike. We did the on and off the stands bit ok and then I got the trainees to sit on the bikes and turn on the ignition.

At that point, I remembered I'd forgotten the "walk round in circle pushing the bike and practicing using the front brake" bit... so I got 'em to switch off the ignition, get back off the bike, wheel them round, try the brake, park em up again and get back on and turn the ignition on...

And then we carried on as normal.

Unfortunately, the "wheel round" and "learn to start the bike" exercises fall into 2 different modues. You're not supposed to start one before the preceding one's complete.

Now the examiner on that occasion was a guy I dealt with at the test centre day in day out, a very laid back bloke. He just chainsmoked through the morning and kept well out the way, and cleared off at lunchtime. So I was somewhat surprised when, a week or so later, back came my 2 page report from the examiner with one whole page dedicated to this boob, and a note added by the supervising examiner "THOU SHALT NOT CARRY OUT ANY PART OF A LATER MODULE BEFORE EVERY PART OF THE PRECEDING MODULE HAD BEEN COMPLETED". I was reminded in very serious terms how terrible an error this was and that my future as an instructor would be watched carefully.

A couple of years after that I got check tested again. Now it was a sweltering day up in the high 80s with the sun beating down so the trainees needed regular stops to cool off and take on fluid, and because I had the examiner there everything was being done by the book. Because he was also a very nice and helpful bloke, he kept interrupting for little chats about why I was doing something, alternatives he'd seen, that kind of thing, so the upshot was that we overran the car park session by a good 90 mins and were running very late indeed.

One of the final car park exercises is a U turn. I'd already laid out a simulated road using cones for them to practice left and right turns, so I just got 'em to do the U turn in the 'road'. Up pops the examiner - "that wasn't a very difficult U turn, you should have made it tougher by moving the cones closer".

At that point I snapped and said "we're running 90 mins late, the trainees are already exhausted, we've still got the pre-road briefing and the road ride to do, they're going to be here till well after 6pm, I'm not going to get home till after 7, they've done perfectly good tight turns on the Fig 8 exercise, they've just done a perfectly good series of observations before turning which is the new skill they've learned for this U turn. If you want us to do it again with the cones closer together, you go and move them whilst I have drink of water and 5 mins in the shade.

He took my point and there was nothing about it in the report

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The dull copyright bit - feel free to nick it for personal use. If you want to reprint it for your club, I'd like a mention as author. Otherwise hands-off. Full terms
"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

I gave you an idea for that in a recent PM, which also fits the DSA's original consultation paper's content.

I know how to do it...

What I'm trying to make clear is the extent of the commitment the average RPMT instructor will have to make. I really don't know how many instructors already use the logbook approach for assessing training needs, and then checking off the outcome of the training... I'm sure very few DAS instructors for instance will have ever used anything like that.

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The dull copyright bit - feel free to nick it for personal use. If you want to reprint it for your club, I'd like a mention as author. Otherwise hands-off. Full terms
"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

Observations of some RAC/ACU motorcycle training schemes

Observations were carrried out at 42 motorcycle training centres run by the Royal Automobile Club and the Auto Cycle Union (RAC/ACU centres) during 1979.

Trained observers visited each centre three times to see how the theoretical and practical instruction was carried out. The results show that there are a number of ways of approaching the problems of motorcycle training, for different centres have developed methods of organization and training. T

he survey highlighted some of these differences and also indicated some general weaknesses which were found at a number of centres. A problem at many centres was seen to be the lack of adequate record keeping and the consequent timewasting for trainees which could occur. On the other hand, at most centres there was a good instructor/pupil ratio.

Author: Wells, P
Date: 1981
Pages: 17
ISBN: ISSN: 0305-1315
Hard Copy Price: £30.00
PDF Price: £20.00

Plus ca change!

Mind you, £20 for 30 year old report on PDF?? Someone is having a giraffe!

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Sponsor Page Blog Website Courses booking now for 2010 Riding Tips Shop
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The dull copyright bit - feel free to nick it for personal use. If you want to reprint it for your club, I'd like a mention as author. Otherwise hands-off. Full terms
"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC