Monitoring content and process makes sure that the trainees are actually gaining something as the training goes along. We, we certainly do not want to reach the end of the program and find out that people missed an important concept, or that people were simply sitting there collecting their per diem without, gaining any knowledge or skills. One of the tools that, has been developed for monitoring are the four Rs. Recall, reminisce, rehearse, reconsider. We need to review the content of the day's work with the trainees. And this should take a specific session, a wrap-up session at the end of the day, and everyone should be involved in the process. If we structure these times, and give enough time, because, again, problems may arise or questions may arise; so 15 minutes, half an hour, it may be more, but we need to be sure that we're We're flexible on that that we have enough time left at the end of the day. Here again the importance of keeping to our schedule. Well we're talking about recall the simplest way to review information and ideas covered is to do recall. We can have question and answer sessions at the end based on the content. We could have little quizes at the end. These could even be organized in terms of teams. For example, you could have, two or three teams and raise the question, whoever answers it first would get a point. Like they have some of these school academic quizzes on TV. Another of the four R's is reminiscing. We could have participants talk more informally, or personally, about what they've seen, what they've been though during the day. share their thoughts about how the experiences effected them personally and professionally. This will help them internalize and integrate the information. And sharing ideas will certainly reinforce what people have learned. Rehearsing is somewhat like a return demonstration. Clearly we need to have opportunities during the training or the trainees to perform the skills that they've been shown, hopefully to show that they've learned them. Roleplays can be done in this process, people take turns performing skills that have been demonstrated. And the fourth r, reconsider. We want to get trainee opinions about the topic and the experience. Discuss have anyone changed their attitude, their perceptions. You know, has the training opened up some new perspective. have they, you know, been challenged to think in a new way about the work setting that they've been doing day after day. This is especially important if the training is challenged traditional ways of thinking and doing things. it's quite possible that for training people on knew record keeping and people what had an attitude before what came into the training they record keeping is boring, it's useless, they send in report nothing happens, if during session we have to talked about how the data collected can be used to make Charts right there at the health center, that they can use those charts for finding out what's happening with patient attendance. Profs that are coming in to kind of help an illness situation profile that they have. Then all at once they realize that, well yes, we could use this information. It's not just for those people. At the central office we, we can use it, too. And so they could talk about these new ways of, of seeing the problem. It's important to use the content that we have covered during the day in the review sessions. We need to also, use the review itself to make decisions about what the next day's activities will be. During the trainer meetings we can discuss the content, what is the time adequate to cover this content? Was the content grasped? And how do we know, what is our evidence? Clearly in question and answer at the end it give some clue. If only two or three people answer we may not know if everyone does. We can certainly ask the observer if when the content was presented, did people look confused? Did they look bored? Did they look inattentive? In terms of the content, was it too simple or complex? Maybe there's a group discussion. People came very often to the facilitators and said, well I don't get the point. What were we talking about? Therefore the, and the facilitator may have had to redo a lecture that was the. Because people didn't get it or maybe there are handouts that are given and we find some of them sitting on the floor afterwards because the reading level was too complex for them and we need to simplify that. Of course, things could be too simple and people would get bored with them So, we need to have ways of assessing whether people understood the content and whether we need to repeat or restructure how that was delivered. So, these decisions need to be made before subsequent sessions. Instead, we may need to repeat a session or we may need to represent it in a different format. maybe people were bored with the lecture. We need to put it together in a case study, or problem solving, where they can bring in their own experiences. The review process continues into the beginning of each day's session. At the beginning of the day, it's important to again get feedback from the trainees about the previous day's activities. It's possible during the review session the day before they were just tired and wanted to go on break maybe at the beginning of the next day they are more alert, they thought about, but they have experienced and have some suggestions or have some requests for things they want to cover. So we can organize this more formally into what some people call a wishes and pluses session. What we wish had been done better. Where, where the pluses that the good things about the session. So a chart like the one that we have posted here can be prepared. On a flipchart paper or a chalkboard in advance. And it's important to get one of the trainees to lead this session, and write down the answers that people give on the chart. For example, in this sample chart we can see some of the pluses that people mentioned about the previous day's work. The guest speaker had useful handouts. The group tasks were clear. They were interesting. The field visit clarified many points. Some of the minuses that may be mentioned. The speaker spoke too fast, the break time was late and too short. Not everyone at the field site expected us. we needed more note paper. So these are the kind of things that come up. Again, we can correct some of those immediately. We can take to heart the idea of keeping the time make sure that everyone has enough supplies before we go formerly into the day's session. And of course this information, the foot chart paper itself. Will be taken to the trainer's meeting at the end of the day for them to discuss the points and what they could do better. What we do in the beginning of the day's session to get this feedback, is that the trainer first greets the group and explains that a short start up session is aimed at finding out. What went well, the pluses during the previous day. And what they wish had been done differently or better. So this is introduced. We ask the volunteer to come up and from among the trainees to write up on the chart some of their comments. So the trainees can comment on any aspect of the program. The training content. Was it adequate? Was it understandable? The style of presentation. Was it clear? was it participatory? adequacy of break time. So everything from the content to the logistics can be fair game for input. Just as in brainstorming, we want everyone to give input. Everyone should feel free to comment, to be critical, to be, to praise what they like. They should not feel embarrassed to say what they really experienced. And again, by writing down these comments on the flip chart, it's showing respect. For the trainees that we value their input. Again after the full list is made the trainees can offer other suggestions about how they can address the wishes or problems from the day before. As we've been mentioning all along about monitoring, it's important that we use this information. After the trainees have had a chance to comment, trainers themselves can also indicate how they're going to respond. How they're going to address problems of, of adequate meeting rooms. Or address problems of speakers not keeping the time. Or address problems of adequacy in terms of handout materials. Or even the taste of the lunch. So it's important for the trainers to acknowledge the input and, and respond to it quickly, so the trainees know that their, their input is valued. And again, at the end of the day we can go over this again, and discuss how well we adapted during that day to the wishes of. The critique that the trainees gave, and what we need to do for the subsequent day. In addition to the formal interaction during the beginning and end of training sessions we can set out things like suggestion boxes in some central place, in the place where people take food, in the secretariat itself, so people can drop off their ideas. We need multiple ways for the trainees to give their input. We want to and again make sure that the trainers review the suggestions. That they report back to the trainees how their going to respond to the problems. So in summary, we've been looking at how to monitor the implementation of our training, both logistics and the content, to make sure that the training goes the way we planned and with immediate feedback through our observer and through trainee input. We can make modifications. Maybe our original plan was not appropriate. Maybe the activities are taking longer than we expected. They could be taking shorter, and people left with time on their hands and they're bored. We don't have enough to keep people busy. We may have had plans for field work that was not realized. As we mentioned before, sometimes you get to the field and people are not ready for you. You had, the trainees were standing around bored. You want to make sure that this information is reviewed daily and that changes are made. We want to be sure that we respond directly to the trainees when they give us their feedback and let them know how we're going to address the issues We also need to take this information, especially the content feedback, whether it's through question/answer, observing return demonstrations, little quizzes, competitions at the end, whatever this information is, the report back from group exercises, And judge that against our training objectives. Are people actually gaining the knowledge, skills and attitudes that were set out in the beginning of the program. We really need to be flexible. As we've said many times and not just think that we're stuck in concrete with the schedule we've developed. Several weeks ago. But that we may need to change, be flexible. When things come up, we have opportunities for field visits. we have guest speakers that come into town that we were not expecting. So we should be able to make the changes and communicate again to the trainees. That their input, that their concerns have been listened to and that we have adjusted appropriately.
