Instructor guides?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Aviva Wulfsohn wondered: <<Although my title states that I am a 
Technical Writer, I seem to be doing more instructional design work in 
my (relatively new) position... Does anyone out there create both user 
guides and training manuals?  Other than the obvious need to include 
practice exercises and review questions in a training manual, how do 
the two guides differ?>>

A training manual is intended to support a learning exercise, whether 
instructor-led or independent study. In both cases, you must start the 
design process by identifying clear and objective goals (i.e., what the 
student must be capable of doing by the end of the training), then 
developing a curriculum (series of lessons) that will let the student 
achieve these goals. For example, a typical training manual for 
beginners might be designed to get them sufficiently proficient with 
the software that they rarely need to consult with the user manual for 
routine tasks, and are comfortable using that user manual when they 
must. (This latter statement is not a "clear and objective description" 
of the goals, by the way. It's a summary of how to get to those goals.)

In contrast, a user manual is not intended to support formal learning; 
instead, it targets "learn only enough to accomplish something new or 
unfamiliar". There is generally no overall structure intended to lead 
the reader from the basics through more advanced topics. Though a 
well-written manual may have such a structure, and may support learning 
for the odd character who reads it front to back. that's a bonus rather 
than the primary goal; the primary goal is instead to help someone who 
arrives at a given topic (usually without having read all the preceding 
pages) to achieve something without having to read more than the 
current page.

In short (and thus simplistically), a training manual builds foundation 
skills; a user manual lets you put those skills to work.

<<Also, I have been tasked with creating instructor guides where none 
have previously existed.  Our instructors currently teach from the 
participant guide.  I personally don't see a problem with this method; 
however, my boss has asked me to create an IG.>>

The problem with the current approach is that instructors and students 
are different audiences. If you think of the instructor's guide as the 
user's manual for the student guides, you'll see the difference. An 
instructor's guide must dovetail neatly with the student's guide--if it 
doesn't, the instructor will find themselves teaching a topic not 
present in the student manual or following a different sequence from 
the students. But it must also contain a whole set of information that 
the students never see: for example, tips on what approaches have been 
proven effective or ineffective in a specific topic, and suggestions 
for a range of exercises (from which the instructor chooses).

<<Her vision, though, is to have one manual where the participant guide 
pages are on the right-hand side and the corresponding instructor guide 
pages are on the left.  I find this method way too tedious and 
cumbersome.>>

Have you asked the instructors whether they like this method? After 
all, they're the ones who have to use the guide, so it doesn't much 
matter what you and your boss think. If they agree with your approach, 
you can return to your manager and propose your solution, using as 
evidence the preferences of those who must actually deliver the 
training. If they disagree with your approach, you need to persuade 
them that it's better, or come up with a compromise that they'll 
accept. If they're constantly complaining about the guides, don't bet 
that it's your boss who will take the heat.

<<Doing it my boss' way would involve re-creating the IG every time 
updates to the PG are made, sometimes 4x a year or more.>>

That would suck if your software doesn't support parallel flows on the 
right and left pages of each spread. On the other hand, if you can 
print on an 11x17 page in landscape mode, you can set up a template 
that lets you do this. Set the right side (11x8.5) to contain the 
student text, and the left side  (11x8.5) to contain the instructor 
text, set up as a text box tied to the correct paragraph in the student 
guide, but positioned (floated) way outside the student margins (i.e., 
on the lefthand page). Not easy to set up, but easy to maintain once 
established.

Conversely, you could create two entirely separate documents, much as 
you're currently doing: If you print the student's guide with only odd 
page numbers (i.e., righthand pages), then print an instructor guide 
with only even page numbers (i.e., lefthand pages), you can manually 
adjust the page breaks in the instructor's guide so that the text falls 
opposite the correct pages for the student guide. then compile the two 
sets of pages and photocopy the document double-sided. Kludgy, but 
workable. An advantage of this latter approach is that it lets you 
create both the manager's guide (as just described) and your own style 
of guide; that lets you satisfy the needs of instructors who prefer 
different approaches.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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