Instructor Guidelines

Culture

Triple Point Training: PLAN so things go right. TRAIN for when they don’t.

What we do: We help people prepare for outdoor work and play: planning, technique, and if things go wrong.

How we do it: We provide a supportive learning environment based on studies of how we gain expertise and what actually goes wrong ("data-informed").

Why we do it: Outdoor time has been meaningful and life-changing for us—we want to help other people have similar experiences. We are especially excited when skills learned outdoors benefit other aspects of our lives: self-confidence, leadership, communication, etc.

The way we talk: Informed, respectful, forgiving, curious. We love the learning process and celebrate the mistakes that are associated with learning. We use stories to convey learning points.

The way we look: We take this work and service seriously—professional but approachable.

The Learning Environment

Community: Work to build a sense of community within the participant group. Learn names, have people partner up, encourage encouragement and situational awareness regarding the social dynamic.

Celebrate participation: Expertise requires deliberate practice. Celebrate the participants for taking an active path of learning. Being there is already a big step for some participants.

Be forgiving: We are service providers and I don’t want participants to feel they are in trouble or judged for being late, slow in transition, or opting out of exercises. We seek improvement rather than achievement. 

Look, act, and speak professionally. I want participants to recognize that we take the curriculum, their investment, and everyone’s safety seriously. Earn trust by learning names, shaking hands, making eye contact, etc. State your credentials and qualifications during the introduction. Note that 'professional' doesn't need to be 'formal.' Find a way to be approachable and knowledgeable at the same time.

Vulnerability and humility: Lead by example by sharing concerns/discomforts, mistakes, etc. It’s okay to be a domain expert and not know all of the answers. Express your curiosity and welcome new ideas and perspectives.

Share the risk management: This is overlooked in many courses—the participants want to be better at assessing risk. Invite participants into the risk management conversations and give them a voice:

• Keep using the prompts: What could go wrong? What can we do about it?
• Think aloud when you identify appropriate or inappropriate practice sites.
• Invite the participants to share their medical or risk management expertise. Empower them to speak up and/or say STOP.

Opting-in / leveling up: Let students opt in to the next level in the progression of exercises. Be clear that this is opting in rather than opting out. "Challenge by choice" isn't quite right because people don't want to look weak or be the only person to step out.

The Exercise Cycle

Each exercise can be framed as an experiment: try it, come back, and tell the group what you learned. Allow people to try new ideas or make an exercise more/less challenging. "Collect data" and keep reporting back to the group.

Auto-pilot and muscle memory: Justify the exercises as an effort to move as much as possible into auto-pilot. Go through the motions instead of just describing it. We want to build muscle memory so that these techniques become familiar and automatic. We also want to practice perfect, to avoid bad habits.

For each segment of instruction:

• Expectations: Provide a time estimate and quick description of what to expect. Describe what to expect as often as possible.
• Justify the exercise (why it matters). Use stories whenever possible.
• Risk assessment: Facilitate a paired or group discussion about what could go wrong and how to set safety.
• Demonstrate (not just describe)
• Cycle everyone through
• Debrief: Remind folks what perfect looks like. Be direct but kind. We don't get better without making mistakes and receiving feedback.
• What was easier/harder than you expected?
• Figure out any tricks?
• Break: Take care of other needs