Features

Training Corner is a program to help animal trainers manage their classes, consulting, and clients easily and effectively. It helps you schedule classes and sessions, helps you organize the content of each session, and keeps track of enrollment, attendance, etc.

The starting point for understanding Training Corner and how you can use it in your environment is in understanding the key concepts and the terminology around which the program was built.

To learn about visual clues and conventions that make using Training Corner easier, see Using the Program.

Species

Training Corner is designed to work with trainers who handle a single species (for example, dogs) as well as with trainers who handle multiple species. The program will ask you what species you train.

If you train multiple species, then whenever the program needs to know what species is being referred to, it will ask you to choose from the list of species you provided.
If you train a single species, once you've provided that information once, you won't need to provide it again. Also, the program will customize screens with that species name for your convenience.

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Teams

A team consists of a single animal and one (or optionally two) handlers (typically a main handler and an optional alternate). You may also specify another individual as an emergency contact for that team.

The Team is the basic unit of participation in training. That is, we think of the team as the client, not the animal or its handler. We believe that training is (and should be) educational for both the animal and the handler. Both team members learn; both practice and master skills and behaviors. Ideally, the mutual interaction shared between animal and handler during training helps strengthen the bonds between them.

To learn about working with Teams, see Teams

Class

In Training Corner, a class is any scheduled training activity. While the term class is customarily used to describe larger scale, multi-session group training environments, Training Corner uses this term to cover all training activities, including one-on-one consultations.

You will likely find that Training Corner (in its effort to include features needed for a group training environment) includes things that just aren't needed for a private consultation; don't worry, just ignore what you don't need.

So, with that in mind, a class may consists of one session or multiple sessions; it may enroll one team or many teams; but we assume that it focuses on a single species.

To learn about working with Classes, see Classes.

Sessions

A session is a single meeting of a class. A group class with a dozen enrolled teams that meets on six consecutive Tuesdays is a class with six sessions. A single counseling session with a single team is a class with a single session.

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Segments

Just as classes are organized into sessions, sessions are organized into segments. A segment is just a block of time in a session when some specific activity occurs. The process of planning a session consists of identifying a sequence of segments, defining what happens in each one and how long each segment lasts.

In Training Corner, a segment may consist of

Instruction. An instruction segment is one in which you communicate to the teams. Use this type of segment for providing instruction, opening and closing remarks, etc.
Discussion. A discussion segment is one in which there is two-way communication between you and the teams. Use this type of segment for discussions, Q & A sessions, etc.
Observation. An observation segment is one in which the time is spent observing the team and recording your observations. If you counsel or consult with teams concerning behavior issues, you will find this type of segment to be particularly useful.
Exercise.An exercise segment is one where the team performs a specified exercise. You will have an opportunity to record your observations and performance evaluation.
Test. A test segment is one where the teams are tested and evaluated on their performance. If your class prepares a team for a competition or certification, you will find this kind of segment most useful.

Segment lengths are defined in 5 minute increments. A session may have as many or as few segments as are needed (although each session must have at least one segment). Each segment may be of any of the five types listed above.

Using the segment editor to develop and document a session plan is described in the Classes Section.

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Enrollment

Enrolling in a class is a process. Before a team can be considered enrolled, you will have a set of steps that must be completed:

There may be fees to be paid.
There may be papers (such as liability waivers, etc) which must be signed.
There may be class prerequisites and the team may have to show that they have met them.
There may be required medical records (including vaccination records) that have to be completed and placed on file.

You determine what the enrollment requirements are for each of your classes. Then you can record them (as part of the definition of the class) in Training Corner. When teams enroll, each team automatically gets a checklist of the items you've specified. You can check the items off as they are completed.

Until a team has completed all of the enrollment checklist items, their status in the class is pending. Training Corner does not allow pending teams to participate in a class. They need to complete their enrollment first.

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Attendance

If your class is a one-on-one consultation, the attendance of the enrolled team is assumed. (Otherwise, you'd just reschedule the session.) But for larger classes, it is important to know whick teams are present and which are absent. Training Corner tracks attendance and provides a number of ways you can enter, view or analyze attendance data.

Because Training Corner tracks attendance, it can help you implement an attendance policy. Attendance policies deal with how you handle absences. Training Corner offers three choices.

Standard Attendance Policy

In the standard attendance policy, teams sign up for a scheduled set of sessions. There are no accommodations for missed classes. (This is the default attendance policy.)

When you offer the same class over and over, other attendance policies become feasible.

Makeup Attendance Policy

Many classes are structured to introduce skills and/or behaviors gradually, so that each session introduces new material (as well as continuing to work on the mastery of previously-introduced material).

In such a class, you may choose to allow a team that misses a particular session to attend the equivalent session the next time you offer the class. In other words, if a team misses a particular session, they can attend that session (only) during the next offering of the class.

Training Corner supports this approach and calls it the Makeup Attendance Policy.

Rolling Attendance Policy

On the other hand, suppose you structure the class by introducing all of the skills and behaviors in the first session and then repeating the skills and behaviors in each succeeding session (with, hopefully, improvement in each session). If you structure a class in this way, teams enroll for a fixed number of sessions, and it doesn't really matter whether those sessions are all part of the same scheduled class or whether they can be spread across two scheduled classes.

This approach, where teams spread their participation over two classes but for a fixed number of sessions, is supported by Training Corner and called the Rolling Attendance Policy.

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Performance

Evaluating the skills and behaviors you observe is a critical part of training. Whether you are simply observing what the team is doing or administering a test or anything in between, performance is what your classes are really all about.

Training Corner uses a rubric-based approach to performance evaluation.

A rubric is a description of what skills or behaviors are being evaluated and what criteria will be used when performing the evaluation. A rubric may be qualitative or quantitative. For example, the rubric for an observation of the animal's interaction with its handler is going to be completely qualitative; the rubric for a practice round of a competition is likely to have a much stronger quantitative aspect.

What is important is that having a defined rubric for a performance evaluation has several significant advantages:

Evaluations can be performed in a more consistent manner because the criteria are available for everyone to see.
The evaluation process becomes transparent because team know what is expected of them and can prepare accordingly.
You can delegate the evaluation process to others (co-workers, assistants, etc) with confidence that the every team's evaluation will be fair and consistent.
While qualitative evaluations are still judgment calls, having the rubric written down helps reduce the variability inherent in qualitative evaluation.

Training Corner supports five different styles of rubric:

Observation. A qualitative rubric where you record in narrative form what you see.
Pass/Fail. A rubric which you evaluate whether the team has succeeded (or not) on each rubric item. This is essentially a two-point Likert scale.
Likert. A rubric which has a scale of values and where you choose a scale value for each rubric item. (On a scale of 1 to 5, how well did the team do X.)
Points. The team earns points for each item in the rubric. The total point value is the evaluation.
Deductions. The team performs the items in the rubric. For each one, there can be deductions for faults or errors.

Note: It also should be noted that all of these rubric styles include a narrative section, so that you can always comment on the team's performance.

Evaluation takes place throughout the duration of the class. You can evaluate

each team's performance on a test (i.e., during a test segment)
each team's performance on an exercise (i.e., during an exercise segment)
each team's performance or behavior while you observe it (i.e., during an observation segment)
each team's overall performance in a session as a whole (i.e., a session summary evaluation)
each team's overall performance in the class as a whole (i.e., a class summary evaluation)

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Homework

For a team to master a skill or modify a behavior, it is not enough just to pracice in class; the team also needs to practice at home between sessions. This is important both to

use the repetitions to build patterns of behavior ("muscle memory").
perform the skill in a variety of different environments so that the animal learns to display that skill or behavior irrespective of where it is.

That means homework.

You can define a homework assignment for each session. Each assignment may be defined from scratch or may use a previous assignment as a template. A homework assignment has four main parts:

Instructions for the team, explaining what you want them to do.
(optional) A list of discussion points you want the teams to research, think about, and be prepared to discuss at the next session.
A list of exercises the team should perform. (Each exercise will include instructions describing how to conduct the exercise, where, when, how often and for how long).
(optional) a collection of reading materials, web links to visit (and study), videos to view and other study materials.

Training Corner can package the homework assignment in various ways and help you distribute it to your teams, including as printed worksheets, eMail attachments and folders containing material which can be downloaded by teams at their convenience.The latter option means you can distribute homework assignments via Google Docs, Dropbox or other similar services.

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Exercises

An exercise is an activity performed by a team for the purpose of introducing, learning, reinforcing or mastering a skill or behavior.

Teams perform exercises both in class (in exercise segments) and at home (as part of their homework). As such, an exercise needs to contain both instructions for you and you associates (describing how to teach and conduct the exercise in class) and instructions for the teams (describing how to perform the exercise at home).

In addition, an exercise may include

a list of the equipment needed to perform the exercise.
suggestions of how to accommodate special circumstances, such as teams who are unable to perform the exercise in the standard way.
exemplars — photos, videos, etc. which demonstrate correct (or incorrect) performance.
a rubric which describes how the team's performance of the exercise is to be evaluated.

To learn about working with Exercises, see Exercises.

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