Water quality workshop for water filtration company

The regular followers of my blog should realise that most of my workshops are geared towards schools, whether for teachers of students. I have recently conducted one in collaboration with Singapore Red Cross and Lifelong Learning Council though.

But this time round, I organise a water quality workshop for a water filtration system company. Interestingly, the attendees were staff from sales & marketing, admin, installation and management. Quite a mix of job functions and technical background! Challenging for a trainer but nothing I have not seen before.

Regardless, the rules of pedagogy still apply. A trainer or facilitator should always present materials of use and interest to the audience. In a chemistry class, chemical equations of reactions in water are ubiquitous but to a sales staff (and his customer), the same equations become Greek and frankly of little use.

And whether in a chemistry class, public workshop or private workshop for a client company, it always bring satisfaction to a trainer when he sees his learners motivated to know more and keen to try out the newly acquired skills. In that sense, trainers (and learners) are perhaps not that different despite the differences in subject matter, background and current levels of knowledge and skills.

Figure: A practical session in water quality testing within the company's premises. No, those participants looking outside the window were not admiring the scenery. They were using the colour comparator (not visible) which needs a good souce of lighting e.g. daylight.