Old Dog, New Tricks
Using advanced technology can revitalize today’s welding classroom
By Greg Siepert and Jamey McIntosh
Reprinted with permission: The AWS Welding Journal
The old adage that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” sometimes seems more like a challenge to be proven wrong than a statement of wisdom. With today’s global market and the evolution of new technology, a new adage may be more appropriate for welding instructors: “Adapt or be left behind.” As instructors look at the landscape of business, training, welding education, and manufacturing, the issue becomes less about what new tricks are out there, and more about which tricks would best serve their students.
It is important that we look at the available training tools and reflect on how to use those tools, because it may sometimes be more effective to revamp existing ideas than to start from scratch. By doing this, new tricks in welding education may not seem as impossible to accomplish.
New Tricks Can Shore Up the Gap
In the world of welding education, and education as a whole, we are on the edge of a skill loss. As baby boomers start to retire, we see a skills gap in the welding industry, and knowledge loss in welding education. Furthermore, the average welder is between 50 and 55 years old, and the average welding instructor is not that different. This forces newer welding educators to close the knowledge gap by teaching new technologies and using new teaching techniques, all the while continuing to create a quality product: the next welding employee.
One example of this type of educator is Greg Siepert, a welding instructor at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kan. Siepert is the American Welding Society’s 2013 Howard E. Adkins Instructor Membership Award winner. Years of experience taught Siepert that instructors need to reflect on what they teach and why they teach the way they do. He has seen how it is possible to learn new tricks from old practices and help welding students in their quest for welding careers.
“I still feel like a rookie in the field of welding education,” said Siepert, “but I have been blessed to have worked with many in the field, including fantastic mentors, enthusiastic students, and peers who continue to work day in and day out to help create quality welders.”
When he first became a welding educator, Siepert’s goal wasn’t unique: he wanted to train the best welders as they prepared for the field of their choice. Like many new instructors, he envisioned every student who graced his classroom learning the subject, graduating, and entering the welding field. Siepert soon realized that he needed to find new ways to achieve this goal; he had to adapt his environment for the success of his students .
For instance, Siepert recalls noticing that many of his new students were enticed into the welding field because someone had mentioned the promise of a sustainable career that would provide them with a livable wage no matter where they decided to go. His students wanted to learn career skills, and they were hoping to get a job to support their families sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, the common welding education curriculum didn’t cover procedures needed to work for local industry until the second semester — and Siepert’s students’ reactions made him start to question the standards he was following.
“It was heart breaking to see a student’s face drop when I told them that,” said Siepert, who wanted to prepare his students to earn wages and support themselves as soon as possible following graduation from his welding program. “So I started to ask why we do the things we do. Is it best for welding education or just because it has been done this way throughout the years? Can we learn new ways of doing things, or just change the way we do things, so that we can make welding education better?”
What to Change, What to Keep the Same
It’s not always about learning new tricks, but seeing what tricks help and what tricks do not. In some cases, it might be worthwhile to update your welding practices or modify what is being taught. Doing so might better prepare your students for careers and allow them to be gainfully employed no matter what.
Siepert recalls facing this challenge in his first teaching job. The first night of class, he asked students their goals and where they wanted to be at the end of their welding training. Paying attention to the needs and wants of students will show instructors what new tricks they can learn and where new opportunities to engage and help students can be found. In this case, Siepert’s students wanted to go into local industry, which was, in that area, a form of production gas metal arc welding — a topic often not focused on until well into a welding program. Siepert saw an opportunity to modify what was being taught to better serve his students.
It is vital to help students understand why they are learning something, how it impacts their future careers, and why, perhaps, results aren’t being seen immediately. Helping students correlate what they are doing now to their future careers while providing a full and complete understanding of welding can be a challenge, but this challenge can also lead to the discovery of new teaching tricks.
Changes like Siepert’s modification of curriculum order are happening across the nation as programs focus on retaining students and providing efficient and effective training. One way to ensure that what is being taught in welding education programs is relevant to the workforce is to implement work-based learning opportunities. These opportunities have been around for years, but remain an old trick that still benefit programs today. Work-based learning opportunities give students the ability to undertake welding projects and processes while taking classes. They reduce the monetary stress of going to school and allow students the opportunity to learn technical, job-specific skills. Another benefit of work-based learning is the earlier availability of internship programs for participating students.
Old Becomes New Again
Now is the time for welding instructors to start reflecting on how welding education is presented. Statistics show that by 2019, there will be a need for more than 310,000 new and replacement welding professionals in America (Ref. 1). With a skills gap looming, now is the perfect time to work toward sharpening skill development within welding education and redefining the way we do things.
In many cases, we can find new tricks by revamping old ones. We can use technology to achieve the same goals welding programs sought to achieve years ago. Doing so will help welding instructors meet the varying needs of today’s welding students, some of whom are technologically savvy and some of whom are not. Implementing technology into the welding lab can also engage new students and inspire them to follow career paths they might not have chosen otherwise. While it may appear from the outside that things haven’t changed in welding, the technology that goes into the processes, the science behind the processes, and the knowledge about welding have changed significantly.
These developments should inspire instructors to seek out new teaching methods that can help familiarize students with the advanced manufacturing methods found in today’s industry. Without an increase in class or program time, educators have had to get creative to teach this necessary additional content, encourage reflection and innovation, and convey key components of success to students.
Use What You Know to Add to Learning
Like students, most welding instructors enter the world of welding education from a broad spectrum of backgrounds. Instructors who use the knowledge they bring from their various work experiences will enjoy increased comfort when trying new teaching methods. When we look at the field of welding, we should also remember the technology that we are familiar with.
Most educational institutions already have learning management systems that can help streamline data collection and grading capabilities. There are other great options available to instructors that students can use to learn in new ways, like welding simulators and online welding curriculum programs. Social media and other online resources used in everyday life can also help increase students’ use of technology at the same time as they remain focused on welding education.
These options are all wonderful ways to further facilitate learning outside the classroom and the embrace of technology. As the field of welding education changes to meet the demands of the welding industry, educators need to embrace this technology and, in turn, prepare students to encounter the weld tracking software, robotics, and advanced systems they’ll see in manufacturing — Fig. 3. This doesn’t mean that welding can be taught wholly in the virtual world or without live arc processes, but it can be supplemented throughout the process.
Ending Thoughts
It’s easy to get caught up in what is happening in your own shop and forget to think outside the box or look at other methods. Creating the quality welders our workforce needs with such a variety of students requires more training than ever before. It is important to focus on the needs of individual students and to find ways to encourage quality learning. Now is the time to focus on what we are doing today, and how we can, little by little, add new tricks to our training portfolio.
Reference
- Kim, J. 2010. The welding industry: A national perspective on workforce trends and challenges. Updated Welding Industry Report. www.weld-ed.org.
