“No time like the present” is a phrase most often used as a motivator for those concerned about making a choice or taking a leap, but over the past few months, it has become an increasingly universal statement of fact. Outside of previous pandemics, there has not been a situation that has brought not just individual businesses, but entire industries, to a grinding halt. What should or even can be done is an ever-evolving target, one requiring constant vigilance to make sure workers stay safe as we restart our economy and return to some semblance of our way of life over the next weeks and months.
Keeping our Staff Safe
Making sure workers stay safe is TSC Training Academy’s entire reason to be and it is what has motivated the team at TSCTA to work together to support essential construction trades in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Online course development had already begun at the end of last year, but was pushed into overdrive at the beginning of March as the pandemic began to reach American shores in earnest; with the instructional design team routinely working into the night over the ensuing weeks to complete courses on a tight and rapidly evolving development timeline.
Moving Forward – New Options For Training
Ready to serve alongside a virtual smorgasbord of online SST courses – along with a COVID and infectious disease prevention course currently in development – TSCTA’s instructors (along with that same dedicated team of instructional and design consultants) have also spent the last few months adapting delivery of their services with their recently introduced distance learning opportunities for a variety of topics. Everything being done, of course, is to meet the needs of workers as compliance deadlines still linger in one of NYC’s most productive industries.
That most students have been spending far more time at home than usual has not spared them the idiosyncrasies of adapting to new technology. However, it is a challenge both sides have been happy to embrace as class schedules have begun to pick up and virtual course seats continue to fill even faster than anticipated. All of this work has been led by TSCTA’s belief that the covenant they made with students is to keep them as safe as possible while they provide for their families, even from unseen hazards like microscopic viruses. Not immune from bad online learning experiences themselves, it was of the utmost importance for the team at TSCTA to make the courses more than just a presentation deck adapted to the medium, but an interactive experience.
Keeping Our Promise
Engaging students with a similar level of interest that in-classroom instruction from their world-class training staff does so that they can retain the knowledge and bring it to work with them every day was the mission from day one. Viewing their success in achieving that goal will largely be done through the prism of how students taking the courses feel about them. Even with this in mind, it is work of which they believe they believe can be proud, albeit at some point in the future. Right now, they just hope that it has been enough to keep everyone out of SST summer school!
