Trainer Basics

Answers the three key questions for new trainers: What does a trainer do and why? How can the skills be developed quickly? How does a trainer apply knowledge?

Trainer Basics provides a clear, concise explanation of the training function. Veteran trainer, George M. Piskurich, explains the basics of instructional design, adult learning, needs analysis, evaluation, presenting, and facilitation. It is a great tool for training beginning practitioners and subject matter experts new to the training field.

George Piskurich is an organizational learning and performance consultant based in Macon, Georgia. He provides consulting services and workshops in instructional design, management development, and performance improvement to clients throughout the country. He specializes in e-learning interventions, performance/training analysis, distance learning, design and development of self-directed and individualized learning programs for all levels of the organization, telecommuting interventions, and knowledge centers. His workshops on self-directed learning, structured mentoring, interactive distance learning, and telecommuting have been rated as outstanding by participants from many organizations.

His recent clients have included major multinational corporations for which he developed Web-enabled problem-solving and telecommuting interventions as well as a basic management program; a small technology-based organization where he designed the company's training system; a state board of education where he managed and produced an interactive satellite distance-learning interventions; and a number of telecommunications, pharmaceutical, and banking clients for whom he has created e-learning programs and other self-instructional classes on various topics.

With more than 20 years of experience in every phase of learning technology, he has been a classroom instructor in both the public and private sectors, designed development systems for managers, developed and instructed programs ranging from communications theory to computer-based training techniques, and created both industrial and health care training departments as a corporate training director.

In his specialty of self-directed learning, he has created individualized programs on topics ranging from the biological sciences to instructional and supervisory techniques, using print, slide, video, and computer-based formats.

He has written and edited many books including Self-Directed Learning (Jossey-Bass, 1995), An Organizational Guide to Telecommuting (ASTD, 1998), The ASTD Handbook of Training Design and Delivery (McGraw-Hill, 2000), Rapid Instructional Design (Jossey-Bass, 2000), The AMA Handbook of E-Learning (AMA, 2002), Preparing Learners for E-Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2003), and Getting the most from E-Learning (Pfeiffer, 2003). In addition, he has written several journals articles and book chapters on various topics including customer service, structured mentoring, and corporate downsizing. He is currently writing and editing books on classroom instruction and the preparation of organizations and learners for e-learning.

He has been a presenter and workshop leader at several conferences and symposia. He is an active member of both the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) and ASTD, in which he has held local and national leadership positions. In 1986 he was ASTD's Instructional Technologist of the Year and won the Best Use of Instructional Technology in Business award in 1992 for his design of distributed self-directed learning technical skills training.