Instructor competencies, offered as professional development frameworks, identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable effective instruction. A 2021 version of Instructor Competencies is now available from The International Board for Standards, Training, Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI). These 2021 standards, appropriate for instructors and trainers in all settings, are based on well-established instructional principles that are flexible enough to allow for adjustments to new understandings in the science of teaching and learning, the integration of best practices, and adaptability to emerging tools and technology. With this update of IBSTPI’s 2004 Instructor Competencies, the framework now includes four domains of performance, 19 competencies, 150 performance statements and these three conditions defining instructors’ work: core, blended, and online.

This edition is not just a rehash of old, albeit classic and still important, stuff. Instead, it provides a fresh perspective on a topic of perennial interest for those working in the field that has been variously called training and development, human resource development, performance technology, and workplace learning and performance. The fresh perspective takes into consideration two additional instructor settings to the traditional face-to-face environments that most instructors and trainers know -- that is, online and blended settings. These settings are, of course, becoming more critical as instruction moves beyond classroom settings to include virtual and combinations of classroom and other media delivery methods. The ibstpi instructor competencies match up well to Mapping the Future (Bernthal, Colteryahn, Davis, Naughton, Rothwell, & Wellins 2004), the current ASTD competency study of the field now known as Workplace Learning and Performance (WLP) and previously known as Training and Development (T&D). WLP is more than a new name for an old subject and represents a fundamental paradigm shift in what it means to be a professional in the field formerly known as training. WLP is all about getting improved performance -- and therefore improved results -- in organizational settings through planned and unplanned learning interventions. Instruction is thus a means to an end and not an end in itself. The ibstpi instructor competencies dovetail well with that philosophy.

This is an open access book. It draws from relevant theories and approaches to teachers’ professional development (TPD) and innovative and inspiring TPD practices in higher education. It first lays a solid foundation for the rest of the book, through critiquing prevalent theories, approaches, and teaching competency frameworks guiding TPD in higher education, and defining the key concepts related to TPD. The book then develops a standard framework and assessment instrument of teaching competencies as well as ways of using this framework by institutions, departments at different levels, and individual teachers. It also proposes strategies for improving teachers’ teaching competencies by reviewing what has been achieved to date in TPD in terms of national-level policies and strategies, institutional-level interventions, and teachers’ self-directed professional development. Finally, it also presents case studies of typical practices in TPD in different countries.

The Trainer’s Journey to Competence draws on Jean Barbazette’s thirty-five years of experience in training trainers. The book serves as both a useful source of career advice for those in the training field, and as a starting point for creating a role-specific professional development plan. Professional trainers can use this resource to assess their knowledge, skills, and attitudes and use this information to create an individual development plan. The book can be equally helpful when creating internal training certification programs for organizations.

The book identifies a set of validated competencies and performance statements, withsupporting explanation and data to inform and equip online learners with the critical attitudes, knowledge and skills for successful learning in online and/or blended learning settings. The work also enables online education providers (e.g., instructors, course designers, program administrators, scholars) to better understand learner needs in order to design and deliver online education products and services best suited to learners. Supplementing a large number of anecdotally-based “how to” books published for those engaged in online education, this volume offers a definitive set of 14 competencies and 75 performance statements (that demonstrate those competencies). Validated by systematic research and input from over 1,000 online users and providers worldwide, this work should impact the quality of learning and teaching at both the individual and organizational levels, involved in online education.

For decades and in the interests of greater flight safety, Competence criteria have been introduced in professional training. The results obtained in professional aviation are indisputable and the proposed new paradigm aims to increase the pilot's ability to resolve, in particular, unfamiliar situations. There is no doubt that during soaring, the conditions faced are, as a general rule, highly variable, which requires the pilot to be highly adaptable. However, even though this flying technique is the one that requires the most resilience, there is no single criterion in the development of training that would lead the future pilot to develop the necessary skills, nor is there a single evaluation criterion that would determine a common standard. From my experience in professional teaching in organisations such as CAE, the experience as an EASA inspector and my own experience as a gliding instructor I wanted to propose a new way of teaching and, above all, of assessing a future glider pilot with COMPETENCE criteria in which the elements of CRM and TEM are always present together with the application of KSA. In this text I hope that gliding instructors will find a tool for teaching their classes and a greater standardisation as a guide to develop their own Competence Based Training and assessment adapted at the local conditions and gliders. The future is not white or black but an infinite scale of greys where different solution could be proposed successfully. By this the list of mission proposed is my personal view adapted to my programs but it not pretends to be an absolute criterion. Hope you will enjoy Happy landings! Francesco Padovano