INVERONMENT CORNER

Five Factors That Contribute To A Good Learning Environment Motivation is the most important factor in any learning environment. First and foremost, students must be highly motivated to learn. Motivation will be the driving force that makes students stick with it even when they are having trouble understanding information being presented during training. Indeed, any problem with learning can be overcome if the student's motivation is high enough. But just as important, the instructor must also be highly motivated to teach. They must have a burning desire to relate information during training in a way students can understand. When student are having problems, the instructor must be motivated enough to spend the extra time it takes to ensure that the student eventually understands presented material. This can be very challenging since students' aptitude levels vary. Our course curriculums inspire motivation on both counts. The colorful and illustrative slide show, the tutorial nature of the manual, the pertinent practice exercises, and the highly structured key concepts approach will capture and hold your students' attention, and make it easy for them to stay motivated. For the same reasons, instructors should find our courses almost fun to teach - and it is easy to stay motivated with tasks you enjoy. Aptitude will determine how quickly and easily learning will be. The aptitude of the instructor for making attention holding presentations, giving pertinent analogies, preparing illustrative visuals, designing realistic practice exercises, and in general, keeping the students interested level high will contribute to determining how quickly and easily students catch on to new material. Instructors with high aptitude make it easy for students to learn. In similar fashion, the students' aptitude for learning manufacturing related functions and specifically CNC also contribute to how quickly and easily learning takes place. Students with high aptitude make it easy for the instructor to teach. Our curriculums pay particular attention to trouble spots. From our own teaching experience, we know where students with minimal aptitude tend to have the most problems and make ample analogies to keep even the most complex topics of CNC as simple as possible to understand. This will also help instructors with minimal CNC aptitude look like experts in the field! Presentation is the heart of training. The better the instructor prepares and delivers the presentation, the easier it will be for students to learn. Presentation can consist of many things, including the instructor's orations, demonstrations, simulations, overhead and projector slides, videos, and anything else that helps to convey an idea. This is the strongest point of our curriculums. You will find it very easy to get your ideas across with but a small amount of preparation time before delivering each lesson. While you still have to talk, the slide show and instructor notes will make sure you know what to say - and they'll help you keep on track! Repetition reinforces a student's understanding of learned information. Even students with extremely high aptitude will find it difficult to learn from presentations made only once. All training sessions should begin with a review of recent presentations. Depending upon the frequency and duration of each training session, entire sessions should, at times, be devoted to reviewing what students should already know. Reviews also help the instructor limit how much complex subject matter is presented during each session. Knowing that certain information will be reviewed, the instructor can avoid getting too deep into complicated topics during the first time the information is presented. Only after students have a firm grasp of the basics will the instructor dive deeper and introduce more complicated variations. The slide shows really help with review. As you begin each session, you can easily call up the presentation/s made recently and quickly skim material to ensure comprehension. For review purposes, you can even hide slides during reviews (within PowerPoint) to keep from having to go through all but the most important slides. Practice with reinforcement acts as the gauge to judge the success of training. Well designed practice exercises should be realistic, forcing the student to do things in the same way they must when training is completed. Reinforcement must come as the result of the students' practice. If the student demonstrates a firm understanding of the presented information, reinforcement should praise the success. On the other hand, if practice exposes a student's lack of understanding, reinforcement should come in the form of repeated presentations, review, and more practice, ensuring that the student eventually catches on. This course curriculum include a comprehensive set of practice exercises, as well as a final test, to confirm understanding each step of the way. And of course, answers are provided.   Environmental Threats   Acid Rain Effects Felt Through the Food Chain Photograph by David Woodfall/Getty Images Toxic Waste Man's Poisonous Byproducts     Air Pollution Comes From Many Sources Photograph by Peter Essick Smog hanging over cities is the most familiar and obvious form of air pollution. But there are different kinds of pollution—some visible, some invisible—that contribute to global warming. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere that has damaging effects on living things and the environment is considered air pollution. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years. Other greenhouse gases include methane—which comes from such sources as swamps and gas emitted by livestock—and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth's ozone layer. Another pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released in the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool. Volcanic eruptions can spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, sometimes causing cooling that lasts for years. In fact, volcanoes used to be the main source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide; today people are. Industrialized countries have worked to reduce levels of sulfur dioxide, smog, and smoke in order to improve people's health. But a result, not predicted until recently, is that the lower sulfur dioxide levels may actually make global warming worse. Just as sulfur dioxide from volcanoes can cool the planet by blocking sunlight, cutting the amount of the compound in the atmosphere lets more sunlight through, warming the Earth. This effect is exaggerated when elevated levels of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the additional heat. Most people agree that to curb global warming, a variety of measures need to be taken. On a personal level, driving and flying less, recycling, and conservation reduces a person’s "carbon footprint"—the amount of carbon dioxide a person is responsible for putting into the atmosphere. On a larger scale, governments are taking measures to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One way is through the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement between countries that they will cut back on carbon dioxide emissions. Another method is to put taxes on carbon emissions or higher taxes on gasoline, so that people and companies will have greater incentives to conserve energy and pollute less.