Welcome back to Teaching the Unteachables where we dive into teaching and learning
methodologies for professionals like you. This episode brought to you by
Refrigeration Training Services, teaching aids for HVACR instructors.
Learn more at HVACteaching.com.
Alright everyone thank you for joining us on Did You Know the ESCO HVAC
podcast. Today we're spending time with Dick Wirz. Mr. Wirz, how are you sir?
Fine thank you. Thanks for having me Clifton. President of Refrigeration
Training Services LLC as well as author of Commercial Refrigeration and Air
Conditioning Technicians, a book that is really originally designed for
refrigeration technicians that we can both relate on, but it's more about
helping air conditioning technicians understand that they really are
refrigeration technicians even if they didn't think about themselves as being
that. That's correct. So we both have a very common perspective and you have so
much more experience with this and I think it's a great opportunity to shed
light in because not only have you been a technician as well as an author and a
business owner, but you're also an educator for you know 15 years at the
Northern Virginia Community College, correct? That's correct, yes. So you've got
a lot of experience in making that transition. I think it's very important
for us to discuss that transition because a lot of people don't know if
they can be a good educator. They might be a very good technician, but will they
be a good educator? Because I know myself, I never looked at myself as an educator.
Honestly, I thought that I was going to be a commercial refrigeration technician
the rest of my life. I enjoyed it. It was a good career, good money, a good travel.
It actually took a recruiter contacting me saying, you know what, I think you're a
educator and you don't realize it. And I was like, what does that mean to be an
educator? And I think you have a lot of input that can help people who have
wondered that same question. I'm a great technician, but would I be a good teacher?
So where do we begin? Well, like I tell my students the first night, it's not a
matter of whether you will be an HVAC teacher or not. It's just when. As soon as
you start helping an apprentice understand HVAC or refrigeration,
whatever you're working, you are now a teacher. Now let's say that you have
quite a bit of experience and somebody asks you to become a teacher. And the
first thought in your mind is, do I know it well enough and how can I tell it?
I think if you look back at what were difficulties for you and understanding
it, that's your start to helping others understand that. I personally, when I
started, I had already been in the industry for 35, 40 years and I thought I
knew it all. And within the first couple of classes, I realized, darn, they're
asking me questions I never even thought about. And so I went back to night
schools, trade schools, manufacturer schools and so forth for two years. Then
came back in and started teaching properly. That's how I got there. So the
answer to the question, does a good technician make a good teacher? Yes and
no. Yes, they have the knowledge. No, they need to refine it and understand what
the students needs are and take care of those needs. The worst thing that we can
do is stand up there and pretend that we know it all. And I, one time in my early
career, I said something that was BS and I kicked myself in the butt after class
and I said to myself, I'm never gonna do that again. And from then on, it was, if I
didn't know the answer, I said, I don't know that answer. I'll find out. I'll get
back to you. And I got back to every one of my students and even in my
evaluations, the students said, you are the first instructor who ever said, I'll
get back to you and did. And I think that's so important that we learn right
along with our students. So I take the information that I learned with every
class and I keep building on it and building on building on. And I think
that's what makes great instructors. I do too. You know, when I when I did make
that transition out of the field into the classroom, that was back in 2018. And
that I kind of struggled my first year, honestly. You know, like my first day of
class. Now I was working for a local distributor that had a, you know, a
variety of HVAC training classes. A lot of the content was ESCO Institute
content and I had these good resources but then I was expected to create new
resources, to create new trainings. And it was really difficult, like learning how
to build curriculum. So I was advised to go to this conference for HVAC
educators on the National HVACR Education Conference. And that was in 2019.
And when I got there, I realized that there are many people with the exact same
struggle. They come out of the field. They they're good at what they do. They're
really good at fixing things. But the classroom is a whole different
environment. And finding the resources and finding books like the Commercial
Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Technician that really is not just about
being a refrigeration technician or an air conditioning technician. It's about
understanding the principles and being able to communicate them better. And it's
those kind of resources that changes us from just being a technician that can
explain the things that we've learned to someone who can explain the things that
we learned to someone so that they understand them. And boy that's a
threshold to get past. Well it is. And depending on the class that you're
teaching. Are you teaching a night class at a community college? Are you teaching
a seminar at a distributor? It all depends on what and who you're teaching.
So when you're asked to teach, first off you have to figure out, okay who am I
teaching and at what level are they and what is it that I want to teach them? Now
in college setting that would be easy. You start out with the basics.
Refrigeration 101, whatever it is, you work your way up. But keep in mind I
thought I was a little different in that I was very visual. And people talking to
me would not get through as much as if they showed me a picture or showed me a
valve and things like that. Most of our technicians are very visual people.
They're hands-on people. So that's the way we need to teach them. Our classroom
has got to be full of items that we can pick up, give them, let them handle. If
you've got a lab program that's fantastic. But even in the lecture
program it's got to be visual. And you have to pace it and make sure that
everybody's right along with you. Now I found out early that when I was writing
on the blackboard or the whiteboard I was usually saying the same thing,
drawing the same thing. And eventually we came up with powerpoints that work, that
were animated and so forth. And that way I could turn around and I could be
talking to the students while they were watching this animation. And I could see
in their eyes whether they were getting it or whether they weren't. And the ones
who were not getting it, I would ask them, what is it that you're having problems
with here? Now not only would I answer his question, but that was my way as an
instructor making sure next time I taught that particular class that I
covered that. It's very progressive isn't it, becoming an educator? Oh my gosh
yes. And every evening after class I took five minutes to write down what worked
and what didn't work. I did find something that was really neat as far as
I never had a problem with students coming in late. I told them in the
Washington DC area you have a lot of traffic and everybody knows that. And I
don't want you to be here at five o'clock when we're supposed to start. I
want you here at 445. Sure. And at five o'clock I give a ten question multiple
choice quiz on what we had in the class before. Oh great idea. And if you are here
on time you've got ten minutes to take that. And if you're not here then you
have to take it at the break, you know, if you come in late. And then I take off
one grade. Oh there you go. And I had no problem in 15 years with attendance and
the other instructors are like how do you do it? Yeah. I told them it seems easy but
also I was preparing them for class. I was getting their mind going. Yeah.
They're coming in from working all day long. They're tired. They've had traffic
to go through and I'm giving them something to get their mind engaged and
everything engaged so that we can start learning. Well and it's repetition. You
know one of the most important things in life is a repetition is having some type
of a sequence that we get used to. And so if you're starting that class out
every time with a consistency then it becomes part of their routine and then
it just gets embedded as a requirement for their daily tasks because they now
understand it as a requirement and not as an optional item. I absolutely love
that idea. Especially utilizing the timing. Sure you're going to be late but
understand that when you're going to be late you're not going to do as well as
you would if you were here. You're still going to do it but you're going to have
some consequences for that. I mean that's just a life lesson in general
that is a something that we do a lot of. You know we're not just educators. We're
also like life coaches and mentors for young minds and that's a fantastic way
to start a classroom. Well also I tell them on the first night of class that I'm
not here to fail them. Yeah. I'm here then to teach them about
refrigeration or whatever electrical that I'm teaching and I'm going to do
everything I can to make sure that they succeed. So I give those quizzes and we
have homework so I'll make sure they're keeping up with it and I make them
accountable for what they're doing. Now we did have five hour classes. Half were
lecture and half were lab and I did give a break every 50 minutes in class which
was very important and even sometimes when I realized that it was a subject
that people were having trouble with or just boring or whatever I would have a
break quicker. Let's have a 10-minute break and let's get our act together or
let's go down to the lab and go over this now. So keeping them engaged those
evening classes are tough on everybody and we have to realize that. Yeah even
ourselves because many of us that become specially adjunct educators you're still
working full-time jobs and then coming to class just like your students. So
everyone is having a long day at that point and so that consistency and
understanding what the time schedule is going to be and knowing that it is
flexible depending on the curriculum but having a sequence for us to continue at
every class becomes very necessary for having a quality instruction. Right and
the the PowerPoints that I use most of them are animated and so forth. I had
gave out handouts for them so they could follow along and make notes on it and so
each of my handout what took slick slides and there was enough space on
there that they could jot down the notes and so forth. Just about all of their
quizzes came from those notes. So in other words it's easy to get an A on a
quiz just look at what we did last week on the handouts that I gave you.
Make it easy, make it understanding and also if you have a chapter in a book
pick out the important things that you want them to understand. You don't
necessarily have to go through the whole chapter piece by piece. That's boring.
Right I kind of ran on that same philosophy is I would take a chapter and
typically we would see even in our bigger books you know if we would take
a chapter we're typically going to find five or six key points within that
chapter and they're almost all designed that way so that we have main items that
we're going to be covering and if you go back and typically even looking through
you know our summaries of each chapters we can see what a lot of those are. So
keeping that consistency on those primary points of each chapter giving
them a resource for restudying because a lot of times they're going to be doing
their studying at home like they get a little bit of a break in the evening or
during the day at lunch they might want to regroup on the the topics that were
important out of that particular chapter. So I'm the same way I
think it's very important to stress the the key topics of each chapter and then
build the assessments based off from those key topics as well. Yeah and I think
instructors have to be a little bit like actors. We have to you know make it
interesting and fun and you don't have to be a jokester but there are some
things that are funny about what has happened but I want to stress the point
that don't give a whole bunch of examples of what you did when you were a
technician. Some people blow that up to maybe a little bit of chest pounding
others are being very I don't know they they're allowing others to know what
mistakes they've made but only those mistakes that are key to something that
these students might possibly do that could hurt them. Yeah absolutely the
safety aspects. So we have to watch the the story time but we do have to make it
interesting and keep it moving keep it moving. Okay as far as being enthusiastic
I remember that I was very passionate in my first class every semester. I wanted
to show them how exciting this this topic can be this and this education and
what it can do for them and I'm one of these instructors who walks the class
and if I notice somebody dozing a little bit I put my hand on the shoulder
whatever but I enjoy that interaction and on one first night I'm going on and
on and I took a breath and one student in the back of room said preach it
brother preach it and the class just cracked up. I cracked up and I said yeah
I'm here preaching the gospel of Revejuration and that's the way I look
at it. I'm trying to show them and tell them how exciting this can be and what
what a fantastic opportunity it can be and I think if we get off on that kind
of footing from the very first night I think the rest of the semester or the
rest of the training is just gonna be beautiful. Yeah I completely agree. My
wife likes to say that I am very dramatic I just like to say that I'm
very passionate with my education. Whatever works. Exactly and I'm the same way if we
can keep that interaction alive in the classroom it just helps bring the
atmosphere into a place of paying attention it's almost like going to a
movie like go into a theater go into a play when we have actual physical
interaction as well as the audible interaction we just seem to connect much
better. I like to I like to watch Ty Braneman in class because he gets very
animated and he does a lot of hands-on demonstrations and I think that's
important to do for all of us as educators is to be interactive. We don't
have to be a jokester but boy we can absolutely have fun and bring that
message across the line when we're passionate about what we're doing and we
don't have to go too deep you're right we can very easily overextend ourselves
into the conversation and show ourselves a little bit too much in the
perspective versus showing the actual demonstration. It's easy for us to
build ourselves up as technicians when we're educators when in actuality we want
to simplify it down to be able to get the message across and those hands-on
demonstrations those interactions those very simple hey I have broken one of
these in the field before. Have you got an idea of how I can do that and hand
an apart over to a student and allow them to interact with the conversation?
I think it's very very important. Yes it is and one last thing that I was
thinking about is helping them to understand why they are learning either a
specific course or a specific thing about it. For instance you know why are
we under trying to understand superheat, subcooling, these types of things how are
they important to us because if we just teach them all these fancy concepts and
don't relate them to how they're going to be using them later on I think we
miss the boat. Yeah I do too. Good representation is part of the key of
teaching the technician because you're right we're all very much visual
learners. Right for sure. Mr. Wurz I really appreciate this conversation and
I look forward to many other topics and for our audience I highly encourage you
to think about some of the items that you struggle with. As a technician
becoming an educator we have a variety of things that we're going to have to
learn new skill sets right it's a new tool for our tool bag. That's all it is
it's just a different type of tool. So think about some of those topics that
you would like covered better. It could be how do I build a PowerPoint
presentation? How do I do a hands-on demonstration that's related to the
topic as well as the presentation? How do I make this conversation more
interactive? How do I discipline students? There are so many things we could talk
about. So in the comments leave us some ideas and Mr. Wurz and I will come back
and we'll do some follow-up conversations. Sound like a good idea?
Sounds great. Mr. Wurz I appreciate you so much for joining us today I look
forward to some future conversations as we try to help encourage technicians to
become those educators that they never really thought that they were but in all
actuality they have been doing for a long time so we thank you very much for
joining us today. Thanks for having me I appreciate it.