Trainings

[Josiegirl]

About how many hours of trainings do you take a year? Do you do many online?
I greatly dislike extending any work days extra hours.
I think after the holidays I'm going to start doing some online classes. I'm thinking for 2014 I've probably done 40 hours of trainings but that's simply an estimate. I don't feel the dedication anymore and really have to drag myself out of the house on any night but especially the dark cold ones.
I've never taken the 45 hour Fundamentals class but it's being offered starting in January. I know I need to sign up but dread it terribly.

So how about all of you?

[Sugar Magnolia]

I take 10 hours per year. I either go to the annual conference or take all the required hours online. My state offers many courses online and they are fairly interesting and easy to complete. I also dread and avoid in-person, classroom type classes. I had to do one last year, it was truly awful. It was every Monday from 6 to 9pm for ten weeks. I wanted to gouge my eyes out with nails. There were a bunch of videos to watch and I'm hard of hearing. There were no closed captions, I complained about it, but my complaints fell on deaf ears (no pun intended). They just turned the volume up really loud, which pissed off everyone else. I hate classroom classes and avoid for that very reason. At least the online are captioned.

[lovemykidstoo]

I'm required to have 10 hours a year and do 99% of them online. I can't stand the classes and not to be mean, but some of the women that are there, I just roll my eyes. The goofy questions drive me nuts. I just found a site online that offers alot of free classes that I do find interesting. If find I get more out of those than going to a class and you can start and stop them as much as you want, so you can easily do them during naptime. This particular site is www.childcare.tamu.edu When you complete the course, you print your own certificate.

[therov]

I've done online training only for the past two years, and it definitely beats the classroom setup (in our area, most of the classes are held at last 30 minutes away from where I live). I take what's required by our state annually. With 40 hours of training, I can understand why you're burned out on them (that's about how much I had to do at startup + the first year).

However, with online training you lose networking or other benefits of interacting with other providers, which can be a big loss in this rather solitary profession. Perhaps you can go to one in-person class with another provider you know to make it better and choose a topic that interests you for that one.

Good luck.

[Leigh]

I'm required to have 10 hours a year and do 99% of them online. I can't stand the classes and not to be mean, but some of the women that are there, I just roll my eyes. The goofy questions drive me nuts. I just found a site online that offers alot of free classes that I do find interesting. If find I get more out of those than going to a class and you can start and stop them as much as you want, so you can easily do them during naptime. This particular site is www.childcare.tamu.edu When you complete the course, you print your own certificate.

I feel the same! I HAVE to do some hours of out-of-home training every year, and those classes are full of teens from centers who talk and giggle through the whole class. I procrastinated this year and have to do 10 hours this week-an evening and an entire Saturday...I am dreading it! I do as much as possible online, too.

[KiddieCahoots]

Odd man out here, !
I love trainings!
Hate the part about getting there, (anxieties and all) but once I'm there.....love it!
In person is overall more successful for my learning style too.

[Maggie]

I do all my training through care courses. You can do your courses all online or they will send you the book and test in the mail and you can either mail your test back or take the test online. They are pretty quick with mailing your certificate. I've been using them for about ten years and have never had a problem.

[Josiegirl]

I'm better at making myself get out there than I used to be. The requirement is currently 6 hrs. a year but then I started with the whole STARS thing and that upped the requirement quite a bit. Plus when the new regs. come out I've heard our hours will be increased and everybody will need the 45 hr. Fundamentals classes. And I don't believe any of that is offered online. It requires 4 Saturdays and a whole bunch of 3 hour Wednesday nights. That's why I'm dreading that one so much.

I think it's the fact that we HAVE to do so many hours that bugs me. I like to pick and choose the classes to attend and sometimes there are great choices, sometimes not so much.

[melilley]

I take up to 10 hours a year, sometimes an hour or two more. I have only taken classes in person, but am doing a webinar today so we'll see how that goes.

Here is a link to free webinars. Just make sure your state will accept them as training hours.

http://www.earlychildhoodwebinars.com/presentations/