Jud Martell likes to tell people they’ve just built a threestorey jungle gym at the Sheet Metal Workers Training Centre in Surrey, BC.
He’s talking about an installation mockup that instructors can custom configure to give students hands-on learning experience they might normally only get in through experience on the job.
“We’ve built a three-storey indoor installation that we can work on from any angle,” says Martell, the centre’s training co-ordinator. “It gives our students new learning opportunities in a real-word setting. We have a floor, a 12- or 14-foot ceiling, and another 14 feet to the top of the building,” he says.
The mockup gives instructors the ability to teach methods and techniques more effectively, and to address new field challenges.
Sometimes it can be as simple as moving materials through a structure. “Stuff like taking a load up stairs. You’d probably learn how to get material upstairs by bump and feel for the first 2,000 feet on a job site. With the new mockup we can present these learning experiences in a training environment,” Martell says.
Instructors can now take advantage of the ability to customize the mockup to re-create a wide range of real world situations. “We can set up different tests and demonstrations,” says Martell. “Instructors can point to things and say ‘look, there’s one’ or ‘this is how it’s done.’ It gives them a whole bunch of new surfaces.”
According to Martell, the entire 12,000-square-foot training centre is essentially becoming an open lab. Instructors simply have to draw up the configuration they need to demonstrate on the mockup and they can put it in play.
“I’m very excited to have it ready to go. It has been a year and a half to go from concept to finally having it ready,” Martell says.
Martell anticipates a growing number of students will take advantage of the new mockup. This year’s training centre enrolment is expected to blow past last year’s already high numbers. SMWTC is already the province’s largest, with 342 students.
Courses run six weeks and the centre does seven intakes on two classes per year with an average of 16 students per class. “We’re already turning out skilled people with training to meet market needs. We listen closely to employers when we put our courses together,” Martell says.
That means the current is now nearly exceeding capacity. “When we add one more course we’re going to have to go to a new building,” he says. “Every cubic inch we have here is now used.”
Anticipating that growth, the new mockup can be broken down and moved on a trailer to a new location.
Students who enrol in SMWTC courses are eligible for financial assistance, including EI while enrolled in a full time course, financial assistance for travel and housing, and Canadian Apprenticeship Program funding.
The Sheet Metal Workers Training Centre Society’s mission is to provide the highest quality of training and upgrading to sheet metal apprentices and journeypersons in the Province of British Columbia by delivering the highest standards of instruction and utilizing the most up-to-date teaching methods and technologies.
Complete information is available on the Sheet Metal Worker Training Centre website at http://www.smwtcs.ca.