Tips for Instructors

Using the Electrical Troubleshooting Skills Series as part of a Course or Lab

Why should I use these programs?
Which programs should I use?
How do I use the programs?

Teaching Electrical Troubleshooting can be unlike teaching many courses. In order for a troubleshooting course to be effective, it must provide sufficient hands-on practice and feedback allowing the students to develop their skills.

This raises some questions for you:

How can I provide this hands-on practice?
How can I provide enough practical exercises for everyone?
If I am using live equipment to practice troubleshooting how can I ensure that no safety violations are made and no one gets hurt?
Even though someone solves a fault how do I know the process they followed and whether any safety violations were made?
How do I assess someone's troubleshooting skills? Traditional paper testing methods typically are not adequate for testing a hands-on skill.
In many cases labs do not have enough equipment to allow everyone to troubleshoot independently and student must solve electrical faults in groups. How can I be sure that I am accurately assessing an individual's troubleshooting skills in such an environment?

Simutech's Electrical Troubleshooting Skills Series answers many of the above issues. It is a series of computer based training programs providing a safe, hands-on, troubleshooting environment complete with highly realistic simulations and a compete tracking and reporting system. Read on to see how you can use these programs in your training course.

Why should I use these programs?

Safety - The computer simulations allow your students to develop their troubleshooting skills in a safe environment. No risk of electrical injuries.
High quality and effective - These programs have won several awards, the latest being from the Canadian Society of Training and Development for their training quality.
Practical Hands-on Approach - Highly realistic circuit simulations are used throughout these programs allowing the student to use realistic tools to solve realistic faults.
Students learn a recognized troubleshooting process - A systematic 5 Step Troubleshooting Approach is taught in these programs through the use of graphics, animations and practical examples. This approach can be applied to any electrical troubleshooting problem or circuit.
Students benefit from an expert's experience - These programs contain a section where an expert guides them through a number of faults following the systematic 5 Step Troubleshooting Approach.
Tracks and documents every step a student takes - Allows you to assess a students troubleshooting techniques and provide meaningful feedback.
Assess your students troubleshooting skills - These programs have a reporting system that not only tracks the completion of each fault but also records the steps taken to solve each fault. This can be very useful for assessing their troubleshooting skills and providing feedback.
Frees up your time to provide individual assistance - These programs contain content that the students can work through on their own to learn and apply a systematic troubleshooting approach, freeing up your time to provide assistance to those who need extra help.
Manage the troubleshooting training - Instructor resource tools and guides that make it easy for you to monitor and manage the progress of your students use of these programs are included. An admin program allows you to monitor the students progress and print out reports. Instructor guides contain solutions to all the faults as well as other resource materials.

Which programs should I use?

The Troubleshooting Skills Series consists of three programs:

Troubleshooting Electrical Circuits is the first in the series. It introduces Simutech's Systematic Troubleshooting Approach and contains lighting circuit simulations to practice this approach.

Troubleshooting Control Circuits is the second in the series and builds on the Troubleshooting Electrical Circuits program. It contains relay logic circuit simulations where you can develop and practice your troubleshooting skills.

Troubleshooting Motor Circuits is the third in the series and builds on the Troubleshooting Electrical Circuits program. It contains a motorized garage door circuit simulation where you can develop and practice your troubleshooting skills.

You can choose the complete series or individual programs. The most common choice of instructors is the complete series, however it does depend on the objectives of your course, the time available for troubleshooting and how your course is organized.

We have created several purchase options designed specifically for instructors to use in a classroom. There are options for stand-alone workstations, networks and single user (student) versions. Contact us for more information on these packages.

How do I use the programs?

These programs assume the participant has an understanding of the basic principles of electricity. They should also have a basic understanding of how control circuit components such as relays, switches, and contactors work.

The best way to use these programs varies depending on the specifics of your existing courses. The following are some general tips for using the program in your courses.

Tips for using the Troubleshooting Skills Series in your training program

The Troubleshooting Skills Series software is designed to work with an existing training program. It can be thought of as a lab for the students to practice their troubleshooting skills.
The Troubleshooting Skills Series software can be used even if you are already using real equipment to practice troubleshooting.
- You can use it as a prerequisite to working on the real equipment. It allows the student to develop a safe systematic approach before they troubleshoot on live equipment.
- Use it to expand the hands on part of your course by providing an opportunity for all students to individually troubleshoot circuits when there is not enough real equipment. It also provides additional variety of circuits for students to troubleshoot.

Tips for managing the program

An instructor resource CD is included with the program.
- If the program is installed on stand-alone workstations install the Administration program on each computer that the program is installed.
- If the program is installed on a network install the Administration program on this same network.
The Admin program allows you to view all your student's results and print reports.
The Instructor Guides are available through the Admin Program. You may want to print them out and include them in your binder. However, please keep this information secure as it does contain the solutions to all the faults.

Tips for working through the program

Conduct the content portion of your course as you normally would and provide any course materials or troubleshooting processes or procedures included in your course. Identify if any of these materials override any procedures shown in the Troubleshooting Skills Series programs.
Students should work through each program in the order it is presented starting with Basic Techniques. Do not skip sections or move on to the next program until it is completed.
The Test Your Skill section of the program allows the student to practice their troubleshooting skills on a number of faults on a circuit simulation. The following tips will help them get the most out of this section.
- Start with the basic level faults first. This allows them to become more familiar with the circuit before trying the tougher faults.
- To successfully complete a fault, they must repair the fault within a allotted time without replacing any good components or making any safety errors.
- Once a fault has been successfully completed it is taken out of the pool of faults. Once all the faults in a level have been completed the level will me marked complete. When all levels are marked complete the program is complete and a Certificate of Completion is available to be printed.
- If they require additional practice, they can choose a level that has been marked complete. A random fault from the already completed faults will be given. They cannot retry faults until all the faults within a level have been completed.
- Be as efficient as possible when troubleshooting. Some activities such as locking out the circuit add additional time to their score to simulate the time it would take if they were to lock out an actual circuit. Review the "Using the Tools" section for more information.
- If they are really stuck on a fault click on the tips button for information to point them in the right direction. However, if a tip is used, the time penalty will be sufficient to prevent them from solving the fault in the time allowed.
- The program provides a variety of reports which which show summary information as well as details of the troubleshooting process. They even provide feedback on areas that require attention. If a student is having trouble solving a fault, review the information recorded in the reports to see if you can spot where they are having trouble.
If a student is having trouble solving the faults have them review the previous sections in the program especially the "Guided Troubleshooting" section. This section shows how to apply the systematic 5 Step Troubleshooting Approach on sample faults.

Tips for assessing a student's troubleshooting skill

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These programs have a reporting system that can be very useful for assessing the troubleshooting skills of your students.

The summary report provides a summary of the student's overall performance. The report shows which faults have been completed and how may failed attempts were completed. The smaller the number of failed attempts the better their skill. The number of failed attempts should decrease as they work through the programs.
You may want to put together a formula to generate a "score". One way to do this would be to start with a certain score and reduce this score by certain amount for every failed attempt.
You may also want to review the student's troubleshooting steps by viewing the detailed report. Here you can assess their troubleshooting techniques and determine if they are using a logical approach or if they have weak areas in their troubleshooting approach.
Another option is to assign specific faults (see the instructor guide for information on how to do this). This is useful for assessing someone's skill without having to work through the whole program. You could also do this at the end of the course. The best process for this is:
- Ensure the student is familiar with the simulation tools. This information is covered in the "Using the Tools" section.
- Allow them to familiarize themselves with the circuit operation by allowing them to practice on a couple of faults.
- Pick an appropriate fault (the instructor guide has a listing of all faults) and assign the fault on the simulation.
- When the student has finished their attempt, review their detailed report to determine their troubleshooting approach.
- You may want to try several faults of varying difficulty.