Best Practices for Teaching the Construction Trades (With Implementation Checklist)

Teaching construction skills like HVAC, electrical, and plumbing is unique from almost every other teaching discipline. Instructors teach hands-on skills that carry immediate real-world applications. This distinction means that trades instructors need their own best practices for what will engage students and help them learn both knowledge and hands-on skills.

Ready to make your classroom engaging and interactive, but aren’t sure where to start? Download our implementation guide with step-by-step directions on how to get started transforming your construction trades classroom.

3 Challenges Construction Trades Educators Face

Trades instructors are teaching the future electricians, plumbers, solar installers, and HVAC technicians of tomorrow. To accomplish their goals, they must navigate managing consumable resources, finite lab time, and the rapid evolution of technology.

1. Consumable Resources: Hands-on training often requires significant investment in equipment and materials, many of which are consumables that must constantly be replaced.
2. Limited Time: In a construction classroom, hands-on training often requires one-on-one or small-group instruction with a teacher for safety purposes. With this limitation, a large class size significantly limits hands-on time for each student.
3. Integrating Technology: While artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) offer great potential, implementing them effectively can be daunting. Most teachers need software and access to professional development to learn the programs.

Despite these challenges, innovative approaches can bridge the gap between classroom instruction and industry demands. Educators can prepare students for successful careers in the skilled trades by adopting the right tools and best practices in pedagogy.

3 Best Practices for Teaching the Construction Trades

Learning a construction trade requires spatial awareness, mathematics, troubleshooting, and specialized technical knowledge. Here are three tried-and-true approaches to engage students and help them master the skills they need.

1. Prioritize Hands-On Learning

Hands-on learning offers many benefits across various educational contexts. In the trades, it helps students “learn by doing,” enhances their memory recall, and fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Above all, hands-on learning better prepares students for real-world challenges.

This can take the form of work-based learning like apprenticeships, but it starts in the classroom. To bring concepts to life, you can create opportunities for students to try virtual simulations and allow them to get their hands on real equipment as early as possible.

Hands-On Learning in Practice: Indiana County Technology Center
Indiana County Technology Center in Pennsylvania uses 3D simulations and VR from Interplay Learning to enhance hands-on learning for its students.

“I think with the new generation of students, they’re learning better through this technology,” says DJ Mumau, HVAC Instructor. “It piques their interest and holds it longer than sitting down with a book and a pencil. The Interplay Learning program allows us to keep the students on task and engaged in our educational process. When we were able to pull them and put them on live equipment, they were able to perform at a much higher level.”

2. Embrace Multiple Learning Modes

Today’s learners struggle to retain information with the traditional teaching method of lecture, assignment, quiz. Instead, students prefer short, interactive, visual content that matches their short attention spans and common media platforms like YouTube or video games. Many Gen Z students are kinesthetic learners, another reason they learn well through hands-on learning.

Multiple Learning Modes in Practice: JASA, Inc.

JASA, Inc. Trade School in Northern Virginia transitioned from primarily using textbooks in their program to prioritizing learning through video, online modules, 3D simulations, and VR with Interplay Learning. As a result, JASA Inc. students have higher recall, confidence, and job placement rates.

“Students like the VR set best about Interplay because it feels like they are actually enjoying playing a video game and they don’t even realize they’re learning,” said John Chapman, CEO. “Before they know it, they’re taking the test and the quizzes, and they’re passing no problem. Because they had fun with it, it gives them that confidence boost to go and do it and not be as nervous.”

3. Embrace Student-Led Learning

Student-led learning places students at the center of the educational experience.
Unlike Millennials, Gen Z students are predominantly intrapersonal learners, meaning that they prefer individual, personalized learning environments. While this can take the form of asynchronous, self-paced modules, it can also take other forms, like a flipped classroom or constructivist pedagogy

Student-Led Learning in Practice: Remington College

Remington College found success in student-led learning by deploying a constructivist pedagogy, letting students take the lead in experiential learning.

Instead of lecturing or assigning reading on the material, Remington College starts students in a virtual lab, letting them interact with the concepts first through immersive technology and trial-and-error.

“Even though students are exploring and constructing their end results, they’re still being guided by Interplay simulations,” explains Sergio Cazarez, Director of Faculty Development. “As soon as the instructors see the way we’ve engaged the students in their learning, how they really caught on and they’re scoring higher on their tests, they buy into it. This technology is working. This approach, the way that we instill this pedagogical style, is really working for us.”

Leading the Way with Pedagogy Plus Technology

Unique challenges call for unique solutions. Hands-on learning, multiple learning modes and student-led approaches give students the confidence and skills to succeed in the trades.

Tools like Interplay Learning take interactive learning to another level by supplementing your existing program with immersive and engaging experiences that bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application. By following best practices, you can turn your classrooms into a place of transformation and learning.

Enhance your curriculum with Interplay Learning’s simulation-based learning for the trades. Try it today!