Instructors that teach CNC classes in a technical school
College deans and department chairs looking for ways to
improve manufacturing curriculum
Teachers that train personnel for a CNC using company
Human Resources people looking for ways to train CNC people
Managers/forepersons wanting to bring employees up to a higher level
Consultants that provide CNC training
As you know, we provide self-study materials (on-line classes, CD-rom
courses, and tutorial manuals) to help people learn how to program, setup, and
run CNC machine tools. Our teaching methods have been very effective. We have
helped thousands of people to master these complex machines since the company
was founded in 1989.
In 1992, while I was teaching CNC seminars for The Society of
Manufacturing Engineers, several technical school instructors
sat in, not just to learn the material, but to get ideas for
teaching CNC as well. They liked my methods, and many wanted to
use my Key Concepts approach to teach their own CNC classes. For
this reason, I began developing materials to help instructors
teach CNC. This web page describes them.
Here is a summary of the products and services that should be of
interest to CNC educators. This is followed by a more in-depth description of
how we help with the two most common training scenarios, live instructor-lead
instruction and self-study.
Reading materials related to CNC. Many make excellent textbooks for CNC
classes. Our manuals, when combined with the workbook/answer book combination
(when applicable),
also make very good self-study courses.
CNC Curriculums: If you will be teaching face-to-face CNC classes...
We offer a series of proven CNC
curriculums to help you teach face-to-face classes. In this scenario an
instructor will be lecturing in a classroom environment. Our
curriculums will minimize the amount of preparation an instructor must do in
order to get ready to teach - and they'll provide guidance to help the
instructor at every step. Instructor materials include lesson plans, slide
presentation, answer books, and a getting started manual. Student
materials include a manual and workbook. These curriculums will be especially helpful to
experienced instructors with limited CNC experience - and experienced CNC people
with limited teaching experience.
On-line CNC Content: If you want students studying at least
some of the material on their own...
Our on-line CNC
content precisely parallels the curriculums. But all student
materials are now available on-line (no need to buy the manual or workbook).
Indeed, you can still use our curriculums - delivering face-to-face lectures,
but have students view or review presentations, take tests, and do programming
activities on line.
Two approaches
If students have shop experience (possibly you have prerequisite classes for
basic machining practice topics like blueprint reading, shop math, tolerance
interpretation, machining operations, etc.), we recommend classes that stress
all three tasks a person must master.
If, on the other hand, students do not have shop experience,
we recommend a different approach. With this method, we
start with an introduction to basic machining practices.
To reinforce your existing classes: Many of the schools
using our CNC curriculums and on-line content are also incorporating our
CD-rom courses into their programs.
These self-paced courses nicely parallel the curriculums - giving students a
way to review material you've presented on their own. Or if a student misses
one of you're lectures, you can sit them down with the CD-rom course so they
can learn material they missed. There are even schools that use our CD-rom
courses to teach students from scratch when a CNC class is not offered on a
timely basis.
Do you already have CNC courses in place? If you do, we still
urge you to check out our CNC books page to
consider using one of our publications as your course textbook. Our most
popular manuals are:
We offer complimentary checking copies of manuals published by CNC Concepts,
Inc. to instructors working in technical schools. Please call us at
847-639-8847 to request your copy.
Why not teach a more advanced CNC class? Many schools have
classes for basic CNC machine tool utilization. But few go very far beyond the
basics. If you're finding it difficult to attract students to your basic
classes, consider teaching more advanced classes that will attract people that
are already in the industry, which in turn will expand your potential student
base. Advanced CNC curriculums we offer include:
Managers/formen wanting to bring employees to a higher level
Human Resources people looking for ways to train CNC people
Technical school instructors that provide open-in registration
For companies:
There are many companies that cannot justify hiring an instructor to teach
live CNC courses. Our CNC CD-rom
courses allow you to eliminate the need for an instructor. While we
recommend having someone to facilitate the course, and hopefully this person
will be capable of answering questions that come up, students using a CD-rom
course will be learning pretty much on their own.
Each CD-rom course includes at least six hours of presentation and is broken
in to several lessons (for example, there are 24 lessons in the machining
center course). After each lesson, students are asked to do an exercise. Some
of the exercises include programming activities. If you have a person
facilitating the course, this person will check answers using the answer book
we include with the course. If you don't have a facilitator, students will be
checking their own answers. As long as the student does well with an exercise,
they can go on to the next lesson. If they don't do well, they must review the
lesson material and redo the exercise.
We also offer a series of on-line CNC classes. These
classes are very affordable (starting at just $99.00), and many people that
take them are doing so on their own (not through a company or school). These
courses nicely parallel our CD-rom courses. The most important advantage of the
on-line classes is that students needing help will get it from the instructor
(Mike Lynch). Additionally, all exercises and assignments are graded by Mr.
Lynch. Upon successful completion of the class, a certificate is available (for
an additional processing charge). If you don't have a person in you company
that can help students when problems come up, we recommend having your
personnel take our on-line classes. If you do have such a person, the CD-rom
courses may make a more cost effective long-term alternative since the CD-rom
can be used over and over again.
Yet another alternative for providing your personnel with CNC training is
our series of programming and operation manuals.
When combined with the workbook/answer book combination, these manuals make
very good self-study courses - though they do require more effort from the
student. Students must read the materials as opposed to having material
presented to them.
Many technical schools are trending toward open-in registration. In
this environment, students will be - for the most part - learning on their own.
The instructor will be available for questions during regular meetings. Our
CNC CD-rom courses work very nicely in
this environment.
Again, each CD-rom course includes at least six hours of presentation and is
broken in to several lessons. After each lesson, students are asked to do an
exercise. Some of the exercises include programming activities. You'll be
checking the students' work using the answer book supplied with the course. As
long as the student does well with an exercise, let them go on to the next
lesson. If they don't do well, be sure to address their shortcomings. Let them
ask questions and/or have them review the lesson material. When they're ready,
have them redo the exercise.
Note that we also offer a series of video
courses (on vhs video tape). But these courses are not as cost
effective as the CD-rom courses or on-line courses.
For CNC schools: Post a free listing to let potential
students know about your school's CNC courses. For CNC-using
companies: Find schools in your area that have CNC-related courses.
For CNC schools: Help your graduating students find a job in
the CNC marketplace. For CNC-using companies: post a free listing
and locate people looking for jobs in your area.
A free newsletter in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format to help you teach CNC
courses. Though we no longer publish this newsletter, we have changed the
focus of The Optional Stop newsletter to include information for educators.
