CompTIA CTT+ TK0-201 – Virtual Classroom Performance Based Exam – TK0-203

1. Overview – TK0-203

So now that we’ve covered all the domains of understanding for the CTT Plus body of knowledge, it’s time to talk about how they apply to the performance based exam. In this case, the TKO 203, the Virtual Classroom Trainer Performance based Exam. Now, it’s important to remember that there’s a couple of things involved with submitting for this certification.

Number one, you’re going to actually include a video of UT teaching a class on a virtual platform. But you are also going to be submitting some forms. And one of the forms in particular, Form C, which we will discuss at length, actually has some questions that you will provide narrative long answers to that discuss how you’ve applied some of the bodies of knowledge towards the preparation and evaluation of the course that is seen in the video.

So there’s a couple of things involved here. CTT plus resources from CompTIA lead you through the process quite well. I’m going to direct you to where you can find those resources and make sure you have everything you need for submission. So we’ll start off with those CompTIA resources.

We’ll talk about how you can prepare yourself to be on camera. And then we’re going to go over all of the specific domains of understanding and how you can give evidence of those when you’re recording your video. How do you really weave all of those evaluation criteria into your performance to make sure that you check all the boxes and get high marks on every domain?

We’ll talk about some technical tips to make sure that your recording is quality. And then we will go over the forms that you’ll submit and improve particular that Form C. We’ll talk about how you can provide answers to those questions that give evidence that you know the domains of understanding. And then I’ll even show you where online you’re going to submit the recording and the forms just so that there’s no surprises there. So let’s dive into the TKO.

2. CompTIA Resources for Virtual Classroom Instruction Performance

So first of all, let’s look at the information that is provided by CompTIA itself, their official resources, and there’s two things we’re going to talk about in this video. Number one, it is the instructions on how to prepare for the video submitting. And then second, it is the forms that you are going to submit and both of these are provided@comptia. org. So again, here we are CompTIA. org hover over certifications and go to CTT Plus and you will arrive at the informational page that we’ve seen before. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see this section called CTD Plus Guidelines and Forms. And here is the two forms I just mentioned. CTT plus virtual trainer, how to prepare and CTT plus virtual trainer.

TKO 203 submission form. Let’s look at the first one. And this is a well developed document from CompTIA that gives you all the information that you’ll need to prepare for the video portion of this exam. There’s some information on the general information about the exam, how to plan and prepare, some of the technical information about your recording. All of this we’re going to discuss in the videos. But I do want to bring your attention now to the scoring guide. And on page nine, they give you an indication of how they’re going to score it, which is really important for you to know because that’s what you want to keep in mind when you’re actually performing the video. And they show you that they have a scoring scale of one through four. So what they’re going to do is take each of the domains, there’s five domains, divide them into the subdomains.

So overall there’s twelve total subdomains. And then they’re going to give you either a one, two, three or four on each of the subdomains, depending on how you perform. And then they go on to tell you exactly what they’re looking for in each subdomain. So it’s broken down very nicely for you. For example, let’s scoot down here to domain two, Methods and Media for Instructional Delivery. The first subdomain, subdomain two A, is the selection and implementation of instructional methods. And in order for you to get four points here, they show you the rubric. They tell you exactly what you need to do to get four points. So you can use this as a sort of compliance matrix to make sure that you’re touching on all the points you’re going to be graded on. It is important to remember that domain one and domain five.

Domain one is planning prior to the course and domain five is evaluating the course. These are two domains that you can’t show in real time during the video of you conducting your class, because they’re things that happened before and after the completion of a course. Those are going to be evaluated based on the long responses, the narrative written responses you give in form C. And we’ll talk about later about how to do that. There’s a video on Form C. But let me just show you how to find that one. That is Form C. So moving on from this how to prepare document, we’ll go back to the informational page, and here we have the CTT Plus Virtual Trainer TKO 203 submission form. Click on that and download it. When you open that document, you’ll see these forms here and there’s four forms form A, Form B, Form C, and Form D. Form A is just where you put in your information.

You have to include a photocopy of the score report from your computer base, TKO 201. And you also have to give some witness statements, people that can attest to the fact that that’s you in the video. So remember, you’re going to have to do some of that. And also Form B is the release form where everybody that’s in your video, all the students that you choose, give consent for you to video them and also to use their video for the purposes of this certification. Okay, then we move to Form C, which we’re going to speak at length. But this is where you give the long answers to some questions, particularly covering domains one and five.

How did you plan the course and how did you go about evaluating the course? And then in Form D, there’s some payment stuff that you have to take care of here and some submittal instructions. So those are the two forms that are provided to you from CompTIA on the website. Please make sure that you go there and review those before you get too far into the actual planning and recording process for your submission video.

3. Planning the Virtual Trainer Recording

As I mentioned in the previous video, you’re going to be scored on specific criteria for this training event. So it’s important that you plan for it and build all of the training criteria into this specific module that you’re going to be recording. Don’t think that because you have a lot of experience as a teacher or a technical trainer, you can just get in front of a camera and do what you normally do and be fine. This does have to be specifically designed for the purpose at hand. So how can we do that? To begin with, choose your content wisely. It needs to be clearly professional and sufficiently complex. This is a technical training certification, so your topic needs to be technical. That being said, I did recently see a video that passed the evaluation of a teacher teaching her audience how to choose the correct gene style for their body type. Not an overly technical topic, but it worked. So you don’t have to impress anybody with your technical skills, but make sure that you are able to give evidence of all of the evaluation criteria you’ll need to structure this module with a clear beginning, middle and end.

An interest arousing introduction, presenting new material, having your students practice with a group activity, reviewing and then closing the module as if it was a real world training event. Let’s talk about setting. We’re all familiar with doing web streaming and video conferencing from home, so this shouldn’t be a shock, but just make sure that you choose a quiet room, that it’s well lit, that anything showing behind you is neat and orderly, or use a green screen and you get to choose whatever virtual platform you want.

So it might be zoom or teams or Uber conference or any other software that you choose for this event. Just make sure that when you’re recording, you have everything visible in one screen. That means the trainer, yourself, the faces of all of your participants, and the training materials. And that’s usually easy to set up in one window so that you can see it all in one place. But you are going to need that for the evaluation. You need to have at least five people in your class and they all need to be visible and they all need to be engaged. So they all need to have actual interactions in the class.

So you can choose your friends or colleagues for this even CompTIA. org says you can do that. Just make sure there are people that have enough of a technical background to where they can comprehend the information and contribute significantly to the course. My suggestion is to lock them in for about an hour and a half. That allows you to maybe do a dry run of the 20 minutes recording and then hit the record button the second time. And then also recognize that your participants are going to have some questions about what’s required of them. So make sure you give them a heads up on what you need them to do to be involved. You might even give them some questions or comments ahead of time that they, you know, samples that they might use during the class. And make sure this is an authentic event. You know, your students should really be learning something new, not overly artificial or contrived. Of course this is staged to a certain extent, but it doesn’t want to look that way till the evaluators. And it needs to be about 72 to 22 minutes.

And I don’t mean about I mean it needs to be between 17 and 22 minutes. If it’s less than 17 minutes, it’s rejected, and if it’s over 22 minutes, the judging will stop after minute 22. So they’re not going to keep scoring after that. So with some preparation, that shouldn’t be a problem to keep it to the timing that you need it to be. Equipment. Use the best possible equipment you have at hand. There’s no need to be going out and buying a lot of high quality technology for this. This is not a test on your abilities as a videographer, but as a technical trainer.

So the webcam on your PC will work just fine. Remember, there’s no editing involved, so you are allowed one break if you need to stop the recording while everybody practices a skill or something. If that’s the case, make sure that you say out loud that you’re going to be pausing the recording so everybody can practice this new skill, cut the recording, and then when you bring back, you can say again, all right, everybody has now had a chance to practice that skill and you move on. But beyond that one allowable break, there should be no other editing. So no graphics, no transition effects, anything like that. It needs to be raw for the evaluators and take your time to develop your skills.

If you need to practice this at home a few times in front of a camera to make sure that you’re not doing anything distracting with your hands while you’re teaching and that you’re poised as an instructor, things like that, make sure that you build that up so you really feel confident before the day of presentation. Understand the CTT plus domains very clearly. Have an outline so that you’re, you know, you’ve touched on all of them, and we’ll talk more about how to weave them into your recording in the upcoming videos.

4. Preparing Yourself to Be on Camera

Let’s talk about how to prepare yourself for the recording. To begin with, create a lesson plan. You have 20 minutes and you have a lot to get in that time. So make sure that you’ve created for yourself a little outline, perhaps, with time markers. You don’t want to show yourself reading from your notes the whole way through, but you do want to have a little outline so that you can keep yourself on track and move yourself through the topics that you plan to discuss and the activities that you plan to facilitate in the time requirement that you have.

So make sure that that is written out ahead of time and maybe printed out so that you can have it easily accessible while you’re teaching. Prepare an introduction that interest arousing Introduction, where you tell an anecdote you might say something a little bit funny to break the ice. You might give a little background of yourself as an instructor. Prepare those opening words that interest arousing introduction is evaluated and it’s a great way to show that you’re clearly beginning the course. Create a checklist of required skills so as we move through these domains and I tell you about how you’re going to show them, you might turn it into some sort of checklist for yourself.

And then as you’re practicing, you can have a clear idea oh yeah, that’s right. I’ve included this, I’ve included that. This one’s missing. Let me figure out where I’m going to add it in. Show interactive Student Centered Learning remember, this isn’t all about you. One of the main principles of this course is that learning should always be student centered. That means that your participants need to have an active role in what’s going on.

Lots of questions, lots of group activities. Make sure that everybody’s face is shown in the recording for the entire thing and rehearse it. As I said, if you lock everybody up for an hour and a half, you have an opportunity to rehearse the whole thing first before you hit the record button. And of course, give attention to your poise and personal appearance. So dress as you would if you were in a physical training area. Be a little professional. Make sure that your setting is very professional and work and perhaps even practice on delivering with that sort of authoritative but friendly tone that we talked about in earlier videos. And if you do all these things, you’ll feel very much prepared when you’ve finally get to recording the video.

5. Evaluation Criteria: Domain 1

All right, so now we’re going to talk about how to apply each of the domains of understanding to the video submission itself. Now remember, each of these domains is divided into subdomains. And I’m going to show you how to give evidence that you know that in the video. So in domain one, planning prior to the course, a lot of this material is actually going to be in the long answers that you provide. On Form C, you’re going to give some comments about how you plan the course and how you assess the learner needs, et cetera. But there are some things that you can do while the camera is on to show that you understand these topics. So, one, a review of organizational needs and learner backgrounds in relationship to the course objectives. You can say a couple of things during the class, maybe in just one or two sentences that touches on the subdomain. For example, you might say, I know you’re all in the technology industry, so I know that you’re going to find this information really beneficial in your job roles. Or you could call it a specific learner.

Mr. Jones, I know that you perform in this role and I think you’re going to find this or that very beneficial to your job functions. Or make some comment about how you have tailored this particular program to the individuals in the class. Any brief comment like that will take care of this subdomain in one B, the instructional environment in relationship to learning objectives. Confirm the logistics of the class. Let them know when it’s going to start, when it’s going to break, when it’s going to conclude, how long it’s going to be. Just a couple of comments up front.

Confirm the student comfort, make sure everybody all set, everybody got what they need. You got your webcams on and everybody comfortable. You can explain how you have created the virtual classroom environment in a way that’s conducive to learning. So you might just call out some of the features. I’m going to be presenting this with my screen. I’m going to be here. This is how you can use the comments window if you like, et cetera. So just specifically call those out in a couple of sentences, don’t spend a lot of time on it, and you will have taken care of domain one.

6. Evaluation Criteria: Domain 2

Domain two is methods and media for instructional delivery. And in subdomain two, A Selection and Implementation of Instructional Methods, you need to show that you can move seamlessly from one instructional activity to the next. So, you know, maybe you’re lecturing for a few minutes and then you move seamlessly into question and answer or stimulating a group discussion.

And make sure that you have activities that are kind of designed for everybody, whether it’s the auditory learners by means of a lecture, the visual learners by means of a video or some activity where the students are involved, and you’ll use anecdotes stories, analogies and humor appropriately in two B. This is important, the way that you use the instructional media in the virtual classroom.

How comfortable are you with a virtual classroom? You need to make sure that you practice this ahead of time, that you can call up your materials very quickly. There’s no lag time when you’re showing a video or a slide that you can seamlessly work between you sharing your screen and a student sharing their screen if you choose to do it that way.

And also demonstrate and confirm understanding of classroom tools. So if you’re going to use the whiteboard, if you’re going to use the comments and questions pane, any of those tools that come standard on these video conference software, make sure that you have explained how to use it and also you’ve got some sort of confirmation from the students. So if you guys have questions, please feel free to drop it in the questions the comments pane.

Can everybody show me that they know how to do that? And you accept a comment from students 1234 and five hey, I’m here, I know how to use the comment section. So give some evidence about that and make sure that you know how to use these tools. If it’s going to be too complex, then you might want to make it a little easier on yourself. But by all means use your instructional media smoothly and don’t allow there to be any lag time while you are switching to slides or videos etc.

7. Evaluation Criteria: Domain 3

Domain three is all about how you present as an instructor, instructor and credibility and communication. The first subdomain three A is instructor delivery, competence and Content Expertise. And the main principle that’s called out in the instruction guidelines is that you offer unique responses to all the students in the classroom, particularly in the virtual classroom. So you have consistently positive interactions with all of the students and that you’re confident and poised. So if there’s any kind of issues with the software, again, with some of this technology, it can be a bit unpredictable, but you don’t let it frazzle you.

You just keep moving, address the issue and carry on. And that when people make comments or questions, you identify them as individuals and you give unique responses. So this is particularly important in a virtual classroom so that people know that they’re being identified.

So you might vary the way that you respond or the way that you clarify information based on the needs of the students and the specific comment from the specific student. So be sure to show evidence that you’re treating everybody as an individual. And then in three B, instructor communication and presentation skills. This has a lot to do with your clarity and pace.

And they mentioned this quite a bit, that there’s some modulation of your tone, you’re going up and down, and that you are not speaking too quick, and you’re also not speaking too slow, and that you’re natural. Even in front of the webcam, you still want to minimize any distracting behavior touching your hair or fiddling with a pen or something.

And you want to be coherent in your transitions when you move from activities. And if you’re bringing attention to resources or training materials, make sure that you give everybody a heads up of what you’re doing. Okay, now I’m going to share this video, or now I’m going to share this document, which you can find in your resources on page such and such. Be very clear about those transitions. And it’s also mentioned that you need to have the artful use of a pointer. So as we know, the pointer can be a helpful tool to bring attention to a topic.

The artful use of a pointer. One way that you can do this I’m not showing a good example, but you can increase the size of the pointer icon and have it not disappear when it hovers. You can even change it to the little pointer icon. So those are some creative ways that you can use the pointer to make sure that you’re bringing out the main points.

8. Evaluation Criteria: Domain 4

As you’ll recall, domain four is where over 40% of the evaluation criteria comes from on the exam group Facilitation. So make sure that you give some real focus to these slides and also to the preparation document the CompTIA gives to make sure you’re checking all the boxes. So in four A you will need to establish a learner centered environment.

So you need to clearly link the objectives to activities and content throughout the lesson. This means that you’re constantly reminding the students why it’s important that they’re learning what they’re learning, and also to be clear about what the objectives are. So at the beginning of the course, you give a preview as to what they’re going to learn and the behavior change that they will accomplish by the end of the course. And then continue to highlight these. So students know the main points and continually try to involve the learner. So don’t let any of the participants lag behind or start getting quiet throughout the whole course so that they’re not involved in the group activities. And you also want to direct attention with your words and with your pointer. So particularly in the virtual classroom, you can’t point with your hands or use descriptive gestures.

So you are going to have to talk through people as they access whatever you’re trying to bring their attention to. So take a look at the top right of the screen. That’s an example of how you use your voice to be the eyes of the participants and then also use your pointer skillfully we talked about that, how to change it so that it doesn’t disappear and increase the size. You can do that in the settings on your PC so that you really highlight visually what it is that you are bringing attention to.

Okay? And also in the way that you use activities, make sure that they are related to the focus of the learning objectives. So activities are great, but they do need to be used purposefully, particularly to highlight the learning objectives. All right, in four B you’re going to promote a learner promote learner engagement and participation. So make sure you’re using open ended questions. You don’t want questions that can be answered like a fill in the blank.

That’s just a one word answer. But require your students to give some explanation and then probe a little bit to really assess whether they’re learning. You can use that by means of follow up questions and repeating what the student said to you and then asking them another question to clarify. And also make sure again, that you involve all the learners. Everybody has participation and use whatever virtual tools are at your disposal to confirm understanding, particularly when you’re moving on to another topic. Can everybody see this? You can ask and then you can ask everyone to put a thumbs up in the chat window, for example, and then you can verbally confirm, all right, I’m seeing a thumbs up from everybody. So that’s a great way to make sure that you’re involving everybody.

Use their specific names, too. Usually in these virtual chats, everybody’s name is in the corner of their screen. So make sure that you address them by their names. And when they make a contribution, you’re showing your appreciation by means of their name. In four C, assessment of learners needs for additional explanation and encouragement. So you’re consistently monitoring the learner behavior to see if they’re understanding. So if they’re making a confused face or they look like they’re drifting off, you’re kind of watching, and then you’re calling on them, or you’re asking if anybody needs clarification or even checking in with individual learners, and then if they do need clarification, they don’t understand. You can quickly re explain something in a different way using different words that adds clarity to your initial explanation.

So this is just an interactive response throughout the course of the module. And if you’re using a chat window, and if you’ve explained to the students that if they have questions, they can drop them there, call it out specifically. Okay, mrs. Smith or Mary, I noticed that you left this question in the comments section, so let me go ahead and address that you asked this. So call out those tools, too, to show that you know how to manage the virtual environment well. All right. And finally, motivation and positive reinforcement of learners continue to connect what you’re teaching to the needs and goals of the learner. We talked quite a bit about learner motivation, whether it’s getting a new job, performing well, or using technology to make their lives a little easier.

Make sure that you remind them from here and there in your discussion of why it’s important that they pay attention and motivate the learners by commending them. And as I mentioned before, specifically using their name. So thank you, Jim, for making that comment, or thank you, John, for sharing your screen and showing us how you did that. This is great positive feedback. Just a simple great job. Thanks so much for bringing that up. Will give evidence that you’re creating a positive learning environment.