Once you become a certified instructor, you will help others who hope to become or to recertify as technicians. In order to keep your status as an instructor, you will need to teach CPS Certification and Renewal Testing Courses and review other technicians’ seat checks.
Teaching Courses
Instructors must provide a minimum of 20 hours of lecturing and hands-on in Certification Courses during the current two-year certification cycle. At least 10 of the 20 hours must be earned through lecturing or hands-on teaching of the full Certification Course. The other 10 may be earned from mentoring or teaching the Certification Renewal Testing Course. Hours are assigned to the first day of the course, regardless of when the course was finalized. This standardizes teaching hours allocation for recertification.
Teaching hours are based on the number of hours of lecture and participation in hands-on skills exercises and testing. Simply being present in the classroom does not qualify for teaching hours. Here are two examples of how to calculate teaching hours:
- An instructor participates in eight hours of hands-on work, but does not lecture. This qualifies as eight teaching hours.
- An instructor lectures for five hours and does 10 hours of hands-on work (includes 3 hours working with students at a check-up event). This earns 15 teaching hours.
Only time spent teaching Certification or Certification Renewal Testing Courses will count toward meeting the teaching requirement, so the teaching you did as an instructor candidate will not count towards your instructor recertification.
Certified instructors who are mentors will earn 8 hours for serving in that role and will earn 10 teaching hours for serving as Certification Course lead instructors. Mentors and lead instructors who do additional teaching or hands-on work will earn additional hours. Instructors are not responsible for entering their teaching hours online; the lead instructor will do this for you.
For more information about calculating teaching hours:
- Open and read a PDF of the How to Calculate Teaching Hours webinar or watch the webinar (.wmv, 29.36)
- Read How do I calculate teaching hours?
Reviewing Seat Checks
Certified instructors also observe and verify seat checks for technicians’ recertification. Encourage technicians to submit completed seat checks online as soon as possible. Safe Kids will send you an e-mail letting you know that you have seat checks to review. The e-mail is a courtesy and is not required for you to access pending seat checks in your online profile. Please be sure to designate “[email protected]” as an e-mail address that can go straight to your inbox.
To review seat checks submitted for verification, log into your CPS online profile and click on the “Review/Approve Seat Checks” action item. Please do this regularly to be sure there are no pending seat checks for you to review. If no action is taken, they remain pending (ungraded). Techs are encouraged to follow up with the instructors directly if they are approaching their recertification deadlines and need seat checks to be graded by a certain date.
If you (instructor or technician proxy) mark a seat check as failed, you have the option of adding a brief explanation that will appear in the e-mail. Remember, the technicians will see what you write. One example of a reason might be, "I don't recall this event, please contact met at xxx..."
Examples for conducting virtual seat check sign offs
- Rear-facing Mock Video: Short Version | Long Version
- Forward-facing Mock Video: Short Version | Long Version
Virtual Inspection with Instructor, Technician, Parent
Thank you for your time and commitment to being a certified instructor. If you have questions about your role, please refer to our Policy & Procedures Manual and review the FAQs on Course Administration