It’s a new year, and now is a time of goal-setting and resolutions. For all of you out there with the goal of certifying for L2 this year, I’d like to suggest an upcoming online course as an option to help get you there!
You may have seen me recently posting in Regional FaceBook groups soliciting for students and instructors for online judge classes. Well, it follows that maybe some of you have no idea what these actually are, and an explanation seems like it is in order.
These classes evolved from the judge classes found on the judge wiki, but were implemented in an online conference-style course rather than in-person classes to accommodate a geographic distribution of students. Aside from the geographic concern, it was also just much simpler to be able to run/attend these courses from home. While we started with the wiki classes as a rough guide, the new online class offerings changed significantly from there.
So, what is it we really do? Well the L0 to L1 course is a series of ten classes (run once a week) that covers the basic rules concepts found on the L1 exam, as well as MTR and JAR. The point of the course is to bring a fresh L0 judge from just being interested in judging all the way up to being ready to pass the exam in ten weeks. Every week, an instructor (in the case of this particular course, that’s Nicolette Apraez or myself) runs an hour-long seminar on the topic of that week using Team Viewer software (freeware used primarily for web conferences). Interaction is encouraged; in fact, it’s really vital for the success of the course experience. On top of the class itself, we also have a dedicated FaceBook group for the course that is limited to the instructors and students of that particular iteration. This allows us to have a dedicated space for discussion questions, follow-up quizzes, and general question-and-answer space for anything that comes up.
That’s all well and good, but you’ve seen the solicitations for students and instructors for an L1 to L2 course! Well, this course is run in nearly exactly the same way, but it obviously focuses on L1s who are interested in developing their skills to competitive REL events, and thus to certify for L2. We also have a few more instructors jump in to lead a class here and there to help get different perspectives and ensure lively discussion. This course–seeing as it covers a bit more material–lasts for fourteen weeks (again, one hour a week). We cover rules AND policy; hence, the extended timeline. While that may sound like a lot, the classes tend to go quickly, and hopefully, it doesn’t feel like too much (and if it does, we want to know that so we can better tailor the course!).
So, now you’re hopefully wondering, “How do I get involved?!?!” Previously these courses were restricted to judges in or very close to Georgia, as that’s where we could reasonably ensure the instructors could reach anyone who was ready to test at the course’s conclusion. This time out, for the start of the L1 to L2 course beginning in late January 2017, we are opening it up to anyone in the region. This may present some challenges, but we hope to address them as they pop up. So, all that being stated, here are the links that take you to the application forms to get involved as either a student or an instructor:
So go fill them out! We will be gearing up to get this L1 to L2 course started hopefully near the end of January, so we need a class to make it happen (and instructors with passion to teach them). If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I can be reached on FaceBook or email through JudgeApps easily. Here’s hoping for a fun and energized class for the start of this new year!
By:
Nik Zitomer