New NRA Class

[RossA]

Has anyone else received an email from NRA about a new "blended" class for instructors?

[boomstick]

Yes, yes I have...

[dogflight]

I got it, too. From the email:

"The new blended NRA Basic Pistol course will be available to the public in the first quarter of 2016. This means a portion of the course is conducted online in an e-learning environment that can be completed on the students' own time."

"The lesson plan for the instructor-led portion of the course, or Phase II, has been placed on your NRAInstructors.org home page for all pistol instructors to download and/or print."

The download outlines the instructor-led portion. I have not yet gone through it in detail. As for the blended concept, I am hopeful that instructors will be allowed to take the "e-learning" portion ourselves so we can know, first hand, exactly what has been presented to the students before they come to class.

[RossA]

OK, now I am a little confused. Is this blended class for students who want to take the basic pistol course, or is it for NRA instructors to renew their instructor certifications with NRA?

[jmorris]

OK, now I am a little confused. Is this blended class for students who want to take the basic pistol course, or is it for NRA instructors to renew their instructor certifications with NRA?

It's for the students. The idea is that the student's can take the majority of classroom training online and all students receive the same training. In person they do, or review:
Firearm and Range Safety
Fundamentals
Loading, Cocking, De-Cocking, Unloading, and Pistol Maintenance
Shooting Positions and Shooting Qualification

If I had a range I could teach at I'm thinking two hours for this, three tops. Unfortunately I don't so it will probably two in the classroom, travel to the range, and about an hour for firing. My problem is that I pay the same for the room if it's two hours or eight and on top of that I can't charge what I did for the full basic pistol class. Basically I see my gross will be cut by at least 50% while my expenses remain the same. The price I can charge also depends on what the NRA charges for the in-line portion.

Oh, wait. A small reduction in expenses. The NRA will be providing the student package.

Edit: I'd missed the times given in the out line. So 3 for training, 2 for shooting. I wonder what class size they base that on?

[Scott B.]

In short, "blended learning" is where students sign up for NRA courses and do NRA led online classwork before they come to the certified instructors to finish, "Basic Pistol" and so on.

And so, welcome to the future of NRA Training. I'll give it a chance, but everything I read in researching the subject paints a rather dreary picture. This was apparently a top-down decision with little to no enthusiasm for it by NRA trainers, or at least the ones who are talking about it online.

The new outline, previously mentioned, is pretty good and should be very familiar from the old Basic Pistol instructors book. The new one is a five hour course if my math is right. Apparently, the online portion students will have completed before coming to you covers 3 hrs of the old 8 hour course.

It would make a lot of sense to the let instructors take the student online course so they know the content and what they're supposed to have learned. I don't imagine it will be much different presentationally from the online NRA RSO course. I took that simply to get that check mark...but have arranged to audit a real RSO class when one becomes available to me.

One issue I have with what they're doing is that they've eliminated the 3 hr FIRST Steps Pistol Orientation--you can't even buy that student packet any longer, the SKU has been eliminated from the storefront. Apparently, they intend to do that with Rifle and Shotgun as well.

I'm going to generate my own Pistol 101 class that will very closely follow what the old FIRST Steps class was because that's a pretty popular one for me.

I'm very curious to hear input from other instructors who offer NRA classes as this 'update' moves forward.