Training for Change Agents. A Guide to the Design of Training Programs in Education and Other Fields.

This work provides a framework for the design of programs to train change agents in the skills of helping and of resource utilization, and presents some alternative models of such training programs. The organization of the training guide is as follows: Part I is concerned with outlining the principal content areas that relate to the concept of change agent from a variety of perspectives; Part II and III provide some suggestions on how to select training goals and what principles to include in a good training design; Parts IV thru VI suggest how model training programs could be put together for various types of objectives-- Part IV provides a framework with eight design features that should be incorporated in any viable plan, and suggests how such an outline can be used to develop training programs to meet various objectives, Part V presents outlines of several potential programs generated by conference task force groups, and Part VI presents a training model worked out for a particular type of role in detail (change agents in state education agencies). The total volume contains a number of ideas, suggestions, frameworks, principles, and tactical detail as several levels of specificity applicable to a wide range of change agent skills and situations, and thus should be a useful aid and reference source to trainers and training program developers. (For related documents, see ED 056 256, 257, and 258). (Author/DB)