For registered Seminar participants
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Thanks for signing up for the LCI Seminar. As your seminar coach, I’d like to welcome you to this opportunity for promoting bicycling by becoming a League of American Bicyclists Cycling Instructor (LCI). Below you will find some important information for helping you understand what is expected of you, and how you can be successful in the seminar.
Please note that participation in the seminar does not guarantee certification. The seminar requires a great deal of involvement, interaction, and thought from you. Although you wrote an open-book exam to prepare, you’ll be called upon many times over the weekend to draw upon that learning and put it into action. In the role of instructor, you will be delivering presentations, setting up and leading bike handling drills, and supervising others while they are riding the road ride. As well, each of these roles will be reversed, with others leading, and critiquing, you.
- Exams: By now you have sent in your exam answers. An 85% passing score is required. As you are now aiming to become an instructor, we urge you to aim for full marks on your pre-seminar exam. It’s imperative that an instructor knows—exceedingly well—the material being taught, and beyond that, how to communicate the nuances so that a student can apply it successfully after the instructor is gone.
- Bike Handling Skills: Since you were required to take a League Traffic Skills 101 class prior to enrolling you will have had practice with the hazard avoidance maneuvers:
- Quick Stop
- Rock Dodge
- Avoidance Weave
- Instant Turn
Unless you have practiced these maneuvers on your own you won’t be much better at it than you were when you took the course. Proficiency (defined as acceptable performance on three consecutive demonstrations) will be expected from you. Please practice the maneuvers in a safe area. Passing score on the parking lot and road-way portion of the seminar is 90%. However, failure to demonstrate proficiency on the hazard avoidance drills may reduce the level of your certification or require additional work.
- Assigned Presentations: At the seminar everyone will be expected to be in attendance at all times listed in the agenda. A sample agenda, which we will review and finalize at the start of the seminar, will be sent to you prior to the course. After your test is graded you will be assigned two presentation modules. Please reserve time to prepare your lesson plan before the seminar begins. At the seminar, you will have access to audio/video equipment up to a computer with Microsoft PowerPoint ®.
- Preparedness and Organization: You will be demonstrating your abilities to show others how to use the information contained in the LCI Instructor’s Manual. You will be evaluated on how well you understand and organize your ideas. You will demonstrate, illustrate and clarify effectively to others. I will be guiding you through the acquisition of some useful teaching techniques, modeling and using role-play so you will be better prepared to make your own presentation in front of the class. Generally, those who do well do so because they know the basic material well, their presentations are organized and effective, and they are able to competently perform the parking lot drills and traffic skills. Our job is to help you be the effective instructor you want to be.
- Certification: All candidates who successfully complete the seminar will be certified as LCI: Instructor-in-Training. At this level you will be required to team teach or mentor with other LCI to gain experience in teaching the various League curricula.
What happens to participants who do not meet the requirements to be certified as LCI Instructor-in-Training? We still want you to be successful. You will leave the seminar knowing the results and will have a signed letter defining what we have agreed you need to do to move forward. Depending on the circumstances there are various options that may be offered to you.
- Candidates may be certified as LCI Instructor-in-Training
- A candidate may be asked to complete remedial work or work with a mentor to bring their knowledge or presentation skills up to standards.
- Participants may be asked to attend another seminar with a different seminar leader, usually without charge.
Most candidates do a fine job and we are satisfied that your contributions to cycling and your participation in this training will help you to further bicycling in America. We want you to enjoy yourself, fully participate and leave the seminar with a greater understanding of what quality instruction looks like and how to carry it out.
Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Allan Dunlop, Director
The Center for Cycling Education