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Training &
Development
 The
employees of the National Park Service (NPS) care for
special places that are the cultural and natural
heritage of America. Their work requires a wide range of
knowledge, skills, and abilities in a variety of
disciplines. The National Park Service commits itself to
the professional growth and continuous learning of all
its employees, and provides them with a comprehensive,
competency-based, and mission-focused training and
development program. Training and Development activities
are designed to help employees fulfill the NPS mission
through education, performance improvement, and
knowledge management. Training is delivered in
traditional classrooms, self-paced computer programs,
classes delivered by satellite television, mentoring and
on-the-job experiences, or a blend of these activities.
Competency-based
Training
At the heart of its core
business, the NPS Training and Development Program is
dedicated to developing core curricula based on
competencies. The NPS defines a competency as “a
combination of knowledge, skills, and abilities in a
particular career field, which, when acquired, allows a
person to perform a task or function at a specifically
defined level of proficiency.” Competency based training
focuses on three key components of learning: What should
a learner be able to do at the end of a training
program? Under what conditions should the learner be
able to do it? And how well must it be done? The
strength of this approach is that it is outcome based
and learner driven.
Shared Competency
A shared competency
reflects the situation that knowledge, skills, and
abilities inherent to one discipline cross over into one
or more additional disciplines. Such is the case with
NPS archeologists and interpreters. The shared
competency does not replace the competencies for either
discipline; rather, it complements and expands basic
competencies for archeologists and interpreters.
The shared
competency is: Archeologists and interpreters work together
to provide effective and accurate interpretation of archeological
information and resources to the public. The NPS Archeology-Interpretation
Shared Competency Course of Study provides the framework
and direction for this interdisciplinary training. It can
be accessed at: http://www.nps.gov/idp/interp/440/module.htm.
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