Train the trainer: course overview
This course is for people who will teach Exponential to others: professional trainers, team leads who onboard new editors, consultants who hand over sites to customers, and teachers who use Exponential in class. It teaches how to use the trainer material in this help, how to build a lab that works, how to design and deliver a course, and how to assess learners honestly.
Who it is for
- Trainers and teachers who will run any of the courses in the Course catalogue.
- Team leads and consultants who onboard editors or administrators.
- Anyone who adapts the courses for their own organization.
Outcome: after the course, a trainer can prepare, run and evaluate an Exponential course on a lab they built, with material that is accurate, accessible and correctly licensed.
Format and duration
| Duration | 34 lessons, about 21 hours of lessons (three to four days with breaks) |
| Format | Classroom or online; hands-on |
| Level | Beginner to intermediate |
| Prerequisites | Comfortable with a browser and a terminal; any Exponential experience helps but is not required |
| Lab | One training installation per learner (Module 2 builds it); PHP 8.0 or later (PHP 7.4 usable without support), Composer 2 and Git |
Modules
| Module | Lessons | Duration | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Preparing to teach Exponential | 5 | 2 h 35 min | Knows the material, the Help center, the learners, the license and the names |
| 2. Building the training lab | 8 | 5 h 15 min | Builds, serves, populates and resets training installations |
| 3. Designing a course | 6 | 4 h 5 min | Writes objectives, structures and times a course, writes exercises |
| 4. Delivering a course | 6 | 4 h 15 min | Runs the first hour, demos safely, troubleshoots, keeps it secure |
| 5. Accessibility and inclusion | 4 | 2 h 30 min | Makes materials and sessions accessible |
| 6. Assessment and follow-up | 5 | 2 h 40 min | Checks learning, assesses fairly, collects feedback, follows up |
Reading path
For a trainer preparing to give this course, in this order:
- Trainers: start here and the Course catalogue.
- The help system: the Help center you will teach from.
- Free documentation: what you may do with the material.
- The story of Exponential in two minutes and the Naming rules quick card.
- The installation book chapters 2, 3, 7, 8 and 12.
- Roles, policies and unactivated users.
- Live demo safety and Accessible slides and visuals.
- Modules 1 to 6 of this course, in order. Rehearse every exercise of Module 2 on your own machine before teaching it.
Suggested schedules
| Schedule | Plan |
|---|---|
| Four days | Day 1: Module 1 and lessons 2.1 to 2.4. Day 2: lessons 2.5 to 2.8 and Module 3. Day 3: Modules 4 and 5. Day 4 morning: Module 6, then each trainer runs a 20-minute practice lesson |
| Three days, intensive | Day 1: Modules 1 and 2. Day 2: Modules 3 and 4. Day 3: Modules 5 and 6 |
| Six half days | One module per half day, in order |
| Self-study | One module per week, with the exercises done on your own machine |
Assessing learners
Lesson 6.2 shows how to build an assessment; as a final task, each trainer prepares and runs one lesson from any course in the catalogue for the group, judged against a rubric of objectives, accuracy, timing, safety and accessibility. The assessments are the trainer's own material, not an official certification; what the partner program publishes about its certifications is on Certifications.
Related pages
- Trainers: start here
- Course catalogue
- Hands-on workshop outline
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.